Launch report - September 20, 2008
I was able to attend the DARS launch in Frisco, Texas, today.  The weather was perfect with almost no wind.  We had a great crowd, too.  If we keep getting turnouts like this, we'll need to set up for better crowd control.




First flight of the day was my FSI Eos clone on its maiden flight.  I have an original, but I want to preserve it, so I built this clone to be a regular flier.  Both the upper and lower sections are shorter than stock, so I call it an Eos-light.  It's less authentic, but easier to transport :)

Flight was great on a D12-5 with recovery on a 18" chute.


Next up was my Bidget, a 1.6x upscale Estes Midget, on a C11-0 to C11-7.  Great flight and recovery on a 14" chute.



Don from Squirrel Works was launching Dogfights.  I got lucky and caught a good pic of these two gliders circling each other.  That's a bit of wadding to the upper left.



This Midget variant was up next flying an an A10-0T staged to an A3-4T with streamer recovery.  Great flight. 

I was pleased to see the A3-4T make a good sustainer motor.  While the 4 second delay is a bit short, it was not so short as to cause any problems.



This is the maiden flight of the Super3, a rocket designed to fly using the common B6 and C6 booster motors in the first stage.  Usually, 3-stagers tend to be heavy and require a first stage motor with some extra kick such as a C11 or D12 or the long defunct B14.  The goal here was to avoid requiring 24mm C11 and D12 boosters and instead build a rocket light enough to get by with the common 18mm B6. 

Besides being lightly built, the Super3 was equipped with a 3/16" launch lug so it could be launched off a 4' rod thus giving it a bit more time to build up speed before clearing the rod.

It was a great flight on the B6-0 to A10-0T to A8-5 combo with recovery on a streamer. 

It appeared to leave the rod with good speed thus proving that it's possible to build a 3-stager using a B6 motor in the 1st stage, without need for a B14.

(If I'd remembered to change the shutter speed on my camera, the pic might have been a bit crisper.)


I haven't flown this rocket in years.  In fact, the last time it flew might have been when this pic was taken in 2002.
 
During construction, it ended up a bit tail heavy and thus required some noseweight to compensate, all of which ends up making it a bit slow off the rod, so it's the perfect candidate for the extra kick of the C5-0S booster motor.

It's a BT-55, 1.3x upscale of the Estes Midget, and uses gap staging.  In today's flight, the C5-0S staged perfectly to the A8-5 sustainer with recovery in a 12" parachute.  It appeared to be a textbook-perfect flight, but upon retrieving it, I found one fin on the upper stage broken.  There's no sign of in-flight damage from the nosecone, so it must have hit the ground at a freak angle.  It's a clean break so the fin can be glued back together with only a minor scar.  No great effort will be required. 

Out of eight flights today, seven were stagers including two 3-stagers, and this was the only casualty.  With all that, I feel fortunate to have only one nick.



My Tuber is starting to get a little tattered, and is getting due for replacement, but it's still got some life in it.  Today, with the calm winds, it was great on a D12-0 to D12-5.  Recovery was on a 94" mylar streamer.  I had a bit of a walk to fetch it, but it was easily retrieved.


I wasn't the only one flying stagers.  I saw several other fliers there with both 2- and 3-stagers.  One guy apparently got his motors mixed up in his beautifully finished 2-stager.  At first, as it arced over and headed in ballistic, I thought it was just a failure to light the sustainer, but then after several seconds, the sustainer lit ...just in time to prang at full thrust.

Of course, if I'd been thinking, I might have realized it sooner since the booster didn't separate when it burned out.

I truly feel bad for the guy, and hope he doesn't get discouraged.  He had a couple young boys with him, and at least one other stager, so hopefully he'll keep at it.

Anyway, other interesting flights included at least two Comanches, one of which flew on the full D-C-C stack and was fully recovered.  This one at right got at least the first and third stages back.  Not sure of the motor combo.



My 3-stage Farside-XX also had its maiden flight today.  The C11-0 booster gap staged perfectly to the B6-0 second stage followed by the A8-5 in the upper stage.  Recovery was on a 14" chute.


This rocket's history isn't good.  On its maiden flight at NARAM in 2002, the sustainer failed to light, and the result was ugly.  After many years in the repair queue, it finally had its second flight, upper stage only, and nearly zippered from the bonus delay of the composite reload.

Recalling its first flight, it crawled up the rod and lumbered into the air on the underpowered D12-0 booster, so I was inspired to build a new booster with more oomph.  So this time I added three outboard 18mm motor tubes  around the 24mm center motor.

Today was the maiden flight of that new configuration.  It had a C11-0 and three B6-0's in the booster with an E9-6 in the sustainer.  As with the original booster configuration, this one is vented and uses gap staging. 

The clustered booster was giving me fits trying to get all the ignitor leads in place along with a burn string.  I made a mistake during prep and had the ignitor leads interfering with the burn stick, so I had to remove the rocket from the pad and rework it, and ended up swapping out one of the ignitors.  Then my cheapo ohm-meter started misbehaving, so I couldn't get good readings on the four ignitors. 

Finally, I got it all back together, and had a good reading from the paralleled ignitors.  The burn string was aligned with the center motor and everything was set to go. 

Even then, with the rocket's seemingly jinxed history, I was pleasantly surprised when it leapt off the pad with authority. 

And even more pleased when the sustainer lit and put in a dandy flight.  Recovery was on a 21" chute.

This flight was intended to be the day's finale, and it didn't disappoint.

Can't wait to get back out and do it some more :)

Doug

September 20, 2008