It was a very small, very light rocket with a transmitter and bird tape streamer.
Ron Zeppin donated the motor, and Andy Woerner loaned me the transmitter and ATV.
I think the igniter hung up for a sec because the rocket did a very serious wiggly-woop at about 15 feet then headed north at about a 45 deg elev trajectory. I found it about 3 miles away. I was able to watch the deployment and descent through binoculars thanks to the bird tape. I think it hit about 2 mile altitude but not sure. Jim's experimental altimeter in the nose got shook silly and we couldn't retrieve data.
It's a great little inexpensive rocket design for this kind of thing- I could send you the rocksim file.
Propulsion Polymers I80/Altacc 2B in an extended LOC Weasel. Did 7845ft, recovered using the last-minute Walston about two hours later. Set the CAR 'I' altitude record, which was then bested by Vince Chichak a couple of months later, with an altitude that was slightly higher than mine +/- error margins on the Altacc altimeter. I think Vince was using a CTI 'I', but I don't remember which one.
I've always used either metallic mylar for visibility on G motor mach busters and something like six of six in getting these back but not sure it'll hold up here. Dunno. I've some mica film that doesn't tear but not as visible as the metallic mylar. What's bird tape?
Andy Woerner is a class act. We were visiting a launch at the Hemit dry lake and sunk the rental car through the mud crust - buried both axles. Andy got us out. Rental car never quite drove right for the rest of the trip...
Hmmm... Will plan on a 30awg custom dip ignitor. Hard to light?
Wondering if there was some propellant shluffing (sp?) going on with the higher l/d...
I'd be interested, especially to see if there was possibly some dynamic instability.
I've been messing around with 'I' motors in RS (for no particular reason) and I found that the motor that turned up the best altitude was the RATTWorks I90 (the biiig one), since its 29mm and a reasonable I (over 500 Ns IIRC). This turned up over 10,500 feet. The current UKRA I record is about 8700 ft, so there is room for some improvement. A 29mm slow I sounds like a good motor for going a long way up, how about set up the minimum amount of rocket (in RockSim) and running the optimal mass calcs?
-- Niall Oswald ========= UKRA 1345 L0 EARS 1151 MARS
"Gravity assisted pieces of the rocket raining from the sky should be avoided. It is also financially undesirable."
Andy, I have flown the H268 to 9275 in a 29mm min dia rocket. The trick is making them strong enough for the flight but not to heavy. As far as getting them back..mylar works if you have the room or white "tracking chalk" works good too..watch where other people recover rockets from..if your rockets flies as straight as thiers did..you should find yours in the same general direction..but farther out..then they did..I have a Ratt works I90 I want to fly in this rocket.. I have been looking at the Ellis SU longish burn motors just have not had the time yet to try one.
Yes, I'd say it would be very interesting to watch. My flight was still burning when it disappeared from sight. I'm awfully glad about the Walston I put in it...
The "fiber glass pipe" is used at gas stations..They have been doing lots of new tank instalations around here..I get the short pieces..4' or less...I guess they can't use them. I've gotten it in 2.375, 3.5,
4.5" You do have to figure out something for nose cones becasue of the odd ball sizes. Tony
PolyTech Forum website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here.
All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.