Today we had a very impromptue LARF launch in the blistering heat.
The launch came about after Niall Oswald & Brian Best had mentioned wanting to launch sometime in July at the last UKRA launch.
Fantastic day 25 degrees little to no wind highlights in no particular order
Chris Eilbeck 2stage I-540 to J330 with onboard video truly awsome Brian Best Wiz ARD K1100 fantastic Grahams Hybrid Richards Hybrids Pete Davey's Tomahawk Matt Ohare finally gettig L1 Ady Waters 3 flights 3 class records
many other great flights.
Thanks to everyone who came down to join us and make it an excellent day
Some pictures here more to follow when people email me them
Yes, some of the best conditions I've seen at Pete's Farm / the Heckington site. To launch without the site being windy, and with only an occasional light breeze, and beautiful blue sky, was great! Proof that if the weather does not confound, the site is glorious!
Yes, Chris is a guru of onboard video on rockets, and succeeding in launching a 2-stage video flight which went supersonic was most excellent. The fact that there was little or no frame dropouts on the video was very impressive. Everyone loved the video footage. The speed it came off the pad was quite something. Faster than I expected, but then again, the Cesaroni I-540 is quite a punchy motor.
Seconded. A K1100 in a large rocket is just as impressive as in small diameter rockets. The slower ascent (comparatively though with a K1100) means more time to see that gorrgeous exhaust plume!
Looking at the name of the rocket, did Brian use an ARRD for recovery ? If he did, I wish I had taken a look.
Yes, nice finish on that rocket. The weight meant it was a more moderate ascent speed, so plenty of time to watch the long burn Hypertek K-240 hybrid in action.
Yes, I was out to prove how fast a turnaround time you can have with a hybrid, so the launches were on the Hypertek I-205 and I-222 (which allowed me to reuse the grain). Total time from launch of first rocket to touchdown of the second rocket was 2 hours, but an hour of that was time spent recovering the rocket after the first launch, and walking back to the UKRA HQ, and walking back up to the range head again :-)
So, I reckon on about an hour turnaround time including time spent opening up the payload bay, downloading the data from the RDAS and Perfectflite MiniAlt, then closing the payload bay and re-prepping. I think future improvements would include integrating a download port into the payload bay, so it doesn't need to be opened up, and that's about it.
Also, redundancy in avionics is your friend :-) 2 altimeters, 2 ejection charges each.... sort of ensures the recovery will be fairly reliable :-)
Yes, good to see "The Master" launching at an event. As usual, he didn't disappoint, the 2-stage recovery was flawless (he used an ALTACC and flashbulbs I think), and the rocket, being almost 10 years old, still looks in nigh on pristine condition. Amazing.
I missed that one. I was off prepping I think! Well done Matt!
3? Heck I only saw one of them. No wonder he has so many flights on the UKRA records tables. He really goes for it! Good stuff!
I noticed you modestly missed out your own flight amongst others ? More details please :-)
Yes, thank you very much to Pete Davy from Pete's Rockets for his hospitality, and to all the fliers, who made it a really great launch. A nice easy going, chilled (in style, not temperature!) day :-)
I flew my crayon on a H Classic (thanks for the case graham) was preet good but not to straight for some unknown reason, though it was a bit sticky on the rail.
Chris tracked it to the horse place over the site but we couldn't see it. We knocked on the door and the chap came out to talk to us (astro physisist by trade has a cverry cool observitor in the garden) the rocket was in one of his fields with pigs in so he got it back for me. The tube is a bit dirty as it the shock cord and it's lost a fin. - This pigs had started to eat it :-(
'Fraid I haven't. It'll be tomorrow evening, just haven't had a chance yet...
This working lark is a shock after 9 months of student life! Still, it pays the (rocketry) bills :)
I've got some OK photos, I'm not quite sure but the camera (being Powershot A20 no. 2) seems to have been taking fewer photos at~3fps before pegging out than before...
It was a great day, a really nice atmosphere and some good flights.
Chris 2-stage flight, Brian's K1100 and Graham's K240 flights really stick in my mind. From launch-controller distance, the HyperTek K240 really could be felt through the ground :)
Do you have, or can you get, higher resolution versions of those images? Mike's camera looked pretty swanky, the images in the gallery are quite small though.
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.