Just Another Crummy Rocket Launch in Paradise
Roger Coppock
paradise. The San Diego morning weather was foggy, but it slowly
cleared, as predicted.
His most excellent Señor El Presidenté for Life had a cold and could
not attend. There's always something, you know.
Fortunately, DART number 2 took charge and strictly enforced the new
regime, keeping us on half-hour on and half-hour on schedule. John
also limited us to A and B impulse for the first half-hour to keep us
out of low hanging clouds. John did a good job, though he could work
on the introductory speech. (No one gives the introductory safety
speech at a rocket launch as well as El Presidenté. We should record
him the next time he gives it.) However, the DART organization
clearly demonstrated that it has depth in its leadership at this
launch.
A large crowd attended the launch. The flight line was two cars
deep. A traffic jam forced me to arrive late, so I parked on one end
of the line. There were so many cars, I didn't see Paul Snow test the
Delta staging on the other end of the line. I've been working with
Paul and other volunteers to get the Delta ready for Plaster Blaster.
After paying my respects to Amida Buddha Sunday morning, I plan to
join Paul and his team again.
I launched 5 different rockets 7 times. 5 flights were successful.
My big success was a Mylar™ streamer I found in a party store. Twelve
feet long and 4.5 inches wide, it's ideal to return sport rockets. It
flew 3 times on two different rockets. Even on a foggy day one could
read the slogan printed on it, "Welcome Home." How appropriate for a
returning rocket? Not bad for a for only a buck!
Loads of fun!
The latest addition to my rocket collection, a "School Rocket" from
Balsa Machining Service, had a strange failure. The ejection charge
blew the soft balsa nosecone apart. Has anyone else ever had this
failure? Did I have too tight a fit to the body tube? I don't think
so. It could be that I had a Kevlar™ string wedged between the body
tube and the nosecone. A Kevlar™ string broke, and pieces of the
nosecone returned on the "Welcome Home" streamer, leaving the School
Rocket to hit the sand hard. The rocket survived the hard landing
without a scratch, anyway. School rocket is a tough little design,
with through-the-wall fins, just like the high power rockets..
The other failure was a parachute deployment on my Astron Drifter
clone. I've got to watch for tangles in shroud lines when I pack
parachutes. Fortunately, I specified basswood for the wild, long and
thin fins of this classic Estes rocket. It survived the landing.
Like the School Rocket, it will fly again.
Lessons learned!
-.-. --.- Roger Coppock
http://www.plasterblaster.com/
http://www.balsamachining.com/