model rocket launch site?

[spooq]

Hi,

does anyone know a good place to launch small (~400m altitude)
store-bought model rockets, in or as close to London as possible?

I'm going to talk to the UKRA and MARS people at the ME show in a
couple of weeks, so I'm sure they will have some suggestions too.

Thanks,
Luke

[Lester Hawksby]

I find it difficult to imagine such a place!

Lester

[spooq]

So do I, unfortunately...

I've already checked the by-laws of Hampstead Heath, and they ban
fireworks (and catapults, so that rules them out for the trebuchet as
well), so I don't think they would appreciate rockets either.

Luke

[Russ Garrett]

On 12 January 2011 13:07, spooq <spo...@gmail.com> wrote:

> does anyone know a good place to launch small (~400m altitude)
> store-bought model rockets, in or as close to London as possible?

Back when I was about 13 we launched rockets at this abandoned
airfield just south of the M25:

http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=51.306097,-0.459924&spn=0.009551,0.018711&t=h&z=16

The only other place I know of is EARS near Cambridge, but that's a
bit more of a trek:
http://www.ears.org.uk/

--
Russ Garrett
ru...@garrett.co.uk

[Toby Catlin]

Victoria park is pretty huge.

I used to fly my big ass kite on shooters hill, there is a lot of space and it;s a pretty apt name 

t

On 12 January 2011 13:15, Lester Hawksby <lester...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Adam Last]

Perhaps some bits of Richmond Park. The north end has fewer trees.

If there is no wind then the rockets have the potential to go up and
then come back down again.

But I imagine they ban any fireworks or such. So maybe you'd have to
go with Russ's airfield.

A

On 12 January 2011 13:15, Lester Hawksby <lester...@gmail.com> wrote:

[spooq]

Victoria Park seems to have been used before for model rockets, and it
is quite close to me. The airfield looks like it would be worth a trek
for larger rockets.

Luke

[Lester Hawksby]

Used before != allowed. In my misspent teens I launched toy rockets on
Hampstead Heath and no-one made a fuss, but I don't think that made it
a good idea! One, in fact, was never found... which I suppose makes me
guilty of littering too. I tried jolly hard though.

In these days of tiny accelerometers, gyros and GPS should we be
building a steerable parachute that aims for the launch pad?

Lester

[spooq]

well it would be fun to see how high it goes, if nothing else.

Luke

[Paddy Duncan]

Excellent, they'll be higher than the 747s coming in to Heathrow!!

[Adam Last]

Good point. Everybody please do not fire any model rockets from
Richmond Park as it might alarm the passengers.

[Sam Cook]

Hi,

Just asked the guy in my lab who's done this before and he said he used an area near Greenwich, that being said he says he didn't really check he could before hand so it may still be dodgy.

Sorry I couldn't be more help

S

[Kal]

Blackheath (just south of greenwich park) is big and open, people are
allowed to fly power kites there but I have no idea about rockets.
They do have a large fireworks display there every year.

Not sure if that helps at all.a

On Jan 12, 4:17 pm, Sam Cook <sc...@hep.ucl.ac.uk> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Just asked the guy in my lab who's done this before and he said he used an
> area near Greenwich, that being said he says he didn't really check he could
> before hand so it may still be dodgy.
>
> Sorry I couldn't be more help
>
> S
>

[Nigel Worsley]

> Good point. Everybody please do not fire any model rockets from
> Richmond Park as it might alarm the passengers.

They would have to be really small passengers to fit in a model rocket.

Nigle

[Chris 'Fish' Roberts]

Blackheath would be a good place (great for kites, at least) - massive
open space. However, the greenwich council's website doesn't seem to
say anything about model rockets or similar. Probably best to call up
and ask?

[Kieran]

On Wed, 12 Jan 2011 10:52:42 -0800 (PST), Chris 'Fish' Roberts wrote

Forgiveness > permission?

[Dirk-WIllem van Gulik]

If you want to play it a bit safer - the various shops usually have some sort of club scheme which gets you an 3rd party liability insurance for a 5-10 pounds per year (usually from the BMFA). Also - have a quick look at this table http://www.rocketstore.co.uk/info/launchsite.aspx - which gives you the size relative to engine and weight. I found those numbers not high when there is some wind and the rocket is well made.

Dw.

[Billy]

What about Chingford?

It's easy to get to from the space, direct train from Liverpool
Street, and it's already being used by two clubs,

http://enfieldmodelflyingclub.com/ and http://www.chingfordmfc.co.uk/

I asked the people i saw there with the planes and the copters for
their club details, for the hackspace quadcopter team.

They seem pretty friendly.

Also with the Chingford Plains being next to a golf course, the
trebuchet will be easier to test.


On Jan 12, 8:20 pm, Dirk-WIllem van Gulik <di...@webweaving.org>
wrote:

> On 12 Jan 2011, at 18:54, Kieran wrote:
>
> > On Wed, 12 Jan 2011 10:52:42 -0800 (PST), Chris 'Fish' Roberts wrote
> >> Blackheath would be a good place (great for kites, at least) -
> >> massive open space.  However, the greenwich council's website
> >> doesn't seem to say anything about model rockets or similar.
> >> Probably best to call up and ask?
>
> > Forgiveness > permission?
>

> If you want to play it a bit safer - the various shops usually have some sort of club scheme which gets you an 3rd party liability insurance for a 5-10 pounds per year (usually from the BMFA). Also - have a quick look at this tablehttp://www.rocketstore.co.uk/info/launchsite.aspx- which gives you the size relative to engine and weight. I found those numbers not high when there is some wind and the rocket is well made.
>
> Dw.

[Mark Steward]

As a rule, not when it comes to pissing off councils, residents and
the general public. You'll just make it harder for everyone who does
ask permission.

Mark

[Jim Hayes]

Does the hackspace have a quadcopter team?

[Sam Cook]

quadcopter + rocket what could go wrong?

S

[spooq]

I'm 90% sure there was a quadcopter when I first visited the space,
but I don't know who was working on it, or what has happened to it
since.

Luke

On 13 January 2011 10:55, Jim Hayes <haye...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Sam Cook]

the bits of it are still about as we moved it when we got unit 23, no idea who's it is though

[spooq]

Not a quad but still... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SR_5zchIlWk

[spooq]

a better use for rockets, IMO :)

http://www.youtube.com/user/Marzmany#p/a/u/1/JlZ0wo_pTxg

Luke

[Lester Hawksby]

Wow. Beautiful!

[spooq]

yeah, the guy did really well, 2 perfect launches. most of the other
people on youtube trying this clearly haven't thought about CG, wing
size, etc, and wreck the plane. too much lift is a common mistake.

[Daniel Sikar]

I have seen a couple of guys working on a quadcopter at the hackspace:
http://bit.ly/dGzfWR

> >> If you want to play it a bit safer - the various shops usually have some sort of club scheme which gets you an 3rd party liability insurance for a 5-10 pounds per year (usually from the BMFA). Also - have a quick look at this tablehttp://www.rocketstore.co.uk/info/launchsite.aspx-which gives you the size relative to engine and weight. I found those numbers not high when there is some wind and the rocket is well made.
>
> >> Dw.
>
>

[Ben Reyes]

I do not recommend Victoria Park, I've lost newly built rockets as a kid there you might have better luck with the wind but the trees there go quite high up so it's a lot harder to climb up and fetch them.

--
http://twitter.com/3en
http://benreyes.com

[Tamsin Bowles]

Blackheath may be technically in Lewisham. Certainly the firework
display used to be a Joint Lewisham and Greenwich production, but
this year it was just Lewisham I think.

T.

[spooq]

If anyone is interested in an update on this topic, I finally got to
fly my rocket on Saturday. I tried hard to find the disused airfield,
but after driving around in circles for ages, got pissed off and found
a marsh instead :P

http://youtu.be/HBCDj9tOdwo

We used 7 of the 9 engines we took, and on the 7th flight, the rocket
became lodged at the top of a tall tree. Sticks were thrown, but it
was too high. I guess this is the way most model rockets end their
lives. I'm going to get two replacements - a Magician, for carrying a
camera load, and a Comanche-3, for just going really really high.

Luke

[Adrian Godwin]

On Mon, Mar 21, 2011 at 2:17 PM, spooq <spo...@gmail.com> wrote:

We used 7 of the 9 engines we took, and on the 7th flight, the rocket
became lodged at the top of a tall tree. Sticks were thrown, but it
was too high. I guess this is the way most model rockets end their
lives.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kite-Eating_Tree

I guess it's a related species ?

-adrian