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Ah, OK. So the "extra" A10-0T is in the middle, separating the booster and sustainer. Just finishing mine up. I have about 18 of the bad H21 date code motors that I'd like to use up in some entertaining way.
Hans.
Not sure. I sent email, got a response and have since received the replacements from the “recall”.
Scott Hunzicker is actually here in Texas at the World Spacemodeling Championships as part of the Estes contingen right now. I suppose I can try to catch him and ask him about it some time this week.
Estes Sparkies
Tuesday in the park, I think it was the 4th of July.
We've launched at night several times before but never on Independence Day. The fireworks are a tenth of the craziness that occurs on New Years Eve. It's way too dangerous to be out then, especially in Waipahu. Recently, the trade winds and morning rains have been persistent. Fortunately, the winds went from 12mph down to 5mph toward the end of the day. You can see at the end how loud it was getting.We didn't lose any rockets this time. Gary's Orbit separated. We found it on our way out of the park but without the payload. He also got back the payload for the Firebolt, and I found the body within 20ft of the Green Eggs.
There was a beautiful sunset in the sky. Unfortunately, the side cam didn't capture the Birdie launch. The Twin Vikings and Xray were still gorgeous. The dual launch worked spectacularly. The payload may have landed on the gym roof after separation. The chute opened late with the Loadstar because I used a plastic chute in case it drifted away. One fin popped off and was easy to reattach.
0:00 Intro
0:24 Gary Scratch lighted Birdie, A10-PT
0:50 Twin Vikings 2x A8-3 4pts
1:39 Gary Estes XRay, 1/2A3-4T
2:32 Dual Space Crater B6-4 and Gary's Orbit, B6-4 5pts
3:31 Solar Flare A10-3T 4pts
4:36 Gary Quest Gamma Ray Payloader, B6-4
4:50 Garrett's Scrambler C11-3 5pts
5:50 Loadstar B6-4 4pts
7:35 Hyperbat A8-3 5pts
9:08 Gary Estes Firebolt, D12-5
10:21 Green Eggs C11-3 5pts
11:20 Total 32pts + 5 bonus = 37pts
Check out the live stream. It starts to clear up around 30 minutes.
https://www.youtube.com/live/DhSbt9aO2bs?feature=share
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Finished the Der Big Bandit along with Der Big Alpha. The kits are from Galactic Manufacturing, and I made the decals myself. The Alpha’s NC came from the dearly departed Big Daddy. It suffered an E12 Cato with minor damage. Still haven’t heard from Estes after a month.
Very nice, the Bandit is probably my favorite all-time 3FNC. That looks like a really good size.
I haven't decided if I want to make the white decals. Maybe after it survives it's first launch.
Three days of launching with field lights, Windward CC, and Blaisdell parks
Just another three day launch schedule. We're like SpaceX without the deluge system. After the success of the July 4th night launch, I realized that the winds are strong in the daytime from sunrise to sunset then taper off in the evening for the most part. A year ago, we launched at night with the field lights on, and it was just as bright as twilight.I went to the Waipahu District Park office on Tuesday to sign the waiver. The manager was only willing to turn the field lights on from 8 to 9pm because she didn't want anyone practicing without signing the waiver first. Her desk is literally a foot deep pile (not stack) of papers. If you ask her, she probably knows where everything's at based on the geological stratification of the pile. While there, she pulled out my Cobra rocket that landed on the gym roof on 3/22/22. It had probably been up there for about a year before they rescued it. No sign of the AC cam that was attached. I cut off the front tube and flew it at Windward CC the next day. Most of the missiles were damaged but flew okay.
I bought LED rings from Amazon and strong LED flashers that will burn your retinas for 5 minutes. I was able to take the LED out of the rubber ring and slide it into the Ghost Chaser's acrylic BT-20. At the park, there are a lot of kids who hang out until 10pm while it's cooler. It's common to see 5 year-olds walking around on Halloween until 10pm. Next time, I'll hand them all out to the kids because they're cheap.
For some reason, I had stuffed wadding and a small Kevlar blanket with the baffle in the Xarconian Cruiser. It's surprisingly survived except for about two inches I cut off the front. The Maxi Alpha 3 has not been my luckiest rocket. It survived a Cato and lawndart as a Big Daddy (despite mods). I reused the NC and BT into the MA3 which probably carried over the bad mojo with it.
On Saturday, we invited a friend and his family who also happened to be a State Senator to the Windward launch. I wanted to impress him so decided to sacrifice the MA3. There's nothing in it that's valuable and is now sitting on a tall building waiting for the college maintenance team to rescue it. For some reason, the roof tiles have spikes so difficult to remove with the pole. Dr. Hudson's safety briefing kinda scared them so had to coax the kids to the launch pad to launch the egg rocket. Ironically, they were safer at the pad when the rocket drifted toward the family. The eggstranaut was the only casualty.
At Blaisdell Park, it was surprisingly quiet with no church services blaring local music. My son wanted to cook hot dogs so brought the hibachi and charcoal with. It was an overall success. The winds were around 15mph. There were some casualties. Wayne bought an Astrocam. It appears the chute was packed too tightly and smacked into a branch causing the cam to fall off. When it hit the ground, the cam opened up and ejected the card. We were able to put it back together but couldn't find the card.
Joe launched Garret's Patriot for the second time, and it landed in the bay. A local went swimming for it. Joe ended up giving it to another local who was asking a lot of questions of which Christopher was happy to obliged. Overall, lost Space Hippy, a MHJ, half a Flutter-by, and the Patriot. A typical day at Blaisdell Park (except I didn't launch anything, just helped).
0:00 Mars Leaper A10-0T 3pts
0:35 Gary Planet Probe
1:01 Space Crater C6-5 4pts
2:26 Ghost Chaser B6-4 5pts
3:12 Gary rocket
3:33 Field lights on
3:45 Gary Quinstar
4:39 Scrambler D12-5 5pts
5:49 Gary rocket
6:09 Xarconian Cruiser C5-3 3pts
7:01 Maxi Alpha 3 F15-4 398ft 5pts
7:47 Flight video
10:11 Student rocket
10:27 Space Crater 4pts
11:21 Maxi Alpha 3 E35-5 3pts
12:38 Gary Mars Leaper
12:49 Helen Code Red
13:02 Student rocket E12
13:08 Vortico C11-3
13:28 Nicki rocket
13:56 Short Cobra B6-4 4pts
15:00 Christopher rocket
15:34 Gary Spool
15:45 Student Graduator E26-4
16:28 Garret Mean Machine D12-5
17:13 Eric Space Hippy
17:42 Wayne Astrocam
18:13 Eric Tazz B6-4
18:31 Group launch
18:51 Garret Mini Mean Machine
19:07 Wade's rocket
19:39 Group launch
20:27 Garret Patriot
20:45 Damon Flutter-by
21:24 Local swimming to retrieve Patriot
21:56 Garret Mean Machine D12-5
22:43 Total 36pts + 15 bonus = 51pts
Several classic rockets on a moderately windy summer Hawaiian day in the park
The weather was forecasted to be light winds until 9am which is what happened. I invited Gary but didn't advertise the launch since I wasn't sure what the winds would do. Overall, it was a successful day except losing two nose cones that separated and drifted out of the park. The C6-5 wasn't able to handle the cam and altimeter, but the C5-3 worked great. I didn't launch the Nike Smoke because I discovered it lacked a shock cord. Next time...Gary bought a box of Quest B4-4FJ which are working much better now that they fixed the nozzle issue last year. I finally got my replacement motors from Aerotech. Karl has been doing a lot traveling recently, especially with the championships. I finally was contacted by Estes about my warranty replacement request for the 6/15 Catos. They apologized because there's only two of them in customer service. Apparently, my request was put on hold because I emailed them several photos in a zip file, and they're not able to open the file. It's possible the file was corrupted (but not likely). I resent the photos individually so we'll see if they're able to receive the photos now.
0:00 Intro
1:09 Centuri C6-5 231ft 6pts
2:14 Flight video
3:37 Odd'l Up Cup, Quest C6-0
4:24 Exocet C5-3 324ft 6pts
5:24 Flight video
6:25 New Shepard C5-3 287ft 6pts
7:23 Flight video
8:21 MPC Star Trek USS Reliant, A8-3
9:21 Prepping rockets
10:22 John Darksoul B6-4 282ft 4pts
11:59 Athena B6-4 350ft 5pts
13:09 Lunar Scout A10-3T 3pts
14:01 Estes Sky Cruiser, Quest QJet B4-4FJ
15:24 Puck B6-4 3pts
16:30 Doomslayer Chainsaw B6-4 4pts
17:51 MPC X-2 Invader, Quest QJet B4-4FJ
19:41 Orange Scratcher, Quest QJet B4-4FJ
20:20 Total 37pts + 5 bonus = 42pts
I've had a few crazy/scary flights of my Centuri on C6s. C5-3 has always worked better. Just checked OpenRocket, it shows 33fps launch rod speed on the C6, which probably explains a lot.
Tomorrow it's going up on a Qjet C18. That's 62fps off the rail, which hopefully sends it straight. It'll be on a field with trees some 300' away in each direction.....
Hans.
Tomorrow it's going up on a Qjet C18. That's 62fps off the rail, which hopefully sends it straight. It'll be on a field with trees some 300' away in each direction.....
Hans.
My Centuri definitely looked a bit leisurely off the rod on a C6... probably will stick to C5 or Qjet C12 in the future.
Awesome, again!!
I just got some Q-C18s myself. They look like they put out a pretty quick burst over a longer burning C6-3. Should be interesting..
Thanks for the videos.
Very straight flight on the C18-4. Not terribly high - 375ft, but I didn't want to risk losing it. Ejection timing was spot on.
Hans.
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Very nice editing job, and enjoyed watching this. Christopher was certainly in top form! Please say Hi to him and Gary for me.
using the term Doomslayer Chainsaw was however a bit of unneeded clickbait!
Howzit Tom.
Please say hi to your lovely wife for me.
I'll be prepping some of your rockets for a launch two weekends from now, weather permitting.
Please say hi to your lovely wife for me.
I'll be prepping some of your rockets for a launch two weekends from now, weather permitting.
I'm definitely going to choose wisely what those C18s get put in...lol!
I'm not at any level some others are at. I'm just slowy catching up on a few missed out years. No over compensating, just overwhelmed with work to do. But, one step at a time.
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Do you have any Totally Tubular long BT-20s(I think 34” from Balsa Machining Service
| T20-34 | .736x.710x.013x34 Estes 18mm | $2.50 |
I have some me fin cans and nose cones I’d like you to try out. Shipping these parts is reasonable, but cost of shipping whole rocket is a bit much. Does BMS shipping to Hawaii run much?
A 34" tube would have shipping charges that would be prohibitive. I ordered a BT20 coupler that was 34" long from erockets a while back. They asked if they could cut the coupler in half because the shipping charge goes up dramatically if the parcel exceeds a certain length.
I tried ordering an unassembled launch controller from BMS about ten years ago. Shipping calculator showed a reasonable charge. Got a call back from a lady saying the shipping was actually $XX. More than the cost of the controller. Cxld the order and haven't been back since.
Erockets bought Totally Tubular some years ago. In general there isn't anything at BMS that I can't get at erockets and with lower shipping charges. Though I don't see 34" BT20 tubing listed anymore.
Feel free to ship your fin cans and nose cones to me. I can reimburse you for the shipping charges.
Was that HSR?
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No, that is Back Slide.
HSR, hasn’t been introduced to the Islands yet to my knowledge, but we are working on that.
I have literally high hopes that @Dotini ‘s retropuff technique may greatly improve the consistency of Back Sliders, which in my experience are far less inherently reliable than HSR.
In our experience, the retro puff technique at least doubles the reliability of achieving HSR with a side puffer, but potentially with the loss of a bit of hang time. But isn't the act of a backslider blowing off its nosecone tantamount to a retro puff? The delay time is a critical element of success, as is the CG.
Who knows what the correct term really is or will eventually be? We are all still inventing it. We see that the side puffer will either swiftly gyrate into HSR or, about 10% of the time, go nose first and burrow into the turf. In retro-puff mode, the model stalls at apogee with tail down, descends ominously tail down for a spell, then gradually and naturally slides into HSR. It never lawn darts - unless you've a much too short or long time delay. So this method gains reliability and durability for your model, but sacrifices ultimate "performance" in terms of descent time and rate of descent. I mean it's not much, but if you're counting every last second in competition, you might want to chance it with a conventional side puff from just below the nose cone. We are still going to quantify the difference in drag on boost and let you know the results. There is also a minor weight difference due to the balsa plug.
Sorry for straying off the thread topic.
Has this happened? I have been thinking that a "puff" wouldn't be necessary at all for HSR, BSR, or BFR (what I call "CP Shift") rocket designs.
But then, maybe my forward fins are preventing that.
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