- Joined
- Oct 2, 2011
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So, I find myself humbled and embarrassed yet again, in this often, UNFORGIVING hobby.
I went for another flight of my SA-14 archer at LDRS41 on Sunday and needless to say it went badly.
I have to assume someone from this forum may have seen it… well at any rate, I will include the edited video for your review. I was hoping to get some feedback from people like you with more experience.
The rocket prep was pretty normal except for one thing…… This is the first time I had two of the grain cartridges fall out of the sleeve when the motor rolled off the table. The FWD grain was pretty obvious as it has the pellet in it to aid with ignition. An igniter won’t go through it so I knew that was the FWD Grain, Concave end with the pellet towards the Delay grain. The other one however was the same as the middle one and I assumed the two flat ends of the grain butt up to each other. So, I put it in the sleeve with the concave end facing the nozzle in the AFT closure. The delay was adjusted down to 7 seconds and the assembled motor loaded.
(By the way: I did get a very fast response back from CTI after I emailed them a few days ago, So I know now that the Concave ends all face FWD. And ONLY Classic Propellent have BOTH ends of the gain cartridges concave shaped. Also possibly the first igniter may have consumed the pellet...making the motor not ignite properly on attempt #2)
So back to the launch…… The first igniter burned out without motor ignition…. it’s never happened with any of my other CTI Motors, but, I didn’t think too much of it. Inserted a new Wildman Igniter and went for attempt #2. The LCO hit the button and it took about 2-3 seconds for it to smoke and then it sputtered on the pad for almost 13 seconds total, just throwing sparks. Finally, it built pressure and lifted off the pad. I have to assume it did not have normal thrust as it left the rail it arced backwards and headed over the parking lot and crowd (fortunately to the Right OUT of harms way.) the model impacted the ground a few hundred yards away and destroyed itself on impact. I KNOW the deployment charge fired... I think just fractions of seconds before impact.
I will tell you CTI seems to have good customer service !
So, did I have a bad motor or just **** luck?
I went for another flight of my SA-14 archer at LDRS41 on Sunday and needless to say it went badly.
I have to assume someone from this forum may have seen it… well at any rate, I will include the edited video for your review. I was hoping to get some feedback from people like you with more experience.
The rocket prep was pretty normal except for one thing…… This is the first time I had two of the grain cartridges fall out of the sleeve when the motor rolled off the table. The FWD grain was pretty obvious as it has the pellet in it to aid with ignition. An igniter won’t go through it so I knew that was the FWD Grain, Concave end with the pellet towards the Delay grain. The other one however was the same as the middle one and I assumed the two flat ends of the grain butt up to each other. So, I put it in the sleeve with the concave end facing the nozzle in the AFT closure. The delay was adjusted down to 7 seconds and the assembled motor loaded.
(By the way: I did get a very fast response back from CTI after I emailed them a few days ago, So I know now that the Concave ends all face FWD. And ONLY Classic Propellent have BOTH ends of the gain cartridges concave shaped. Also possibly the first igniter may have consumed the pellet...making the motor not ignite properly on attempt #2)
So back to the launch…… The first igniter burned out without motor ignition…. it’s never happened with any of my other CTI Motors, but, I didn’t think too much of it. Inserted a new Wildman Igniter and went for attempt #2. The LCO hit the button and it took about 2-3 seconds for it to smoke and then it sputtered on the pad for almost 13 seconds total, just throwing sparks. Finally, it built pressure and lifted off the pad. I have to assume it did not have normal thrust as it left the rail it arced backwards and headed over the parking lot and crowd (fortunately to the Right OUT of harms way.) the model impacted the ground a few hundred yards away and destroyed itself on impact. I KNOW the deployment charge fired... I think just fractions of seconds before impact.
I will tell you CTI seems to have good customer service !
So, did I have a bad motor or just **** luck?