NC Rocketry

Our second summer launch of 2019 in Butner was held on July 20, 2019, the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing!

Weather was normal for the summer, hot and humid, little wind.? Flyers heeded my request to arrive early and fly early. We started at the usual 10AM and were done by 1:30PM, avoiding the real heat of the afternoon.

Starting with the August launch the start time is being moved to 9AM. I would like to be done by 1PM. If the schedule works well, we will probably use 9Am-1PM next summer.

We had another collection of Cub Scouts this month that accounted for most of the A-B-C flights. Not quite as many total flights as last month, but very respectable 52 flights in 3.5 hours.

I rebuilt the failed launch control box, so we had both launch banks (9 pads) working this month. The bad power supply cord for the PA system was also replaced, so I think everyone could hear the launch announcements.

Here is the usual summary of flights by motor size:

For the moon landing anniversary we had three scale Saturn rockets fly. John Allman flew his Saturn 1B on a cluster of four C6-3s. He also flew a Saturn V on an E28 with three parachutes. Both were Estes 1:100 scale I believe. Mike Collier flew a smaller (about 1:200 scale) Saturn V on a C6-5. They all flew successfully!

John Allman’s Saturn V on the pad.

The Saturn under three chutes.

Photos by Matt Jackson.

Out of four 13-mm motors flown this month, three of them failed. Aylie Lewis had an A10 and A3 CATO. Alexandria Dick had an A10 fail. All from different packages.? We don’t usually see the smaller BP motors fail that often. I think all of the rockets survived,? probably due to the small amount of propellant in those motors.? As a reminder, if you save the motor casing and send Estes some pictures, they will usually replace the motors. You should also report motor failures at motorcato.org.

Lauren Dick (11 years old) flew some rockets for the first time, along with her sister Alexandria. Lauren is gung-ho and wants to certify Junior Level 1 this fall. She will probably have Pro Series rocket ready to go for the next launch. They flew four rockets on a variety of motors from A-C.

As usual, Eric Noguchi flew a canard boost glider named Kestrel on a B4-2 for a good flight. Unusually, no two stage flights this month, and only the one cluster flight (John Allman’s Saturn 1B).

Allen Harrell flew the largest motor of the day, a G57-5 in his rocket named William. It used a Jolly Logic Cute Release for a successful dual deployment. Mike Collier also used a dual deploy Chute Release in his Grave Danger with an F39-6.

The Jordan High School rocketry team came out to practice flying TARC rockets, getting ready for the 2020 season. They flew some older rockets named Dictator and Squeyed on F39s.

Many thanks to Dr. Joe Lobuglio from NCSSM for helping at the RSO desk, and everyone (including the NC S State students) with set-up and tear-down and launch pad management.

Our last Butner launch of this year will be on August 24th. Please join us at 9AM.

Dave Morey

dave@morey.com

Our first summer launch of 2019 in Butner was held on June 22, 2019. Weather was great. Partly cloudy, around 80 degrees, not too humid, little wind. We will probably be back to 95 degrees and high humidity for the rest of the launches this summer.

I think we may have broken a record for number of flights at a Butner launch with 71! Might even be a record for Bayboro. Alan Whitmore can verify. The large number of flights was due to a large group of Cub Scouts (Pack 582 from Whispering Pines).

I apologize for the equipment failures we had. I tested everything the day before, but we had problems with the Public Address system (a bad 12V power cord) and one of the launch pad control boxes (probably a bad solder joint on the single sided prototype circuit board). I’ll get the problem fixed by the next launch. Still, we had five pads working and my outdoor voice did not fail me.

Here is the usual summary of flights by motor size

The Cub Scouts flew a lot of A-C range rockets about the size of Alphas. There were only a couple of non-optimal flights. Construction quality was higher than usual for beginners!

We only had one cluster flight this month. John Allman flew a Semroc Defender on three A motors. All lit.

There were 2 two-stage flights. Eric Noguchi flew a Squirrelworks Spool staging a D12-0 to another D12-0. The bottom half of the spool fell off as the booster while the upper spool plate and? tube flew on the sustainer motor. The fast growing Alan Harrell flew the aging CowCow on a C6/B6 combination. His grandpa said they have about 20 flights on that rocket.

Six glider flights occurred. Joe Guarascio? flew a Shuttle Express on a B4-2. John Allman had two nicely finished Orbital Transports. One flew with a C6-3, the larger one with a D12-5 . Eric Noguchi flew his Kestrel Canard, Dragonfly Quad Wing and Sigma Canard.

Mark Hartmann and Joe Hill flew the two G motors, both with dual deploy. Mark flew his Public Missiles PitBull with a G77 and a chute-release. Joe used a G74 in his Short Stick. Unfortunately it ended up in the trees to the south. As did Jimmy Blackley’s Cherokee D with an F32 towards the end of the day.

Joe Guarascio flew a Saturn V on the recommended D12-3. I doubt it made it to 100 feet, but recovery was fine. It needs a bigger motor. He also had a Falcon 9 kit he flew twice on a D12 and an E9. He got lucky and the E9 did not CATO.

John Allman flew a nice Little Joe II with an F12 that ended up in the trees near the field entrance, but he was able to get it down with my carbon fiber pole after the launch.

Gage Angarrow gets Alan Whitmore’s best name rocket award with his Orange U Happy scratch built rocket that flew on a C6-5. Runner up would have to be Chloe-ann Detwiler’s Alpha named Poptart Turtle.

We found one lost rocket in the field. It looks like one of the Cub Scout rockets. E-mail me to make arrangements to pick it up if it is yours.

Many thanks to David Fitch and Joe Hill for helping at the RSO desk. Their help was invaluable during the rush of Cub Scouts. If we have another launch with a big crowd we will set up a couple of queues for RSO check and waiting for launch in order to organize the fliers, just like at big launches.

Be sure and join us for a launch on the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing on July 20, 2019.

Dave Morey

dave@morey.com