NC Rocketry

Weather Saturday:? warm, sunny, winds out of the southwest and ?brisk?.? Well, maybe a little more than brisk, maybe a little like ?fierce?.? Close the tops of your tool boxes or they will blow off the table kind of windy.? But this is Bayboro, right?? Wind is the sea we swim in.? How ?bout a motor use summary?

I am going to bring the certification flights and the ?preparation for certification? flights right up front, and then pick and choose among the other flights in increasing order of motor size and point out a few things that interested me.

CJ Lucas equipped his 4? Nike Smoke with a standard altimeter and two-stage recovery arrangement and powered it with the Aerotech J500G, and the flight was simply perfect, earning him the NAR level 2 certification.? ?Cade Brinkley has built an L3 project, which is almost finished (only needs a paint job) and he is one of the few people to take my advice about flying your L3 rocket on an L motor before you attempt the big deal, to see ?how the parts work?.? On Saturday, Cade flew his rocket on a 3-grain homemade L motor to about 1800 feet altitude, and we all got to see how the deployment charges worked and how the parachutes came out, and how the parts lined up under the main ?chute and a pile of other useful information.? The flight was perfect, and we all look forward to seeing Cade go for the L3.

Eddie Haith was back again working with a lot of motors in the lower range of the power spectrum.? Eddie was having some problems with Estes F15 motors that were delivering A LOT less power than advertized.? His 2-stage Estes Ascender just barely cleared the launch rod with the first stage, lay down flat on the dirt, and then fired up the second stage, creating the classic ?land shark?.

Dan Fritsch made two flights with his Starheel on the Aerotech H100W DMS motor.? One of them fired the ejection charge before the motor quit burning, and the other worked perfectly.? I wonder what the difference was.? Allan Rose has a new rocket called Big Cletus which he flew on an Aerotech I284W.? I wonder if Allan is a reader of James Lee Burke?

Our various academic teams had a fine weekend.? The Jordan High School TARC team had two flights of their rocket on the F39 motor, and got some valuable altitude/flight duration data.? Jordan H.S. also has a team entered in the Battle of the Rockets (BOTR) which will be fought at a site in Maryland this spring.? ??Their rocket, called Green, was flown on an Aerotech J500G, and the flight looked perfect to me.? NC State had 2 Senior Design teams in attendance, flying rockets designed to carry and deploy a ?cube-sat? package that was intended to deploy under its own parachute.? Both teams were using the AT L850W.? The first team to fly, Hall?s Heros, and the second team, 200 Proof, had flights that worked extremely well, with a few small problems.? The phrase is ?teachable moments?.

Jimmy Blackley showed up late in the day to fly a rocket on the sparky J396, on some freshly plowed bare earth.? Charles Long had the only two K motor flight on Saturday.? He flew his Mud Puppy on a Lokl K960 and followed that with a flight of the Fire Breathing Turtle on a CTI K360.

Kurt Hesse is getting into the homemade propellant thing and building up a big data base of performance figures for the blue-flame propellant called CP4 (4% aluminum, black copper oxide).? He flew the Shiny Diner on a 4-grain 38mm, and his Performer 98 on a 3-grain 76mm motor.? Jim Livingston had an exemplary flight on his venerable Viper on a 4-grain 115mm N2711 motor made from his white-smoke formula.

Sunday was a LOT less windy and the wind direction was a lot better than the forecast predicted, Sunday was an almost perfect rocket day.?? Just not very many people.?? I can list all the flights:? Charles Long made 2 flights, the first on his Delta IV using a CTI G131, and the second in his new rocket ? Bad Penny ? on a Loki G70.? Both flights worked very well I recall.? Gordon Cameron came down from Elizabeth City to fly his Star Orbiter twice, once on an E16 and then on an F16.? Gordon was using the Jolly Logic chute release device, and it failed to open up on the second flight, resulting in a slightly crumpled rocket.

Sunday was a day for very strange, unexpected recovery system failures.? Jim Livingston flew his 6? diameter Seahawk on a homemade K500 and although both 4 gram ejection charges fired, the shear pins did not shear.? Some fin damage.? Chuck Hall flew his 4? Patriot on a 38mm homemade I motor, using the rare Entacore altimeter that had been performing flawlessly for him for more than a year.? For some unknown reason, the altimeter failed to fire either charge, with predictable results.

Alan Whitmore flew his Red Rudy on a homemade 76mm M motor to about 7100 feet, to a safe recovery.? As a footnote, this was the 40^th flight for Red Rudy, and it has never flown on a commercially manufactured motor.

For those of you traveling to LDRS in Maryland this year, travel safe and have a good time!? I hope to see you all at Bayboro on the weekend of April 22-23 for the last launch of the High Power season.

Alan Whitmore

Prefect, Tripoli East NC

A weekend of really good weather in the North Carolina winter is guaranteed to bring out a lot of enthusiasts, and last weekend was a really good example.?? The eastern part of the state is experiencing an unusually warm winter, and this weekend felt like April!? Saturday was way too hot for anything but a T-shirt (but windy) and a cold front moved through overnight, but Sunday way very calm for Bayboro.? Clear blue skies both days ? the weather was perfect, and because of this, the attendance exceeded anything we have ever seen before at this field.? At one point on Saturday I counted 36 cars and trucks on site.? Another interesting facet of this weekend?s gathering was that is was almost exclusively a ?high-power? weekend.? A look at the motor use summary will show what I mean.

Any launch where the total number of J motors exceeds the total of all C, D, E, and F motors flown, is, by definition, a high-power launch.? I?ll run through the highlights of Saturday and then move on to Sunday.

Dan Fritsch brought out a new rocket, a 3? scratch-built device painted in the sky-blue and white of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (Dan?s home town), which he had named Starheel.? The undergraduates from NC State University in Raleigh were very impressed with the grace of the rocket and the beauty of the paint job, but tried very hard not to show it.

Allan Rose recovered from a nasty crash in December and recertified level 1 (TRA) with his I-Roc powered by an Aerotech I366R.? Greg Twiss also earned the NAR level 1 certification because his rocket that was flown in December and never found, was returned to the club in perfect shape in January.? We have some very good neighbors at the field in Pamlico County, if you get a chance to meet them, be sure to say thanks for helping us out with rocket recovery.

Matt Fletcher was also very intent on certification this weekend.? He passed the TRA written exam, and then flew a skinny? carbon fiber kit called Binary Sushi on a K700 for a successful cert flight.? The main parachute came out at apogee, and Matt had a very long walk to bring that one back, but it was in fine shape when it came home.

While we?re on the subject of certification flights, let?s introduce Saturday?s main event:? Joe Hill brought out a new rocket and successfully certified Level 3 with the TRA organization.? This was a big event for me (I?ve known Joe since he was about 8 or 9), it was a very big event for his Dad, Dennis Hill, and it was clearly a huge event for Joe, who almost needed auxilliary oxygen at several points during the day!!??? When the deal finally went down (recorded by a professional video photographer, no less),? Joe?s rocket, called Short Spoon, equipped with an Aerotech M1780NT, flew and recovered perfectly, and there was not a single person on the field who was surprised.

The NCSU high Power Rocketry Club finished up the construction of their full-scale model, called Vesuvius, and flew it on the Aerotech L2200G.? The engineering goal this year is to build a payload section that visually scans the ground and tracks the position of a contrasting patch of ground cover.? After a few little problems and false starts, they got the rocket launched perfectly.? The problems started on the way down, when an eye-bolt backed out and the fin section came down ?without benefit of parachute?.? This problem meant that some other portion of the structure was hanging from a parachute that was A LOT larger than it needed, especially in 20 MPH winds gusting up to about 30 MPH.? We watched helplessly as this parachute got blown all the way to the tree line 2.4 miles to the Northeast.? With the help of the farmer who works the section of land on that section of the field, all of that section came home safe and sound, but a little beat up.? The team will have time to get this little problem fixed and make a qualifying flight before we go to Huntsville.

As the sun was going down on a fantastic day of rocket flying, Charlie Ogino launched a small carbon fiber rocket from Carolina Composite Rocketry called MECO on a K935 motor (which I can?t find in my listings, so it may be an EX motor).?? This little bullet flew to the 13,000 to 14,000 range and was finally recovered ?way over yonder?.

Sunday

Sunday was a little chilly, if you had become accustomed to the Havana-style February we have been enjoying, but still about 30 degrees warmer than the usual February launch.? The important factor was that the wind had died down to almost nothing.? The big guns came out early.? Jim Livingston and Alan Whitmore both had 115mm homemade M motors ?in the box?, and got them on the pads before the local church services were finished.? Livingston?s rebuilt Viper flew to about 3600 feet and Whitmore?s Spork II made it up to about 9300 feet, and both were recovered perfectly.

Robbie Kirk was busy all day, flying a pile of rockets on motors in the E through H range.? Robbie was working a lot with the Jolly Logic parachute deployment device, learning the details of how It operates and impressing everybody with its simplicity and effectiveness.

Charlie Ogino attempted an airstart arrangement in his Little John, with a central K700 staging to 2 H123W?s.? The H?s did not light up, but everything deployed the chutes and came home safe.

CJ Lucas absolutely aced the difficult NAR level 2 written exam, and then had some trouble with the Jolly Logic device that prevented his full L2 certification.? CJ will be back in March to finish off that job.? Kurt Hesse flew his Performer 98 on a homemade 3 grain 76mm L motor that performed flawlessly.

Sunday is usually the day that your prefect can relax and prep rockets and just fly, after a busy Saturday, but this Sunday was a little bit different – I was busier than a conflict-of-interest investigator in the the Trump White House.? Ken Allen brought his trailer back to sell some motor supplies, and regulars like Mike Nay, Charles Long, Joe Hill, Chuck Hall, Eddie Haith were very active all day.

It was a great weekend, with lots of memorable flights and lots of time hanging out with good friends.? ??A weekend that will stick in my memory.

Post-script

The NC State High Power Rocketry Club returned to Bayboro for a special one-off launch on Sunday, March 19, and completed a successful qualifying flight.? Congratulations!!! ?And on to Huntsville.

Alan Whitmore

Prefect, Tripoli East NC

Every year we have an exhibit at Astronomy Days in late January to introduce people to the hobby of model rocketry. We get a lot of people asking about launches local to the Triangle.

We have scheduled launches in Butner, but only in the summer. To get people who are interested out to a launch as soon as possible, we have held a launch in Butner the week after Astronomy Days for the last few years.

Sometimes we get a nice warm weekend in February, but not so this year. Highs were in the low 40s. At least the winds were very light. We were set up and ready to fly at 10AM, but most people did not show up until noon or so.

We had a total of 30 flights, ranging from B to G motors. No high power H flights this time.

Chef Paul Schaefer brought his rocket grill and tried to keep us all warm with burgers and other food. He is still raising money for the launch of his half scale Nike Ajax (seen in the picture above).

Dan Fritz and Mike Nay kept people entertained with many G powered flights. A loud G75 Metalstorm in Mike’s G-force really woke up the crowd.

Dan and Mike had many flights using a Jolly Logic Chute Release to delay opening the main parachute until a low altitude. Normally these have been working fine, but I witnessed some failures to open the chutes at this launch. Hopefully they have figured out what the problem(s) were. If you are using a Chute Release you may want to consult them, as they seem to have the most experience with the device.

The two Jordan High School TARC teams were at the launch testing out their egg carrying rockets and a new 12 foot 1010 rail. Hopefully the longer rail will result in straighter flights and less variation from flight to flight. The TARC objective this year is to fly to exactly 775 feet and stay in the air for 41-43 seconds. Repeat performance is a key.?They has a total of 6 F39-7 powered flights.

Mike Nay tried a two stage Estes Ascender using two F15 motors. As expected, the low thrust F15 did not have enough power to get the rocket moving fast enough off the rod. It had a nice arcing ballistic flight and was recovered at the edge of the field?in good shape. Switching to a 1010 rail would be a good idea for the heavier Estes Pro Series rockets using the low thrust E and F motors.

Aaron and Paul Schaefer, as well as Aaron’s friend Travis, flew most of the C flights in a variety of small rockets.

Jackson Fuller, 5 years old, was a new flyer at our launches, I believe. He flew an Estes Flash on a C6-5. Young Mansour Mohamed was back for a single flight of a red/silver Estes rocket on a C6-5.

Jimmy Blackley entertained us with a had a single flight with a Big Daddy and an F26 black smoke motor.

We had a few cars of new spectators who saw us at Astronomy Days. Hopefully we will see them again with rockets in the summer.

For the summer Butner launches, we now have two 1010 rail launches, one with a 12 foot rail, and one with the standard 8 foot rail. We should be able to avoid launch rail congestion this year. We also have up to seven low power launch pads with 1/8″, 3/16″ and 1/4″ rods. We also have?a 6?foot 80/20 20mm mini rail. It?is a?good replacement for the low power rods, and I encourage people to use it.

I hope to see you all in Butner during the warm summer months.

Dave Morey