NC Rocketry

This weekend marked the end of the flying season at Bayboro, when the land becomes a working farm again, and we shift our operations to the Butner Beef Cattle Research Facility for the summer.? Because it was the last high-power launch until September, I was expecting a big crowd, and that is exactly what we got.? Motor use summary:

As usual, this is a tally of total number of flights; clusters and staged projects are listed as total installed impulse.? For example, Joe Hill brought out a new project, called FrankenRocket which had a central I161W and in the side-pods, 2 G53FJ motors lit ?old-school?, with flash bulbs and thermalite.? The plan was to light the I161 on the pad, and then after the thermalite burned up into the G?s, they would light in the air.? It actually occurred the other way around.? The total installed impulse on this combination is 510.3 N.s, so it is listed among the I?s.

I will attempt to mention every flyer and each flight, alphabetically by name or academic affiliation.? Brent Bierstedt flew his Intimidator 5 on a sparky L1040.? This month we had a complete field of bare earth, so the flight was made without drama.? Cade Brinkley flew his small diameter, still unnamed rocket on a CTI I800 Vmax motor, and it simply disappeared off of the pad in a flash of light and sound.? Mike Collier had 3 successful flights in the low-power range. Stratus 1 flew on a pair of C6?s, the Thunderstrike on a D12, and then Grave Danger on an F24.

Jeff Goldstein had a great flight of his Swamp Thang on a K900 made from his version of the ?Stinger? recipe.? Kurt Hesse also brought a homemade motor to fly in the Shiny Diner.? The 38mm I300 made with the CP4 formula worked extremely well.? In addition to the flight of FrankenRocket described above, Joe Hill also flew his Primus Frenzy on an Aerotech J570W which tore the case open at the forward bulkhead, messing up the back end of the rocket.

Thomas Keith was fairly busy with 3 flights on Saturday (because of the unusually high winds, every flight involved a long walk to recover the rockets).? Thomas flew his Formula 38 on a F31, his Optima kit on an H163 [to about 1900 feet], and his Tomach on an H123R to about 1546 feet.? Thomas must have socked away a good cache of Cesaroni motors, because that is basically all he flies, and he?s still got a pile of them.? Robbie Kirk had 2 flights:? The Tan Sam on F15 power with the Jolly Logic cute release device on board, and his Red Checkers on a G7.

C.J. Lucas had two successful flights; his Nike Smoke flew on a Loki I405, and his Eagle Claw 4 made a fine flight on a K850 Everclear motor that he made in my basement, both the casing, nozzle and forward bulkhead, but also the propellant. The records show 2 flights by Charlie Moss.? His Sahara flew on the F44, and his Leviathan flew on a G88.? Both successful, as I recall.? Anybody who could fly and recover?four rockets in that kind of wind must have been working their butt off, they were certainly getting their exercise.? Mike Nay was the only flyer to accomplish that on Saturday.? Mike made the F15 to F15 combination work in a 2-stage flight with his Ascender, tried a G80 single-use in his Sahara, and also took advantage of the bare dirt to fly a I280 Metalstorm in his Torrent.? Mike also brought out a fascinating motor that I had never seen before, the Aerotech I49N end burner which uses the amazing Warp-9 propellant and has a listed 7.7 second burn time.? The Torrent just crept off the pad and assumed a 45 degree flight path and then just burned until it was long out of site.

We have two NCSU Senior Design teams who have been working with us this year, and this weekend was ?final exams? time for both teams. ?This years mission was a ?cube-sat? project: 3 cubes about 6? on a side that contained various engineering projects.? They were designed to deploy separately at apogee.? This year the motor of choice was an Aerotech L1390G.? Team 2 brought a rocket called 200 Proof and Team 3?s rocket was called Hall?s Hiros.? One of the payloads got tangled with the main package shock cord and the other one fell free, but in both cases all parts were recovered undamaged, for a very good result.

Tyler Perkins was one of the group of flyers from Southeast Virginia who have coming to Bayboro lately, after the loss of their field in Fentress.? Tyler had 2 good flights ? the rocket called Allison flew on a G180 (which I cannot find listed among the certified motors, so I am probably not reading the letters right) and then aced the Tripoli L1 flight with an H195T in The Flash.? It certainly did.? Randy Regan is another SEVRA flyer who comes to East NC to fly and this month he was working with a GPS unit in his Pit Bull which flew on an H268R motor.? Allan Rose had a fine flight with his Minie-Mag on an AT H123W.? A pair of Ryans were on hand flying some small motors.? Makaylu flew her Alpha on a C6, and Steve made a flight of his Honest John with a D12.? Long walks for both, which may have shortened their day at the field a little.

Jim Scarpine was on-site this weekend and flew a rocket called OCF (Our Childrens Future) on a homemade N2961.? A shock cord snapped and a fin got broken, but all the parts came home and it is definitely fixable.? Fred Schaffer is another guy with a stash of CTI motors.? Fred flew his Punisher 3? on a 38mm J381, and then flew his Rogue with a 54mm K635.? Tanner Stroup passed the NAR L2 written exam and then flew his Fast Mess on a CTI K740, which uses the C-star propellant formula.? Everything was present and undamaged when he brought it back!

The last flight of the day, and the last alphabetically, was a project from group of engineering students from Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, who are working towards participation in this years IREC competition in New Mexico.? This was a 10 foot long, 6? diameter, 53 lb unpainted rocket that flew on an Aerotech M1850W.? Even though the flight card lists the recovery electronics as ?triple redundancy?, the rocket did not deploy a parachute and is probably in the woods near 306, south of Paul Farm Road.? One of our neighbors may bring us a report of that one, or you might see it if you are walking through the woods for some reason.

I?ll see some of you in Butner, and we will gather at Bayboro again in September.

Alan Whitmore

Prefect, Tripoli East NC

Postscript from May 6, 2017 ? Heartfelt thanks to Tommy Harrell, who helped me repair the club trailer, clean the launch rods and rails, and load up the equipment that needs fixing, during a session in Lionel?s back yard today.

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