NC Rocketry

We got the 2017-2018 High-Power Season off to a great start in Bayboro this weekend, with a little bit of everything.? We had old friends show up, certification flights, lots of people pushing the envelope, and lots of successes.? The weather was great!!? Mild temperatures, clear skies, and moderate winds.? The only problems were the wind direction (towards the closest tree line) and the ground surface (freshly disced corn stubble, which tried to trip you up and turn your ankles at every step.).?? It was not just the old guys like myself who were having trouble with the terrain, I heard a number of the younger flyers complain about the footing.?? We need to keep in mind that September is one of those ?maybe/maybe not? months for our host.?? The corn has been mostly harvested, but the soybeans are still on the stalk.? A lot of foot traffic through the beans will just shake the pods off the stalk, resulting in loss of revenue.?? I know that there are many of you who have attempted to recover rockets in the middle of soybean fields, and you know that it is not any fun.

Photo by Dave Morey

Therefore, in September we set up where Clifton wants us to set up and modify our expectations accordingly.? We will probably be back at our usual launch site next month.? Even within these restrictions, a lot of people showed up and had a lot of fun.? I?ll stick in the World Famous Motor Use Summary Table here:

I shall browse through the flight cards and mention flyers and flights that caught my interest.? The order is generally ?small motor? to ?large motor? but not exactly.? Ed Withers brought a Semroc kit called the Batroc that I had not seen before.? It flew quite well on an A8.? Allen Harrell (ably assisted by his granddad Tommy and Aunt Natalie) had a few flights in the low-power range, also, with two C6-powered flights and Wigglewump on an F24.? Special thanks to Natalie for the cookies, this time both chocolate chip and oatmeal/date varieties.

The first flight of the 2017/2018 season was made by Dan Fritsch, who flew his Madcow Mini Cowabunga on a D12.?? This is an interesting coincidence, because in September of 2007, exactly 10 years ago, I made the first flight ever at the Bayboro field with my own Jaguar loaded with an Estes D12.? Somebody suggested that we should make this an annual ritual, for good luck.?? The first flight of each season at Bayboro should be made by somebody flying an Estes D12.?? Works for me.

We all need to say a big Thank You to Mike Collier, who took most of the launch pads back to his place of business over the summer and completely re-built most of our mid-power launch pads.? The old yellow tripod, which had corroded away to a loose set of steel tubes, was totally reconstructed, and both of the quad-pods were rebuilt in a more stable arrangement.?? Both of the quad-pods can handle 10-10 and 15-15 rails, as well as a variety of rods.?? Mike also welded the loose nut back on one of the legs of Kelly Mercer?s old Unistrut rail pad.?? If that weren?t enough, he also had 2 big decals of the club logo printed up and applied them to the club trailer.?? Have a look during the next launch.?? We all owe Mike a big debt of gratitude.?? Check out the pads and thank Mike yourself at a future launch.?? We also need to thank David Cox, who went through the beat-up high-power launch controller and the trolley on wheels that contains the launch relay circuits.?? David fixed all the broken buttons and switches, got the continuity check functions working again, and gave us 5 working channels to play with while Kurt Hesse gets the new system finished.

One of my greatest pleasures is seeing old friends from the Whitakers days come back and join us at Bayboro.? This month Thomas Cox returned to the hobby and had a successful L1 TRA re-certification flight using his Blue Phenix and flying on an Aerotech I357T.?? Flight and recovery were perfect, so, welcome back to High Power!? Thomas also had some problems with old Aerotech motors left over from the Whitakers days, some of which were very hard to light.? One particular motor never ignited the propellant, but the delay grain lit up and burned for more than 25 seconds, producing smoke out the back until the ejection charge finally fired, popping off the nose cone and parachute.

Mike Nay has been working on his cluster ignition project for a while, and on Saturday he finally got it to work.? His Triple Trouble #2 was loaded with a central E16 and two D12?s in detachable side pods, each of which were designed to come down under its own parachute.?? On Saturday, he finally got everything to work on time and in the way they were designed.?? The total installed impulse for this flight was in the F motor range, so? this flight is listed under the F motors in the motor use summary.

Photo By Jim Livingston

I haven?t awarded the ?best rocket name? award in a while, but this month it will have to go to Steve Polk?s Disturbing News, which resembled a CBU or some other piece of military airplane-dropped weaponry.?? This was flown on an Aerotech H180W for a successful flight.? Dave Morey had a great flight with his Loc IV, which used a central I245G and air-started 4 D5?s, mainly for a lot of smoke.? Everything worked exactly like Dave programmed it, and recovery was perfect.

Saturday?s biggest motor was flown by C. J. Lucas in his Eagle Claw 4.? The motor was a homemade 54mm J595, which he made himself, not just the propellant but he machined the casing and nozzle, also.?? The flight was perfect and recovery was exactly right.

Sunday was a little more windy, and the direction was still less than desirable.?? Robbie Kirk came back to fly some more rockets in the F through H range.? Henry and Sam Hartman joined us on Sunday and took advantage of the great weather to fly several rockets in the G to H range, to great success as I recall.??? Sam Delong made the trip from Wilmington to do some serious flying on Sunday.? I have cards in the box that record flights with a G64W, H54W, H180W, J244 and J290 motors.? Apparently Sam likes the white-smoke formulas!

The big deal on Sunday was the culmination of a lengthy, quixotic attempt by Joe Hill to airstart 2 outboard motors using the old-school method of igniting therma-lite segments with flash bulbs, while one end of the therma-lite is stuck up in the outboard motors.?? He tried and failed on Saturday, with a central Loki I210 and two outboard AT G53FJ motors.?? The I motor lit just fine and the flight was safe and recovered intact, but the outboard G?s did not light.?? On Sunday Joe tried again with a central Loki I377CT and the same two outboard G53?s.?? This time everything worked exactly as planned, and the flight was spectacular.? A perfect initial I377 burn, followed by a smoky G-motor boost.?? Like all successful airstarts, it was a treat to watch.

I have started keeping score on the Jolly Logic Chute Release product.? This month we had 10 Jolly Logic flights, 8 of which worked as planned, and 2 which did not open on schedule.? We shall pursue this matter and try to find out why the successful flights worked and the unsuccessful ones did not.? Every rocket flight is an experiment, and we can learn something if we gather the data and catalogue it.

Alan Whitmore

Prefect, Tripoli East NC

After a grueling June and July, we finally caught a break in the weather and had a (relatively) cool Saturday for our launch at Butner, the last Butner launch of 2017.? A light breeze and occasional cloud cover made for some very pleasant flying conditions.? I shall try to list every flight, alphabetically by flyer?s last name.

There were a whole family of Ambrose there, and they were certainly busy.? Owen Ambrose flew his Orange Arrow on a B4, the Solar Warrior on an A3, a rocket called Yankee on an A3, and a 2 stage Loadstar II on a B6-0 to a B6-4.? Jarrod Ambrose flew the Old School on a B6 and then Blue and Gold on an A3.?? Somewhere in there, Sadie Ambrose flew her Scout II on an A3.? The Ambroses have benefitted from the generosity of Matt Fletcher, who gave away a lot of his low power rockets before going off to college.

Jimmy Blackley flew his Aspire on a D12 and had a much more satisfying flight than with last month?s C11.? A whole bunch of kids showed up at about the same time and just filled up the sky.? Natalie, Nicole, and Nery Flores all had good flights on small rockets with the A8 motor, and Natalie learned something about stability and short rockets with the two flights of her Super Flyer.? The first was unstable, but resulted in no damage, and she was able to put some modeling clay in the nose cone to bring the center of gravity forward, and the second flight worked perfectly.? Armand LoBuglio also flew his Maverick in this group.? Nice flight and a good recovery.

Chuck Hall flew a beautifully-finished Little Joe II model on an Aerotech E28T reload, for a great flight.? Safe recovery far away from the asphalt.? Elio Lobuglio flew his Sky Writer and Big Bertha, both on B6?s, for two more fine flights.?? Dave Morey had two good flights; one with his Centaur two stage on a C6 staging to an A8, and the other using his Defender ground-starting 2 B6s and 1 C6.

Mike Nay flew his helicopter-style recovery rocket called Flip Flyer on a C6, and then his Blue Streak on an F15 which worked extremely well.? We were a little apprehensive about this one because the F15 does not exactly have a glowing reputation right now.? Mike also enjoyed a moment of triumph when he got all 3 E12 motors in his Triple Trouble project to light on the pad, and then realized that he may have put too much parachute on the rocket to bring it down from the maximum altitude of a perfect motor ignition sequence.?? Two of the 3 separate parts drifted off into the woods to the Southwest.? Extremely unfortunate, because there was a key-camera on the main section.? I have the other side-pod in my truck.

Alan Whitmore flew his Micro Stealth Blue on a B6-4 and the Mini Red Rudy on a C6-7.?? Ed Withers was active all day and made four flights; the Photon Probe on a B6, the Twister on a C6, his famous Caffeine Power on another C6, and topped the power chart with Der Red Max using the Aerotech G53FJ reload.

Thanks to everybody who came out to Butner to fly with us this summer, and a special thanks to the NCSU High Power Rocketry Club for helping watch the gate, collect signatures on the waiver forms, and assist with equipment set-up and tear-down.?? I hope to see most of you in Bayboro this Fall.

Alan Whitmore, Prefect, Tripoli East NC

You will recall that I complained last month about the lack of kids at the June launch.? This month was an entirely different story.? A cub-scout group from North Raleigh came by with a pile of rockets they had built, and kept us and their adult supervisors extremely busy.??? Here is the motor use summary:

The heat was a major factor.? Temperature in the upper 90?s and a heat index of 113 degrees.?? Even life-long Southerners like myself were wilting by mid-afternoon.?? Just watching the kids run across the field was exhausting.? I didn?t bring any rockets, but the heat was so oppressive that I probably wouldn?t have flown anything.

The cub scout group (pack? den? troop?? What is the proper collective noun for a group of cub scouts?) consisted of Aidan Quinn, Ben Teele, Reed Sexton, Conlan Lewis, Ethan Braun, Dempsey Lewis, and Brenner Lewis.? They were flying A?s, B?s and C?s non-stop from the moment the range opened until early afternoon.? I noticed a few broken fins and similar small problems, but everybody found their rockets and took them home.? I would call that a great success!

Emme and Joseph Moore were flying their matched Thingamajigs on motors in the A to C range also.? The kids are about the same size, and I wonder if they might be twins.

Ed Withers was flying rockets of all sizes, everything from his Viper on an A3-4T all the way up to the day?s heavyweight, the Red Max on a G76G.? The only flight that Ed attempted that was not perfect was a staging attempt with a venerable Centuri kit with no name.? The booster failed to light the sustainer, which came in ballistic on the asphalt.? Ouch.

Mike Nay is getting into clusters, air starts and staging, and so this weekend he got started with a rocket called Double Trouble which consisted of a main E12-4 and two D12-0?s in detachable side-pods that would come down under their own parachutes.? This one almost worked right ? only one of the side-pods lit up, and the rocket was not stable and did some sky-writing before crashing.? Only slight damage.

Jimmy Blackley brought out an elderly Apogee kit called the Esprite which flew fine on a C11-7.

Lorenzo Shaikewitz is participating in the TARC program this year with a team from Jordan High School in Durham.? He flew his team’s rocket, which has yet to acquire a name or a paint job, on an F39J-7.?? The flight was straight and stable, but significantly short of the contest goal.? More motor is needed for this particular application.

Everybody had a good time, and nobody needed first aid for heat stroke; a great summer launch.

Alan Whitmore

Prefect, Tripoli East NC