Here are additional photos that weren't available at the time of the original post.
Friday, October 3, 2014
Positive Ascent's 20th Flight, L3200 Vmax, Additional Photos
Original post HERE.
Here are additional photos that weren't available at the time of the original post.
Here are additional photos that weren't available at the time of the original post.
Wednesday, October 1, 2014
Competitor 4 Second Flight - L265 Mellow Yellow
After the beautiful weather on Saturday for Positive Ascent's final flight, I found it hard to pass up the opportunity to fly again on Sunday (9-28-14). I decided to fly the Competitor 4 for its second flight.
I chose a motor that is nearly brand new to the market. The CTI propellant for the motor is called Mellow Yellow, and it's basically a very slow burning, conventional Bates grain configuration. It has no visible flame and has dark smoke and long burn times. The L265 that I flew has about a 10 second burn.
Photos and videos follow, along with a story of the not-so-straightforward recovery for this flight.
The Recovery
One of the drawbacks with long burn motors is they tend to be weak on initial thrust. This was the case with this motor in the Competitor. It took off fast enough to be stable and safe, but it weathercocked into the wind just enough after clearing the rail to fly in a long, climbing arc towards the North, rather than straight up.
Well after the 10 second burn finally stopped, no one saw or heard any indication at all that anything was coming down under parachute. I started to worry until I turned on the tracking receiver, which seemed to indicate a strong signal on "medium" range. This meant it was still in the air and descending. Eventually, the signal got much weaker which meant the rocket had landed.
The tracker was pointing toward the North end of the field so I took a drive along one of the roads that goes up that way, frequently stopping to check the direction of the signal to see if I drove past the rocket. When I finally found where the signal was coming from (I had driven well over a mile North at this point), it didn't look good. There were dense areas of tall trees with occasional fields around in the area, but from every vantage point I could get along the road, the direction was towards the trees. Half of me wanted to see it hanging in a tree to say I found it, and the other half of me still had hope that it happened to land in an opening. I tend to be extremely lucky in terms of where my rockets land - I have yet to land a big rocket high in trees (knock on wood).
I knocked on two different houses, trying to get permission to go onto the property, but neither answered.
I decided to backtrack along the road, and found a farm road heading up the edge of the main field toward where I thought the rocket was. Again, I stopped frequently to confirm the direction of the signal. I got to a point along the farm "road" where I was no longer driving my poor car so I parked and walked toward the signal along the edge of the field. Eventually, I came to a spot where I had a strong signal dead ahead, even on the "close" range on the tracker. This meant I had to be within a few hundred feet of the rocket, which was the real confidence in the recovery I had up to this point.
However, at this point there was still more bad news than good. The only good news is that I thought I was pretty close to the rocket. The bad news is that the signal was pointing across a large irrigation ditch, towards dense corn, which appeared to end in a large clump of woods - the same woods I had seen from the road - and the trees weren't very far away. This meant I had found the right spot between the road I was on before (West Swamp Rd.) and the main field, but I was fairly certain it was going to end up being in the trees, and I was also fairly certain that the corn field wasn't one of the fields we have permission to be on.
At this point, I had already been driving and walking around for and hour and a half or so. I was exhausted, frustrated, and was losing hope of getting it back. I was already this far, so I decided to try to cross the ditch and enter the corn. The irrigation ditch turned out to be much steeper, deeper, and more covered in weeds than I could see. It looked dry in the bottom. It wasn't. I ended up taking a few long steps, sinking halfway up my shins in water and muck. Well I got to the other side, now with heavy, smelly, wet feet and made it to the corn. The signal was still very strong on the "close" setting, so I started to tell myself it could actually be in the corn after all. I made my way in 30 or 40 rows of corn, which was very slow going because it was across the rows and they were tightly spaced. Every single row I had to carefully bend stalks out of the way and squeeze through so as to not break any of it. After all, the corn is part of someone's livelihood.
Once I could see the tops of those menacing trees through the corn, I checked my signal again. It was weak. So weak that I turned the range to "medium" and it was still very weak. I this point I got a bit frustrated again because 10 or 15 minutes earlier the tracker basically told me I was on top of the rocket, and now the signal was so weak I couldn't even use it, despite going exactly where the tracker led me. I didn't know what to think of this or what I could do so I turned around, went back through the corn, back through the irrigation ditch, got even more soaked and gross by picking a worse spot to cross, and went back to the car.
I went back out to the road to the spot where I had confirmed the rocket was, which was at the first house I had knocked on earlier. When no one answered at the door for the second time I didn't know what I could do at this point and was planning to head back to the launch range. Just as I was walking back to my car, there was a couple in the yard. I approached them and asked if they knew about the rockets down on the field... etc. and the man says "are you Peter Allen?" I was immediately excited because I put a tag on my rockets now with my name and phone number. They had found my rocket! I was even more excited when they said that not only did they find both parts, they had it all right in their house! They were even kind enough to remove my camera so as to not damage it while carrying it through the corn.
It had turned out that they saw the nose cone (which separates at the main parachute deployment) laying in a very narrow field between the corn that I was in not a half hour earlier, and the dense woods I thought the rocket was in. The other section of the rocket landed in the edge of the corn, but had laid down in such a way they could see it from where the nose cone was. They were kind enough to collect it all carefully. The man even had called me, but there is no cell phone service there so I didn't get the voicemail until later.
So I now understood that they had must have picked up the rocket and carried it to their house at the exact time that I was closing in on it in the corn field, which cleanly explains why the tracking signal faded the way it did.
I expressed my gratitude towards them (a lot) and I think I may have even gotten them interested in checking out the next launch.
After all that, the performance was about 6250 feet and 450 mph. It should have gone close 8000 feet had it gone up, instead of sideways. As shown by the onboard video, the dual deployment worked perfectly and it was a perfect flight, other than the trajectory of course.
I put together a couple of maps showing the locations of interest in the recovery.
I chose a motor that is nearly brand new to the market. The CTI propellant for the motor is called Mellow Yellow, and it's basically a very slow burning, conventional Bates grain configuration. It has no visible flame and has dark smoke and long burn times. The L265 that I flew has about a 10 second burn.
Photos and videos follow, along with a story of the not-so-straightforward recovery for this flight.
The Stratologger altimeter data. The glitch in velocity at the drogue deployment is just that - a glitch. It is more than likely due to the fact that with redundant drogue charges, I set the Stratologger to deploy one second after apogee. As a result, the altimeter sense a sudden pressure increase (from the second charge going off, and the electronics bay is not completely sealed) which it interprets and a change in altitude and thus a rapid change in velocity.
All prepared and ready to go.
Close-up of the Mobius Action Cam HD. Duct tape is better but I was out so masking tape did the job.
Ready to go on the pad.
The Recovery
One of the drawbacks with long burn motors is they tend to be weak on initial thrust. This was the case with this motor in the Competitor. It took off fast enough to be stable and safe, but it weathercocked into the wind just enough after clearing the rail to fly in a long, climbing arc towards the North, rather than straight up.
Well after the 10 second burn finally stopped, no one saw or heard any indication at all that anything was coming down under parachute. I started to worry until I turned on the tracking receiver, which seemed to indicate a strong signal on "medium" range. This meant it was still in the air and descending. Eventually, the signal got much weaker which meant the rocket had landed.
The tracker was pointing toward the North end of the field so I took a drive along one of the roads that goes up that way, frequently stopping to check the direction of the signal to see if I drove past the rocket. When I finally found where the signal was coming from (I had driven well over a mile North at this point), it didn't look good. There were dense areas of tall trees with occasional fields around in the area, but from every vantage point I could get along the road, the direction was towards the trees. Half of me wanted to see it hanging in a tree to say I found it, and the other half of me still had hope that it happened to land in an opening. I tend to be extremely lucky in terms of where my rockets land - I have yet to land a big rocket high in trees (knock on wood).
I knocked on two different houses, trying to get permission to go onto the property, but neither answered.
I decided to backtrack along the road, and found a farm road heading up the edge of the main field toward where I thought the rocket was. Again, I stopped frequently to confirm the direction of the signal. I got to a point along the farm "road" where I was no longer driving my poor car so I parked and walked toward the signal along the edge of the field. Eventually, I came to a spot where I had a strong signal dead ahead, even on the "close" range on the tracker. This meant I had to be within a few hundred feet of the rocket, which was the real confidence in the recovery I had up to this point.
However, at this point there was still more bad news than good. The only good news is that I thought I was pretty close to the rocket. The bad news is that the signal was pointing across a large irrigation ditch, towards dense corn, which appeared to end in a large clump of woods - the same woods I had seen from the road - and the trees weren't very far away. This meant I had found the right spot between the road I was on before (West Swamp Rd.) and the main field, but I was fairly certain it was going to end up being in the trees, and I was also fairly certain that the corn field wasn't one of the fields we have permission to be on.
At this point, I had already been driving and walking around for and hour and a half or so. I was exhausted, frustrated, and was losing hope of getting it back. I was already this far, so I decided to try to cross the ditch and enter the corn. The irrigation ditch turned out to be much steeper, deeper, and more covered in weeds than I could see. It looked dry in the bottom. It wasn't. I ended up taking a few long steps, sinking halfway up my shins in water and muck. Well I got to the other side, now with heavy, smelly, wet feet and made it to the corn. The signal was still very strong on the "close" setting, so I started to tell myself it could actually be in the corn after all. I made my way in 30 or 40 rows of corn, which was very slow going because it was across the rows and they were tightly spaced. Every single row I had to carefully bend stalks out of the way and squeeze through so as to not break any of it. After all, the corn is part of someone's livelihood.
Once I could see the tops of those menacing trees through the corn, I checked my signal again. It was weak. So weak that I turned the range to "medium" and it was still very weak. I this point I got a bit frustrated again because 10 or 15 minutes earlier the tracker basically told me I was on top of the rocket, and now the signal was so weak I couldn't even use it, despite going exactly where the tracker led me. I didn't know what to think of this or what I could do so I turned around, went back through the corn, back through the irrigation ditch, got even more soaked and gross by picking a worse spot to cross, and went back to the car.
I went back out to the road to the spot where I had confirmed the rocket was, which was at the first house I had knocked on earlier. When no one answered at the door for the second time I didn't know what I could do at this point and was planning to head back to the launch range. Just as I was walking back to my car, there was a couple in the yard. I approached them and asked if they knew about the rockets down on the field... etc. and the man says "are you Peter Allen?" I was immediately excited because I put a tag on my rockets now with my name and phone number. They had found my rocket! I was even more excited when they said that not only did they find both parts, they had it all right in their house! They were even kind enough to remove my camera so as to not damage it while carrying it through the corn.
It had turned out that they saw the nose cone (which separates at the main parachute deployment) laying in a very narrow field between the corn that I was in not a half hour earlier, and the dense woods I thought the rocket was in. The other section of the rocket landed in the edge of the corn, but had laid down in such a way they could see it from where the nose cone was. They were kind enough to collect it all carefully. The man even had called me, but there is no cell phone service there so I didn't get the voicemail until later.
So I now understood that they had must have picked up the rocket and carried it to their house at the exact time that I was closing in on it in the corn field, which cleanly explains why the tracking signal faded the way it did.
I expressed my gratitude towards them (a lot) and I think I may have even gotten them interested in checking out the next launch.
After all that, the performance was about 6250 feet and 450 mph. It should have gone close 8000 feet had it gone up, instead of sideways. As shown by the onboard video, the dual deployment worked perfectly and it was a perfect flight, other than the trajectory of course.
I put together a couple of maps showing the locations of interest in the recovery.
This picture shows my starting point, and where I ended up driving on the road, and in the field.
A map showing the area where the rocket had landed, and how close I really was to it.
Positive Ascent's Final Flight - L3200 Vmax
Additional photos from the launch have been posted HERE.
This weekend was the September club launch with URRG in Potter NY. I had been planning to fly Positive Ascent at this launch for a while, but there was no way I could have known how perfect the weather was going to be. Winds were calm to about 5 mph, the temperature was comfortable at about 75, and the sky was clear and transparent all day.
I had the rocket all ready to go when I got to the launch, so I basically just enjoyed others' flights until everyone was there that wanted to see the flight.
It turned out to be an absolutely perfect 20th, and final flight. The L3200 ripped the 36 ish pound rocket off the pad hard with about 850 pounds of thrust. The flame was as long as the rocket and mach diamonds were clearly visible. The rocket accelerated to about 450 mph in one second, and coasted to about 4575 feet. Since the winds were so light, it came basically straight down and landed only a few hundred feet away.
It was definitely a spectacular way to end the rocket's long stretch of flying for over 4 years, and 20 flights. I'm glad that I get to keep the rocket that I did my level 3 certification flight on, knowing it had a 100% success rate.
I was told quite explicitly by a fellow URRG member that I am only allowed to retire a rocket if I build one to replace it. We will see how that shapes up in time I guess.
I took a ground video through my phone, as well as an onboard video. The photos and video links are below.
GROUND VIDEO
HD ONBOARD VIDEO
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This weekend was the September club launch with URRG in Potter NY. I had been planning to fly Positive Ascent at this launch for a while, but there was no way I could have known how perfect the weather was going to be. Winds were calm to about 5 mph, the temperature was comfortable at about 75, and the sky was clear and transparent all day.
I had the rocket all ready to go when I got to the launch, so I basically just enjoyed others' flights until everyone was there that wanted to see the flight.
It turned out to be an absolutely perfect 20th, and final flight. The L3200 ripped the 36 ish pound rocket off the pad hard with about 850 pounds of thrust. The flame was as long as the rocket and mach diamonds were clearly visible. The rocket accelerated to about 450 mph in one second, and coasted to about 4575 feet. Since the winds were so light, it came basically straight down and landed only a few hundred feet away.
It was definitely a spectacular way to end the rocket's long stretch of flying for over 4 years, and 20 flights. I'm glad that I get to keep the rocket that I did my level 3 certification flight on, knowing it had a 100% success rate.
I was told quite explicitly by a fellow URRG member that I am only allowed to retire a rocket if I build one to replace it. We will see how that shapes up in time I guess.
I took a ground video through my phone, as well as an onboard video. The photos and video links are below.
GROUND VIDEO
HD ONBOARD VIDEO
Perflectflight Stratologger Altimeter Data.
Monday, August 18, 2014
Positive Ascent's 19th Flight: K675 Skidmark
I flew Positive Ascent on 8-16-14 with the MARS rocket club in Geneseo, NY. This marked its 19th flight, which is nearly to the 20 flights goal I arbitrarily set for the rocket.
It was a perfect launch and recovery. At only 2085.5 feet (averaged between the two altimeters, which interestingly were only 1 foot apart on their recording), this was the lowest flight it's had. I chose this motor because the recovery in Geneseo can be particularly difficult. They tend to be very cautious on where you are allowed to point your rockets so flying high and landing a mile away is a bad idea in general there. The rocket did end up landing in the 10 foot tall corn, and I had set up the main to free-bag so the nose cone came down separately. Fortunately, I put a tracker on both sections of the rocket and both were relatively easily and quickly found. Thanks to those who did help recover the pieces!
The K675 provided an amazing launch. It was actually louder than a couple of White Thunder M's that flew that day. As an extra bonus, the dark and overcast conditions allowed the massive shower of sparks to appear even brighter and more dramatic.
I was able to get the whole flight on video through my phone. That video is found here:
Ground Video Whole Flight
One of the visitors to see my launch also got a nice ground video of the boost through apogee:
Ground Video 2
All of the picture credits go to the same visitor that took video #2 also. Thanks Bob!
I also attached my Mobius ActionCam HD to the forward tube, and that view is quite spectacular. I love how you can see the booster section and drogue harnessing get blown away at apogee. There is also a great shot of the north end of the field, which shows the muddy Genesee river snaking around.
Onboard Video
It was a perfect launch and recovery. At only 2085.5 feet (averaged between the two altimeters, which interestingly were only 1 foot apart on their recording), this was the lowest flight it's had. I chose this motor because the recovery in Geneseo can be particularly difficult. They tend to be very cautious on where you are allowed to point your rockets so flying high and landing a mile away is a bad idea in general there. The rocket did end up landing in the 10 foot tall corn, and I had set up the main to free-bag so the nose cone came down separately. Fortunately, I put a tracker on both sections of the rocket and both were relatively easily and quickly found. Thanks to those who did help recover the pieces!
The K675 provided an amazing launch. It was actually louder than a couple of White Thunder M's that flew that day. As an extra bonus, the dark and overcast conditions allowed the massive shower of sparks to appear even brighter and more dramatic.
I was able to get the whole flight on video through my phone. That video is found here:
Ground Video Whole Flight
One of the visitors to see my launch also got a nice ground video of the boost through apogee:
Ground Video 2
All of the picture credits go to the same visitor that took video #2 also. Thanks Bob!
I also attached my Mobius ActionCam HD to the forward tube, and that view is quite spectacular. I love how you can see the booster section and drogue harnessing get blown away at apogee. There is also a great shot of the north end of the field, which shows the muddy Genesee river snaking around.
Onboard Video
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