Positive Ascent at Muck Fest 2

Positive Ascent had its 6th flight yesterday. It was on the CTI L2375 White Thunder Motor. It blasted to about 1000 feet at 650 mph and then coasted all the way to 7633 feet. (The 2 altimeters only varied  by 2 feet). It was a perfect flight, arcing past the flight line and landing about a half mile south of us in the muck fields.

For this flight I taped a $1 video camera from ebay to the outside of the rocket looking down between the fins. The quality is surprisingly decent and it captured some pretty spectacular views on the way. Below are many screen shots from the flight. The gentle rotation of the rocket meant multiple views of the same objects on the way up, notably the woods in the middle of the fields and the flightline.

ONBOARD VIDEO LINK HERE: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPD3OFx-CKw

 Ready for Flight

 Ignition

 The orange thing is the leg of the launch trailer

 Cleared the Launch Tower

 Accelerating Hard (note the ladder on the ground)

 Motor Burnout (the spots are a few sparks)

Coasting Up (note how small the smoke trail looks)

 A View of the Flightline

 Still Climbing

 Another View of the Flightline (much smaller now)

 Arcing Over (tracking smoke is burning now)

 Still Arcing Over

 Approaching Apogee

Looking North at Canandaigua Lake

(As a reference, the far end of this lake is about 15 linear miles from the launch site)

Apogee

A Glimpse of the Drogue Recovery Harness

Descending Under Drogue

The Flightline

(The rocket arced south, over the flightline. Here, the rocket is about 7000 feet up and descending under drogue. The field directly below is the one it landed in.)