20130504 Launch

May 4 & 5, 2013 at SMASH & MMAR Muskegon, MI.

Mission “Get Level 2 Certified”

Saturday afternoon, Weather was hot 79 deg F and Sunny with a wind out of the ESE around 8mph gust up to 15mph.

My Dad and I both passed our level 2 test, off to flying BIG Rockets! My Dad decided to let me go first to see how the rocket would fly and drift to. I was ok with being his guinea-pig..

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Here is the “Big Luke” before going out to the pad, with a CTI Pro54 J280SS

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The long walk out to pad #9
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Working on an getting the e-match installed.

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Check out that CTI Pro54 J280 Smoky Sam take off !!

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Off to 1900 ft…

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Looks Good from here.

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off to go find the rocket..

IMG_20130504_191702_466So we have a little zipper on the aft section of the rocket. It went all the way down the to the centering ring. Either the delay charge wasn’t cut to 13 seconds like it should have or I needed a longer delay than what my open rocket file told me, and I am guess it’s due to my rocket weights being off.    This equals Level 2 Fail.  🙁     After watching me Fail, my Dad decided to wait till tomorrow, and we only had 30mins left of our FAA waiver.

 

Good thing we have a back up rocket. and a second day to shoot off rockets, and a second load 🙂
Sunday afternoon, lets get the red dual deploy rocket setup code name “Round 2”

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Here is H³RDD1.2 “Round 2” on the pad with a CTI Pro38 J380SK

So that J Skidmark pushed the red rocket up to 4021ft, which is my highest rocket so far. However the main chute came out at apogee, which means Level 2 Cert Fail AGAIN!!  🙁
And it drifted … and drifted.. and at 600ft I could see my main charge go off, so I know the electrics this time worked 🙂  and we found it in one of the north west fields!! rocket had a small zipper to it, but other than that, it’s good to go!. I thought about retrying again, However I didn’t have time to test ground charges, and I am going to use shear pins next time.

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All and all .. a GREAT Time failing..   After we left my mom and dad, they had fun shooting off a few G and a H.. all were good flights.