May 30, 2004
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May 29, 2004
Check out the pictures and video of the Liberty Project.
And just how big is that rocket? Well, according to John Hamill, who supplied the chutes, the O.D. green drogues you see in the recovery photos are 32' in diameter, which is what Army paratroopers use. The main orange and white chute is 100' in diameter, and weighs over 100lbs itself! It's used by the military to recover target drones.
The actual airframe is around 600lbs and stands about 25' tall. It was the largest hobby rocket ever flown east of the Mississippi. Way to go guys!!!
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May 26, 2004
In the extended entry is a rundown on the whole event, and let me summarize by saying that this has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my life. more...
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In the extended entry is a rundown on the whole event, and let me summarize by saying that this has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my life. more...
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May 21, 2004
Fred Brennion and I were traveling back from the awesome flight to space of the CXST rocket. As we're heading back from Black Rock, being the yuppie that I am, I had the hankering for a raspberry mocha with soy milk, topped with whipped creme. Of course, heading back from Black Rock, once you're past Reno, you're traveling through the middle of nowhere. But, low and behold as we went through Bishop, CA, we found a great coffee shop, the Kava Coffeehouse.Well, Fred and I are in the Kava Coffeehouse, and as I order my raspberry mocha with soy milk and whipped creme, Fred takes note of a good looking young lady at the other end of the counter. I don't really notice her, being totally enamored with my lovely wife Brenda, but Fred moves on down the counter to introduce himself to her.
Well, Fred says "hi", and then says "I'll bet you'll never guess why I don't have my driver's license". The young lady looks at Fred like that's the lamest pick-up line she's ever heard, and she says "let me see, I bet you had a DUI". And then Fred says "No, I put my driver's license in a rocket that went into space, but they haven't found the rocket yet."
I wish I could have taken a picture of the young lady's face! It was a mix of incredulousness, but yet a strange realization that Fred's comment was so completely off the wall, it probably was true!
Yes, in a strong vote of confidence that they'd recover the rocket, Fred asked the CXST team to put his driver's license in the CXST rocket payload bay. Bruce Lee also put one of his credit cards. These guys were confident that the CXST team was going to get that rocket back!
I told the nice young lady that the CXST flight was already on MSNBC.com (the Kava Coffeehouse had a couple Internet terminals, we checked Internet news sites and found it), and that she could check it out herself. Another incredulous, stunned look. If she caught it on TV later, she probably turned to her friends and said, "you're not going to believe this, but I talked to these two geeks in the Kava Coffeehouse...", etc., etc..
Needless to say I drove the entire way home. Although if Fred was driving and we got pulled over, it would have been hilarious to watch him explain to the Highway Patrolman how he'd lost his driver's license. "You see officer, I flew my driver's license into space on a rocket, and they haven't found it yet".
Yea, right buddy!
I'm sure the CXST team will be mailing Fred his driver's license. Fred's already getting a new one, because his old one has been to space and needs to be framed, or something!
Kudos' to the CXST team! Great flight! Fred knew he'd get his driver's license back! And if you're going through Bishop, stop in at the Kava Coffeehouse for a great mocha.
Word is that there was quite a collection of keepsakes and momento's in the payload (also posted to Rec.Models.Rockets, from Pat G):
You left out the part that Bruce Lee threw his credit card in, and after the launch and recovery, he used it at Bruno's, still worked, btw, after being in to space.Plus Ky recovered an Aerotech 38mm motor case that went to space, plus a lot of other memorbilia, coins, letters, etc.
There was mention in the reports about plastic in the nosecone melting from the friction heat generated by going mach 5.5, so apparently this stuff wasn't that far forward. Still a neat story. Congrats guys, again!
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06:39 AM | category: Rocketry
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May 20, 2004
Who knows, you might see Mookie or yours truly.
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04:22 PM | category: Rocketry
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May 18, 2004
(in the extended entry) more...
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11:24 AM | category: Rocketry Resources
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May 14, 2004
Ye Olde Rocket Shoppe has details and pictures of the announcement advertising.
Looks like Estes is also coming out with a couple of rocket gliders, a new version of their camera rocket, and a rocket that takes in-flight digital movies.
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01:48 AM | category: Rocketry
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May 11, 2004
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May 10, 2004
"Rocket Boy" author Homer Hickam, U.S. Senator Mike Enzi, NASA Associate Administrators Craig Steidle and Adena Loston, Marshall Space Flight Center Director David King, NASA astronauts Jay Apt and Charlie Walker, among other dignitaries.
Mookie and I got to meet Homer Hickam, Senator Enzi, and Jay Apt last year. Good people.
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09:15 PM | category: Rocketry
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May 08, 2004
The hobby rocketry community is small and active, so I've talked to most of the rocketeers or shopped at the hobby shops mentioned in the article. This is the perfect example of Homeland Security acting in a way that will not actually make anyone safer, but they can point to it as an example of ways that they're working to protect us. Justifying their existance is what I call it.
For the most part, the article is fair and reasonably accurate. The main point missed though isn't the cost of the new permits, it's the unreasonable storage requirements which are damn near impossible to comply with. more...
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06:51 AM | category: Rocketry
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May 05, 2004
Here's a nice newspaper article from King County in Washington state, talking about an all-girl team that's going to the finals of the Team America Rocketry Challenge.
Those finals are being held on May 22, 2004 at Great Meadows, The Plains, Virginia. Open to the public.
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May 03, 2004
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May 02, 2004
Instead of my normal embedded pictures, these photos are clickable links to make it easier for those on dial-up. It's all in the extended entry.
Enjoy. Remember, you learn more from the failures than you do from the successes. more...
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May 01, 2004
The day started with high clouds but the sun burned through now and then. A cold front is moving into the area and intermittent rain has started, but the day was mostly dry. The winds were out of the south and stayed between 5-10 mph.
Culpeper is in the heart of Virginia’s horse country, and the area consists of gently rolling hills dotted with farms. Our route there takes us through the Chancellorsville Battlefield from the Civil War. On the way, Mookie spotted a deer back in the trees.
We got there early and prepped a couple of rockets. When the range opened we set up our FY2K with an F23 motor. We wound up making the first flight after the first rocket scheduled to launch burnt it’s igniter without lighting the motor. The FY2K is a smallish rocket, and leapt off the pad with a roar and trailing thick black smoke. The chute ejected right at the top and she landed softly within 100 yards of the pad.
Next up for us was the Super Ninja. The Super Ninja has made many flights for us, and today we were going to fly her on an E18, the biggest motor she’s ever used, and it simmed out to over 2000 feet altitude. I have no idea how high she actually went, and nobody else did either, because everyone lost sight of it while she was still screaming upward. While I was looking up, trying to see some glint in the sunlight, a friend told me that the rocket was probably already on the ground. Couldn’t prove it by me.
Mookie and I went searching in the direction she probably would’ve drifted, but after a good long walk we had no luck finding her. The worst part about it was losing a reloadable motor casing, which costs $40.00 to replace.
We spent some time visiting with friends and watching other rockets launch. After a while I prepped the Air Munuviana for a flight on a hybrid I-80. With the help of Doug Pratt we got her ready on the pad while I sent Mookie and Brian Pratt downwind several hundred yards to watch for where she landed.
The liftoff was perfect, and the I-80 really moved her along. I lost sight of the Air Mu in the sun, but others watching said the chute never came out and she came in ballistic. I heard the impact when she hit the ground, in the opposite direction where Mookie and Brian were stationed. As a friend and I started the walk to find it, someone said they had a line on it which was nice because it gave me a couple of reference points to use to tell me about where it came down.
We walked about a quarter mile to the first treeline, crossing an electric fence along the way, and there I continued on alone since I had to wade a stream to get to the meadow beyond. The meadow was pretty boggy in spots, and I covered it pretty good all the way back to another treeline. The second treeline was the start of a mature pine wood, planted at some point because many of the trees were in straight rows. It was also demarked with a barbed wire fence.
About this time, Mookie and Brian showed up. We found a spot to get through the barb wire, and made a circle through the wood beyond. It was a pretty good hike, but we had to be careful to pick our way around patches of poison ivy. No luck finding the rocket.
We’d been looking for more than an hour, so we headed back. The guy who saw the Air Munuviana come down couldn’t tell how far away it was, so just to be thorough I decided to check the near meadow after we waded the stream again. Brian and Mookie headed towards the truck while I walked the stream.
Out of the corner of my eye, I caught the purple of the anodized aluminum motor casing. Calling back to the kids to let them know I’d found our rocket, I took a closer look.
Usually in these lawn darts, the motor is the only thing that survives. Not this time, because I could see a dent in the casing. It was standing straight up in the mud on the bank of the stream. Pieces of the airframe were scattered around, lying in the water. I laughed when I saw a blinking light underwater, as either the altimeter or sonic beacon was still functioning and the LED was flashing.
When the kids got there, we climbed down into the creek and started locating the debris. The motor casing was dented, making it unusable. The altimeter was wet, and a closer look showed it to be trashed from the impact. The parachute was intact. We figured the nosecone had floated downstream and was lost.
I wanted to get a look at the other bank to see what might be over there. Climbing that side, I came across the nosecone. It had been flattened – the long way – by an impact in the tree above. Sure enough, Mookie spotted a branch about 30 feet up with a big bare spot where the Air Mu spacked at speed. We also found the motor mount, with the bottom 8†of the motor tube. How hard do you think it had to have hit that tree to snap an aluminum tube cleanly?
We also found a whole fin and most of another, as well as a few small shreds of delaminated plywood.
Now this flight cost almost $200 in destroyed equipment, but something about rocketry that is seldom talked about is that even crashes like this are kinda cool. It also felt good to find the pieces, much better than just losing it and not knowing what happened. This way, I can possibly determine what caused the failure. The ‘up’ part was perfect. I need to work on the ‘down’ part.
Once we got back to the truck, we all called it a day and packed up. Doug had invited us to join him and Brian for ribs at a killer BBQ place near there, and it sounded good after the long hike. Just as we were getting ready to pull out, a guy tapped on our window and said he’d found our rocket. I hopped out and sure enough, he had the Super Ninja (and my motor case – yay!). One fin was broken, but she was otherwise intact. He’d been looking for one of his rockets, and came across ours almost a mile and a quarter downwind.
The remains of the Air Munuviana are spread out on a table behind me, drying out a little. I’ll post some pictures tomorrow. The sonic beacon is still flashing, which amuses me, but all the drying out in the world won’t revive the piezo buzzer so it’s toast.
The ribs were awesome. I’m gonna be sore tomorrow from all that scrambling cross country. It was a great day.
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The day started with high clouds but the sun burned through now and then. A cold front is moving into the area and intermittent rain has started, but the day was mostly dry. The winds were out of the south and stayed between 5-10 mph.
Culpeper is in the heart of VirginiaÂ’s horse country, and the area consists of gently rolling hills dotted with farms. Our route there takes us through the Chancellorsville Battlefield from the Civil War. On the way, Mookie spotted a deer back in the trees.
We got there early and prepped a couple of rockets. When the range opened we set up our FY2K with an F23 motor. We wound up making the first flight after the first rocket scheduled to launch burnt itÂ’s igniter without lighting the motor. The FY2K is a smallish rocket, and leapt off the pad with a roar and trailing thick black smoke. The chute ejected right at the top and she landed softly within 100 yards of the pad.
Next up for us was the Super Ninja. The Super Ninja has made many flights for us, and today we were going to fly her on an E18, the biggest motor sheÂ’s ever used, and it simmed out to over 2000 feet altitude. I have no idea how high she actually went, and nobody else did either, because everyone lost sight of it while she was still screaming upward. While I was looking up, trying to see some glint in the sunlight, a friend told me that the rocket was probably already on the ground. CouldnÂ’t prove it by me.
Mookie and I went searching in the direction she probably wouldÂ’ve drifted, but after a good long walk we had no luck finding her. The worst part about it was losing a reloadable motor casing, which costs $40.00 to replace.
We spent some time visiting with friends and watching other rockets launch. After a while I prepped the Air Munuviana for a flight on a hybrid I-80. With the help of Doug Pratt we got her ready on the pad while I sent Mookie and Brian Pratt downwind several hundred yards to watch for where she landed.
The liftoff was perfect, and the I-80 really moved her along. I lost sight of the Air Mu in the sun, but others watching said the chute never came out and she came in ballistic. I heard the impact when she hit the ground, in the opposite direction where Mookie and Brian were stationed. As a friend and I started the walk to find it, someone said they had a line on it which was nice because it gave me a couple of reference points to use to tell me about where it came down.
We walked about a quarter mile to the first treeline, crossing an electric fence along the way, and there I continued on alone since I had to wade a stream to get to the meadow beyond. The meadow was pretty boggy in spots, and I covered it pretty good all the way back to another treeline. The second treeline was the start of a mature pine wood, planted at some point because many of the trees were in straight rows. It was also demarked with a barbed wire fence.
About this time, Mookie and Brian showed up. We found a spot to get through the barb wire, and made a circle through the wood beyond. It was a pretty good hike, but we had to be careful to pick our way around patches of poison ivy. No luck finding the rocket.
WeÂ’d been looking for more than an hour, so we headed back. The guy who saw the Air Munuviana come down couldnÂ’t tell how far away it was, so just to be thorough I decided to check the near meadow after we waded the stream again. Brian and Mookie headed towards the truck while I walked the stream.
Out of the corner of my eye, I caught the purple of the anodized aluminum motor casing. Calling back to the kids to let them know IÂ’d found our rocket, I took a closer look.
Usually in these lawn darts, the motor is the only thing that survives. Not this time, because I could see a dent in the casing. It was standing straight up in the mud on the bank of the stream. Pieces of the airframe were scattered around, lying in the water. I laughed when I saw a blinking light underwater, as either the altimeter or sonic beacon was still functioning and the LED was flashing.
When the kids got there, we climbed down into the creek and started locating the debris. The motor casing was dented, making it unusable. The altimeter was wet, and a closer look showed it to be trashed from the impact. The parachute was intact. We figured the nosecone had floated downstream and was lost.
I wanted to get a look at the other bank to see what might be over there. Climbing that side, I came across the nosecone. It had been flattened – the long way – by an impact in the tree above. Sure enough, Mookie spotted a branch about 30 feet up with a big bare spot where the Air Mu spacked at speed. We also found the motor mount, with the bottom 8” of the motor tube. How hard do you think it had to have hit that tree to snap an aluminum tube cleanly?
We also found a whole fin and most of another, as well as a few small shreds of delaminated plywood.
Now this flight cost almost $200 in destroyed equipment, but something about rocketry that is seldom talked about is that even crashes like this are kinda cool. It also felt good to find the pieces, much better than just losing it and not knowing what happened. This way, I can possibly determine what caused the failure. The ‘up’ part was perfect. I need to work on the ‘down’ part.
Once we got back to the truck, we all called it a day and packed up. Doug had invited us to join him and Brian for ribs at a killer BBQ place near there, and it sounded good after the long hike. Just as we were getting ready to pull out, a guy tapped on our window and said he’d found our rocket. I hopped out and sure enough, he had the Super Ninja (and my motor case – yay!). One fin was broken, but she was otherwise intact. He’d been looking for one of his rockets, and came across ours almost a mile and a quarter downwind.
The remains of the Air Munuviana are spread out on a table behind me, drying out a little. IÂ’ll post some pictures tomorrow. The sonic beacon is still flashing, which amuses me, but all the drying out in the world wonÂ’t revive the piezo buzzer so itÂ’s toast.
The ribs were awesome. IÂ’m gonna be sore tomorrow from all that scrambling cross country. It was a great day.
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(picture in the extended entry) more...
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