The "blac-ROC" Experience |
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Report by John Van Norman, ROC member, TRA 6421 L2 So, what do you get when you put twelve rocket scientists in a tiny motel room in the middle of the Nevada desert and tell them to build a rocket capable of handling an M2400? One might answer "a cat fight". And you would be only partially right. Absolute bedlam would be closer, but a "whole lot of fun" would be right on. It all started innocently enough. Team ROC had been pulling into Gerlack, NV throughout the evening and finally began rolling into the launch site around 9:30 on Friday morning. If you have never been to Black Rock, there is but one way to describe this place: Rocket Nirvana!! The salt of Bonneville has nothing on this place- it is only seen to be believed. Miles upon miles of perfectly flat, endlessly stretching playa . . . they're right-you could see the curvature of the earth out there!! And this was BALLS!! The anything goes (well, almost), pull out the stops and go for broke launch that pits man against the forces of nature and physics in that never ending quest for speed and altitude. The tee-shirts at Bruno's said it all . . ."Where the pavement ends, and SPACE begins!!" With EZ-Ups being built, rockets being unloaded, tables being set up, no one at first noticed Karl Baumann of Mohave High Power sneak into the ROC camp. Nor do we know whom he first slyly approached and propositioned: "I have a Kodson M2400 here, you guys can have it if you have something to put it in. . ." We didn't. We had actually come in light to save space, opting for finesse rather than brute force. A quick huddle-urgent, whispered words are exchanged, then more words . . .runners are sent out to find the rest of the team members . . . more words-then suddenly money begins to depart wallets-it's ON, we're DOWN-"blac-ROC" is born. Ken Finwall, of California High Power, starts pulling out tubes and parts for a LOC Magnum. It'll have to be modified and beefed up to handle a 98mm motor. Bits and pieces sought out, calls for this and that are yelled back and forth-but that's just part of the story of the "blac-ROC Experience". If there were a legacy to the Rocketry Organization of California it could all be summarized in two words: "Club Spirit". This was my third away launch with the club and no matter the numbers involved it's always the same. It's an "all for one, one for all" attitude that has but two rules-"We're here to have fun and we're here to fly!!" It's like being with a really tight extended family, and one thing's become obvious to all who venture near: We truly like to be around each other, we love to fly with each other, and we really love to party with each other. Though you do have to watch your back sometimes-they let me run around the flight line for several hours, not telling me the seat had ripped out of my pants!! Well, with friends like these. . . One member of another club put it best when he walked up to me and said: "I've got to come to one of your launches-you guys have fun!!" Truer words were never spoken and it's truly an honor to go out and fly with these guys. But I digress. Let me introduce you to Team ROC (in no particular order): Brad "Got a Match?" Wolff And in supporting rolls were: David Van Norman, his wife Caroline, and son Chris-- handling video, recovery and assisting with preps. Backing up Bill Seiders and generally helping where needed was Chris "Mr. Steak" Logan and John Gunn. We helped set up were we could - when you're used to setting up at least 20 pads for a monthly launch, setting up 10 near pads and 4 away pads doesn't take a whole lot. There wasn't much supposed to be flown on Friday, but ROC came to fly and Ky Michelson gave us clearance to 15,000 feet - more than enough. Prep time!! One of the coolest things about being at a launch like BALLS is getting to see all the motors we don't get to see in California - motors with names like "Spitfire", "Green Gorilla", "Violent Violet", "Redeye", and "Skid Mark". Ron McGough took advantage of a Urinsco K500 "Spitfire" to get "Maniacules" off the pad first. These motors roar, crackle, spit fire and sparks and generally put on a really good show. He turned in a 4864' flight. ROC was one for one. It was the beginning of a streak that would continue through the next three days! Kurt Gugisberg followed shortly with an AT K550 in his smaller version of the "V2". This ever-popular motor peeled the paint right off the fins! Two for two. . . We couldn't resist a trip out to an away pad to check out the huge Hybrid project a team from Georgia had brought out for a test flight. This thing was a monster. A 3/16 inch thick all-aluminum airframe. A core motor about 5 feet long - the rest of the 25 foot+ airframe was made up of the gas tanks. They were calling it an "R" but the numbers worked out to an "S". The whole thing was a real piece of engineering, and we oow'ed and ahhh'ed our way around their site - very impressive. We returned to ROC central and began prepping for Saturday. They closed down the range early so we walked around checking out some of the bigger projects that had been pulling in through out the day. Rockets on top of trucks, rockets on trailers, rockets hanging out the back of Toyota pick-ups and out the windows of small cars. My bet is there are some motorists out there who must still be scratching their heads. The canvases finally came off the EZ-Ups (lest we forget Bonneville), the trucks were packed and we were off to the races. Driving the 17 miles across the playa to the paved road is a blast. Pedal to the metal, with your vehicle throwing a dust cloud that looks like you've got a super long burn "Z" motor strapped to the back. Upon arriving at the motel, off came the window screens of room 57 and stuff started going from the trucks through the window. Within minutes the room was full of rocket parts, ROC team members and more than one ice chest. A short time later came the sound of Dremels, battery powered drills and the smell of saw dust and epoxy. This pattern would continue for the rest of the evening, getting louder and louder in direct proportion to the amount of beverages left in the ice chests. One sound remained constant - the sound of laughter and of friends on a mission. I think things finally died off about 2:00 a.m. Even before the sun cleared the mountaintops the now familiar dust trails of vehicles moving at high speed across the playa signaled Team ROC's arrival at the launch site. The big Hybrid was scheduled to go at 8:00 a.m. and they had only a one-hour window for the estimated 80,000' flight. Upon arrival we could tell they weren't going to go that day. Apparently technical difficulties had cropped up during night - they were going to try for Sunday morning. The first attempt off the pads that morning was a near minimum diameter rocket with a big "O" motor in it. The button was pushed and the rocket blew apart. This was the first in a series of big motor disasters. They determined there was a problem with the propellant casting. This same guy had a "P" and "Q" motor ready to fly, but he opted to not fly these until the motors could be checked out by the manufacturer. Good move. Having prepped the newly rebuilt "Bug Colors" the night before I was ready shortly after the 9:00 window opened. I choose a J135 for this "second-first" flight. At "zero" the Praying Mantis rose majestically into the clear desert air and went straight up. At 5197' out came the chute. Bug Colors had finally taken wing and was coming back in one piece. ROC went 3 for 3. It was time to prep and load the Y2K for my high altitude (at least for me) flight. Now, Bill Seiders was a man on a mission. He had come in search of that L3 cert that eluded him after his rocket, "Glass Menagerie", drifted off the lakebed at Lucerne during ROC Stock VIII, not to be found for several days. "Glass Menagerie" was back on Pad 39A at Black Rock for another try, and we were all pulling for Bill to bring home that cert. The button was pushed and the M1419 sent the all fiberglass rocket screaming straight up and out of sight. Several sets of high-power binoculars tracked its progress to 12,500'. Steve Roberson was the first to report "He has a chute!!" Team ROC erupted with an impromptu celebration. The next 15 or more minutes were spent tracking the descent. One really neat phenomenon of Black Rock is how the heat creates a reflective mirage on the lakebed. When your rocket lands it appears to be floating several feet above the ground, even from miles away. And as a bonus it appears to also be magnified about 5 times - it's really strange to see. Bill's cert rocket came down about 3.5 miles from the flight line - almost exactly the same distance it had at Lucerne when it couldn't be found. This time, however, there it was, floating on that silver layer - a quick run out in the chase vehicle and Bill had his L3 cert. 4 for 4. Kurt Gugisberg and I had a bet. Who would fly higher? His Python or my Y2K. He took his first run at the title with a K700. Talk about a screaming flight - this thing was gone before the sound even reached us. Steve again reports a chute at apogee, followed by a 15-minute wait for touchdown. Kurt set the bar at 11,500 feet. I had my goal to shoot for and he wasn't messing around. Five for five. Brad Wolff stepped up to the plate with a LOC Magnum loaded with an Urinsico K360 "Redeye". 6100' later ROC was six for six. Greg Lawson took his Magnum to 4472' on an AT K550. The Magnum love fest continued with Jeff Stai, who opted for a Urinsco K500 "Spitfire" and popped, crackled and roared its way to 4781'. When will they let us fly these motors in California?? Six, seven and eight. The time had come to do what I had come to Black Rock to do. The Y2K had been modified to fly a K250, redone for dual-deployment and was carrying a 35' long streamer supplied by Carl Delzell of Priscilla's Parachutes. The latter was more for visibility than anything else. The sims said over 14,000'. It was ready, I was ready. Just for luck I put a 30-year-old Apollo 11-mission patch I've had since the late 60's in the payload bay, loaded the rocket on 39A, pushed the button. I love long burns and this motor is exactly that. It was out of sight even before the sound finally faded 10 seconds later. Soon after that we even lost the tracking smoke. Steve came through again with his high power binoculars: "Got it. . .ejection. . .no streamer. . .she's flat spinning . . ." It seemed like hour before we could all finally see it at about 4000 feet. It was apart, spinning lazily around on its shock cord. Either the streamer had hung up or departed somewhere up above. Finally, at 1000' out came the RocketMan main chute. I threw my hat in the air. Final reading from the Olsen: 12,797 feet. Not quite what I was aiming for - but good enough since it was back in one piece. The streamer problem was operator error - I had rolled the streamer instead of Z folding and it had wrapped itself around the shock cord after tying itself into a knot. Oh, well, that's what I had come to do . . .learn. And the true altitude is now in question. It turns out there is a bug in the Olsen that allowed it to reset upon landing. I used the last recorded data point (12,797') but this point may have occurred several seconds before apogee. The true altitude may never be known. But that didn't matter - much. I was ahead of Kurt in the bet. Nine for nine. Ron McGough was next to join the "Over Ten" club when he put an AT K700 in his Python and sent that snake 11,621' over the Black Rock playa. Ken Finwall had the first glitch - he also had the biggest rocket among the group. This huge beast called "C2000" was packed with a Kodson N3000. It took the combined efforts of half the ROC team just to get this thing on the rail. When it fired it shook the ground. The flight was perfect on the way up - it arched over and ejected. The chute didn't appear!! We all started yelling: "Come on! Come on!! Pull it out!!" All our combined wills couldn't get that chute out - and it flat spun into the ground, suffering major damage. 10.5 out of 11- Meanwhile, most of the other big motor projects were not fairing very well. One in particular, an N2000 motor casing with fins bolted to it and a top end airframe screwed to the forward bulkhead separated at about mach. The casing continued another 2000' on its own then arched over and came in ballistic. You could hear the thing coming down until "THUMP!!" Lake staked with about two feet sticking out of the ground! John Coker had a Rocket Dyne O3500 in his "Big Kahuna". Again, ROC came out in force to help get this thing ready. We set up our 4-way launch system in an area way far out. We finally got it up right and radioed the count back to the control area where it was put on the PA. At the end of the count the Kuhuna roared skyward, went up and over and ejected. The charge may have been a bit on the light side because the Kuhuna didn't separate quite far enough and the payload chute became tied up with one of the two booster chutes. The rocket came down on the remaining booster chute and the payload chute. It landed hard but survived. Rocket Dyne's "Thor" was next up. It was to use the same motor as John had just flown successfully. What wasn't mentioned was it had a new experimental nozzle installed that hadn't even been static tested. Kurt Gugisberg, Carl Delzell, and myself decided to stay in close with the Rocket Dyne guys to get some good video. From a couple hundred feet away I again radioed in the countdown. At "zero" Ron McGough pressed the button. What happened next was a once in a life time experience. One to do once, but not twice. Smoke appeared briefly beneath the huge black and white rocket. Suddenly, it didn't just explode - it vanished!! One second it was there and a millisecond later there was a million pieces flying everywhere. The concussion was like a hammer to the chest, and flaming chunks of propellant were falling from the sky. I heard Carl yelling, "Watch out for the motor!!" It was several hundred feet in the air and coming down, landing about a hundred feet away. Apparently, the new nozzle had catoed, and the motor casing had gone straight up through the middle of the rocket exiting through the nose cone. The result had the effect of a firecracker, turning the rocket into confetti. Upon returning to the flight line Rick O'Neil was finally ready to take a break from the "blac-ROC" project and get into the air. Another Magnum, this time with an AT L850 (75mm) on board gave Rick a 9372' flight and continued the ROC success streak. Bill Seiders racked up the last successful flight of the day using an AT K1100 to boost "Drano Dart Grande" to 3000'. ROC was on a roll with no end in sight!!! Back in room 57 at Bruno's things were getting serious. The project had to fly Sunday with no turning back. Once again, ROC members floated in and out, and word had spread as to what we were attempting to do. Other fliers poked their heads in throughout the evening, checking us out, offering encouragement and advice. With the fin can finally in place and reinforcement tape going on the fins joints, Carl Delzell retired to the next room over and designed the lettering and logo that would be stenciled on the rocket. He did this with nothing more than masking tape and wax paper. Kurt Gugisberg and I found the most windless place we could and started spraying the payload section with some cheap white spray paint someone had found at a general store over in Empire, NV ("Gateway to Gerlach" - JS). The thing was starting to look like a rocket and the general feeling was optimistic and the anticipation was growing. Sunday dawned early - too early, but the "pounding on the door" wakeup calls had everyone up and ready to go before the sun was up. As they had the day before, the dust clouds followed the vehicles out onto the playa. The big Hybrid was again set to go at 8:00 and nobody wanted to miss it. When we arrived we could see this huge rocket sitting up right on the rail - a good sign. We took a trip out to the site to take a final look and to wish the crew luck. We returned to ROC central and waited. We set up for the day and spent spare moments watching the Hybrid prep through Steve Roberson's telescope. All the trucks and support vehicles had been pulled about a half-mile from the pad and just two crew personal were climbing around on the scaffold and moving tanks back and forth. These guys looked serious, with both wearing Desert Storm type military uniforms complete with flack jackets and tank helmets. Communications at BALLS was non-existent and there was no way to tell when any of the away pads were going unless you had your own radios (which ROC did). There was no such communications to the Hybrid site so we had to guess what was going on. A half-hour passed and the two crewman were still hooking up tanks and hoses. We had heard they would have to go before their window closed at 9:00. Finally, a support car raced out and picked up the two crewmen. We watched and waited some more. At about 8:59 with no warning a cloud of smoke bellowed from the bottom of the rocket. . .then nothing. "Lost the igniter!", Steve called. We found out latter they would recycle for a 2:00 try. Kurt Gugisberg wasn't done with the altitude bet just yet and wasn't about to give up. When I returned from a talk with Ken Finwall (picking up a K185) he had somehow gotten a hold of a Rocket Dyne K1100 demo motor, (which the Rocket Dyne guys were touting as a small L). He was in the process of prepping the Python again. But it would be Rick O'Neil who would get off the first flight of the day with his Magnum on a K560 (75mm). He sent it 6566' with a perfect recovery - the ROC streak was alive and well. With the appropriate banter concerning his scamming a demo motor to try to take the bet Kurt sent the Python screaming skyward. About half of us said he didn't get it right away - the other half said "maybe". When he returned from what seemed like a very long recovery the truth was told. 11,445 feet-nice try Kurt, ol' buddy!! Brad Wolff stuffed an AT J415 into his Army Hawk to log in a 5700' flight, again with a perfect recovery. I thought "Bug Colors" flew so cool with the J135 I couldn't help but wonder what it would do on a K185. 6773' is exactly what it would do. And the stats just kept looking better. With that last "fun" flight out of the way it was time to get down to business. "blac-ROC" was pronounced "ready for paint" and Kurt, Carl and I sprayed our hearts out. Ky Michaelson donated a RocketMan chute. Tripoli President Bruce Kelly came up with the freakiest looking igniter any of us have ever seen. Kind of a cross between a Raskifon skyrocket (it was at the end it a 3' long stick) and a Tarantula that had grown to many legs!! Jeff Stai called it "Alien Spawn". Carl peeled away his homemade stencils, the final prep was complete and there it was. "blac-ROC" was sitting in front of the ROC complex in all its 6½ foot, flat black and white splendor. Pictures, pictures and more pictures. Video and more video. Ky came over to do an official interview with Brad Wolff, the project leader, as the spokesman - he did a great job. We had a signing ceremony with everyone on Team ROC and it's sponsors joining in to autograph the payload bay. This included Bruce Kelly, Ky and Jodi Michealson, Karl Baumann and Ken Finwall. A dozen group shots were taken, everyone came by to wish the team luck. After all, this was quite an achievement just to get it this far in this short amount of time. All of us headed out to Pad 39A for the load up and a few last group pictures. Then with a battle cry of "LET'S ROC!!!" We headed back in for the much-awaited flight. Finally, the countdown was given. "blac-ROC" didn't just lift off the pad it flat-out bolted!! It screamed upward, absolutely perfectly straight and moving like a bat of hell. Then, just when we all thought it had it made, just before burn out, at about 2500 feet she hit Max-Q and made a valiant effort to punch through it. From below we saw a quick "curly Q" in the smoke trail. It took a few seconds to realize what we'd just seen. It quickly became obvious as the sky filled with confetti and the nose cone came tumbling from the sky along with the motor casing. The RocketMan chute survived this "mondo-shred" and slowly drifted away carrying nothing more than about 10 feet of nylon strap. The rest of the pieces fluttered away, scattering along a two-mile debris field that stretched off across the playa to the east. Several of us headed out to clean up the playa, searching for the AltAcc and piling up bits and pieces along the way. Someone on a bicycle rode out about 3 miles and retrieved the chute. It was amazing just how little of the beast was left to be found. We returned to the flight line in the back of my pickup with a small mound of shredded cardboard and 2 of 3 fins. Brad handed out the pieces we had found that had some of the signatures on them to the signers as souvenirs. Our inspection of the pieces told us what had happened. The booster actually held up to the M2400. It was the payload bay that failed, most likely due to the extra nose weight we had added to balance out the CG. Bill Seiders put it best: "When that puppy hit max Q it was like stacking 5 bags of cement on top of it!!" The payload airframe split down the side. The rest was history. You might have thought there would be a great deal of disappointment in the ROC camp. There wasn't. That wasn't the point of what we had just done and everyone agreed it had been worth every minute. Though we lost the rocket it was the building and the attempt. We all knew we were pushing this thing to the limits and beyond. It was fact that we took a bunch of pieces of cardboard and built a rocket in the middle of the Nevada desert having not come prepared for any such thing. We did it using very little in the way of tools, having nothing in the way of a shop or the other usual things we use to build projects capable of handling this kind of power. The fact this thing even got off the pad in just two days was a testimony to skills and commitment of its builders. Most of all it was the teamwork, and all the fun we had doing it. There will, without a doubt, be another "blac-ROC" team project. And the next one will succeed. My bet is there is not a single team member who would have traded one minute of the "blac-ROC Experience" for anything. From that point of view "blac-ROC" didn't fail at all-it was an unqualified success. But the event wasn't over. Bruce Kelly put one up that duplicated "blac-ROC's" flight. Even Frank Kosdon flew a rocket!! An all aluminum beast that went completely out of sight. And he even put a chute in it!! It was one of the few large projects that recovered successfully. And, of course, the ROC streak continued. Bill Seiders decided to get creative. He builds an AT K??? It consisted of two Blue Thunder grains and two White Lighting grains. Bill kept it a secret as to which nozzle he used. "Drano Dart Grande" put on a most unusual show. It went up fast then pulsed several times. The effect didn't look unlike airstarts!! I guess you could say that's why Bill is Bill and the rest of us mere mortals!! Carl Delzell, who had held back all weekend, put an AT I300 with a really long delay into "Rocket Rage" and sent it only about 1500 feet right over the flight line. The really long delay sent everyone diving for cover until it finally deployed at about a hundred feet. The LCO was tapping his foot, saying, "Little under powered, don'tcha think??" Way to go, Carl!! Give them Arizona boys with the attitude something to think about!! Kurt Gugisberg put a J350 in his "Stretched Pterodactyl Jr." and sends it up with an AltAcc that downloads a 50,000 foot MSL reading!! Kurt, my brother, it was only a bet!! 50,000' on a J350?? Check your software-or did you maybe read an extra "0" into it?? Greg Lawson also loves Magnums. To show his love he gives his flowers in the way of a Urinsco K1500 "Violent Violet". Jeff Stai calls it a "K-NOW". With a 1.25-second burn time this motor doesn't wait for "Zero" in the count down to go. It's already gone by the time it reaches "Two!". Greg got to the pad without any padding for the payload bay. In true ROC fashion he improvised by stuffing the shirt off his back into the rocket. At least it was a ROC shirt - but I'll bet that was one aromatic bird that came back!! Hmmm, at 5455' it was certainly the highest flying ROC shirt of them all! By this time, Kurt, Carl and I were packed up. But we decided to wait for the big Hybrid to go. At 2:00 we again stood and waited. Once again communications sucked!! Without enough warning to even roll cameras there was a puff of smoke from the bottom of the rocket. Then the whole thing just split in two. The fin can stayed on the rail-the top 2/3 landed about 30 feet away and sent up a great cloud of dust as the tanks vented-you had to feel for those guys. We never did hear what exactly went wrong. Ron McGough was furiously trying to get his Rocket Man "Wahoo" ready, and Brad Wolff had one last motor to fly. So we decided to stick it out to the end. Ron finally put the Wahoo up on a Kodson K600 "Green Gorilla" which puts out a flame that is, well . . . green. He got 6940' out of that monkey. Brad Wolff, who had decided to go home empty handed in the motor department, loads an AT J90 into the Army Hawk. Great flight, but a little long on the delay, a la Carl Delzell. Over she goes, and goes, and goes. Finally, just when we thought we were going to see ROC's last flight of BALLS bury itself into the playa--puff! It was a little much for the nose cone, which came down without benefit of being tied to the rest of the rocket. But, hey, it was re-flyable so chalk it up in the good column! Final score: ROC sent 25 rockets into the air. 23 came back home. The only two that didn't make it was the C2000 (which had a great flight but didn't get the chute all the way out) and "blac-ROC". No matter how you look at those numbers there can be but one conclusion. ROC had rocked BALLS!! That's impressive in anyone's book!! No story this long would be complete without a final gag. Two, actually. It became known that someone ran out of gas and had to be towed into a town on the way down-should this person remain nameless? For now. We were caravaning behind Jeff and Greg. Now, the best that could be said for our trucks was, "Covered with Black Rock". We stopped to get gas and when I came out of the restroom there was "BIN TO BALLS" fingered into the dusty back window. A couple hundred miles down the road, when Jeff came out of a restroom he found, "BIN TO BALLS, TOO!!" on his. Man, you just got to love this club!! Everyone made it home safe-and that's the best ending of all!! Summary of ROC Flights at FireBALLS IX(all motors are 54mm except where noted) # ROC-keteer ROC-ket Name Motor Altitude ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 Ron McGough Maniacules Urinsco K500 Spitfire 4879' 2 Kurt Gugisberg V2 Aerotech K550 --- 3 John Van Norman Bug Colors Aerotech J135 5193' 4 Bill Seiders Glass Menagerie Aerotech M1419 (98mm) 12500' (*1) 5 Kurt Gugisberg Dynacom Python Aerotech K700 11550' 6 Brad Wolff LOC Magnum Urinsco K630 Redeye 6100' 7 Greg Lawson LOC Magnum Aerotech K550 4472' 8 Jeff Stai LOC Magnum Urinsco K500 Spitfire 4781' 9 John Van Norman Y2K Aerotech K250 12797' (*2) 10 Ron McGough Dynacom Python Aerotech K700 11621' 11 Rick O'Neil LOC Magnum Aerotech L850 (75mm) 9372' (*3) 12 Bill Seiders Drano Dart Grande Aerotech K1100 3000' 13 Rick O'Neil LOC Magnum Aerotech K560 (75mm) 6566' 14 Kurt Gugisberg Dynacom Python Aerotech K1100 11445' 15 Brad Wolff Army Hawk Aerotech J415 --- 16 John Van Norman Bug Colors Aerotech K185 6773' 17 Team ROC blac ROC Kosdon M2400 (98mm) --- (*4) 18 Bill Seiders Drano Dart Grande Aerotech K --- (*5) 19 Carl Delzell Rocket Rage Aerotech I300 (38mm) --- 20 Kurt Gugisberg Pterodactyl Jr. Aerotech J350 (38mm) 50000' (*6) 21 Greg Lawson LOC Magnum Urinsco K1500 VV 5455' (*7) 22 Ron McGough Rocketman Wahoo Kosdon K600 GG ??? (*8) 23 Brad Wolff Army Hawk Aerotech J90 ??? (*9) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- # ROC-keteer ROC-ket Name Motor Altitude (*1): Level 3 for Bill Seiders - YAY! (*2): John placed on board a 30-year old Apollo 11 patch he had been carrying around. John was also the ROC Altitude Champ for BALLS! (*3): Rick had two Adept altimeters on board. One measured 9289', the other 9454' - this number is the average. (*4): Team ROC:
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(And extra special thanks to whoever cleans the rooms at Bruno's!-) (*5): Bill built a K motor using two K1100 Blue Thunder grains in the top, and two K550 White Lightning grains in the bottom. Don't know which nozzle he used... The resulting thrust profile resembled a pulse jet more than anything else...;-) (*6): That's what the AltAcc said, but Kurt didn't know if that was pressure or accelerometer altitude. Stay tuned...;-) (*7): The "VV" stands for "Violent Violet", the flame color. I'd say this motor was more like a "K Now" - burn time about 1.25 seconds! Also, not to be outdone by John, Greg used his ROCstock IX T-shirt as padding in the payload section for this flight - seems he forgot to bring his foam padding to the pad, and rather than walk back... (*8): The "GG" stands for "Green Gorilla", which I gather is a Kosdon East product. Very nice green flame! (*9): Last flight, the delay was a bit too long for the rocket, which was recovered undamaged, but the nose separated and fluttered to the ground unharmed. |
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