Two In A Row!

Rocket-related posts, that is.

The Northern Virginia Assosiation of Rocketry held its monthly launch today, so I prepped a few rockets and headed out for a couple of hours. I haven't had much chance to fly this year, so I was amazed when I got to the launch and found probably close to 100 cars parked at the field. I pulled in, grabbed a rocket and headed for the flight line.

One the way I met the President of the club, and when I remarked on the crowd Joe told me that this had become the norm. When I started flying with them years ago there would be launches where seven to ten people were it.

A big part of the crowd were Cub Scouts and parents. I got in line (never seen a line this long to get a launch pad assignment), but moved up quickly because I needed a larger launch rod than the scouts.

Here's what I flew:

Barenaked Lady - E11-3J - my last blackjack reloadable motor, and it's still one of my favorite rocket/motor combinations. The Lady is a largish rocket, but built very lightly, so she really gets up there on this long-burn motor. Six fins keep her perfectly straight on the way up - no wobble, no spin - and the delay is perfect as she coasts up and over the top on a long column of dark black smoke. She recovered perfectly under a 20" yellow x-form parachute that my wife made for me. Beautiful flight.

YJ-218 - 2x C6-7 - This clustered rocket has made somewhere around 50 flights, and still gets oooohs and ahhhhhs. Both motors lit and the homemade yellow and black parachute opened perfectly right at the top.

I had brought a couple more, but the guys manning the safety check-in table had been working steadily for a couple of hours. I took a shift at the table and really enjoyed working with the kids again. I'm going to have to make more of an effort to get out there every month, if nothing else to pitch in and spread the volunteer work out a little more.

It was a great day for rockets.

Rocket Jones, Decorating Guru

Suzette was waxing rhapsodic about the joys of spray paint, and in her comments I suggested decorating with rockets. Here's a shot of my den, where I keep a few of my big rockets on display.



Let me relate a story that illustrates why this is cool. My oldest daughter came home for a weekend with one of her college friends and they stayed in this room because the couch folds out into a bed. One night, looking up at my wall o' rockets, her friend said, "You know, that's kind of hawt."

I rest my case.

Team America Rocket Contest 2011 - Updated with Pictures!

For the ninth straight year, I was a member of the volunteer range crew for TARC. The weather forecast was ugly, but except for some occasionaly light misting the rain stayed away during the contest itself.

100 teams from all over the country came to fly rockets and try to win a piece of the price pool. The winning team took top honors on the very last flight of the day, bumping the next two teams into a tie for second.

So, this year's challenge was to design and build a rocket that:

1. Flew as close as possible to 750', measured by an on-board altimeter.
2. Flew - from 1st motion to payload touchdown - between 40-45 seconds, under a 15" parachute.
3. Carried aloft and returned unbroken a raw egg.

The first place team will be going to the Paris Air Show, complements of Raytheon, to have a fly-off against the winners of the UK and French versions of the contest. All contests use the same rules each year. The first winning team of the Japanese contest were here this year. They were from Iwate High School, which is in the prefecture that got stomped by the earthquake and tsunami.

The first eight teams split a pool of scholarship money. The top twenty teams all get invites to NASA's Student Launch Initiative, which is like Team America, but with much larger rockets, much higher altitudes, and tougher objectives (not that Team America is easy!)

And the prizes just keep getting better and better. I didn't catch all the details, but one participant got a $5,000/year scholarship towards a four year degree from Raytheon. Yep, $20,000 towards college.

As usual, the kids were great, the rockets were cool and it was a great day. Reuters and Wired magazine were there, along with many local media.

It sounds corny, but there are many ways to love America. One way that I choose is to encourage kids to pursue careers in Science, Technoloy, Engineering and Math. TARC is only one vehicle to the future, and so far it's working beyond all expectations.

Links to pictures! YAY!

Photos from Steve Schowiak:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/schowiak/sets/72157626605411463/

Photos from Glenn Feveyear:

http://db.tt/lyey7lZ

Photos in fast-paced slide show format from Steve Schwartz:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PAJoDx4F3k&feature=bf_prev&list=ULx-vDXiHk9GE&index=23

Living Up To The Moniker

My son TJ and I went out to Great Meadow Equestrian Center today for a NOVAAR rocket launch. The weather was grey and windy, but not quite breezy enough to cancel. It was a chilly 40-ish degrees out there.

There was the usual crowd. At least one cub scout troop making their first ever flights with Alpha 3's (a classic beginner rocket). There were several groups of students and mentors present, making practice flights for the upcoming Team America Rocketry Challenge. There were also some competition flyers, putting up gliders and rockets for duration contest points. All in all, a very busy day for the club working the pads.

I caught up with some old friends I hadn't seen in awhile, including Ken Allen of Performance Hobbies. I asked him to bring me up to speed on the current high power rocket motor regulations. You may recall that the organization I belong to, the National Association of Rocketry, sued the BATFE over their insistance that rocket motors were the same as explosives. Well, we won. Not only that, but we also won back some court costs incurred during the multi-year battle too.

Bottom line: no government regulation! Woot!

So I've got some high power rockets that have been doing nothing but hanging on the wall and looking cool as shit, that will be returning to the air in the near future.

But that's another day. Today was windy, so to try to limit the drift on the way back down we stayed with streamers instead of chutes. Here's what we flew:

1. Der Red Max - C6-5 - a classic, built from plans at Jim Z's amazing site.* Perfect flight, but as expected, lots of drift.

2. Saturn Wannabee - 4x A10-3T - this is an original design that uses a cluster of four mini-motors. All four lit, she got great altitude, and it sounded like popcorn when all four ejection charges went off almost simultaneously.

3. Groove Tube - C6-5 - another classic built from plans. This tube-finned rocket made her usual arrow straight boost, but the nosecone and streamer separated when the ejection charge fired. This demonstrated something aerodynamically odd about tube fins, namely that in a breeze they produce lift and the rocket body essentially glided to the ground. TJ recovered all the pieces, which landed very close to each other. I'll replace the shock cord and she'll be good as new.

4. Sparrow - A10-3T - this was my very first rocket, the one that started it all for me. Almost 20 years old and looking just beat up enough to have some character, she lifted off in a hurry and, because she's so small, most of the crowd lost sight of her. I knew what to expect, so I had no problem keeping track. People just don't expect the smaller rockets to go that fast or that high. I usually fly this one once a year, just to keep her in the logbook.

That was it. We were getting cold, so we headed home. I'd been neglecting the fleet lately as other interests had my attention, so the day did what I was hoping it would, it reignited my excitement (pun intended) about flying rockets again.

* Jim Z contacted all the old rocket companies like Estes, Centuri, MRC, etc. and got permission to post scans of the original plans and decal sheets on the internet. Every company agreed without hesitation (because they rock), and for years now rocketeers have been scrounging in their attics and basements for forgotten boxes and rocket kits. I'd guess that about 90% of everything ever released has been found and posted online, for free and open use.

Rockets, Cake, And The Combination Thereof

During this year's Team America Rocketry Challenge, the Food Network's "Ace of Cakes" arrived with a cake baked especially to fit a payload capsule built by one of the members of our rocketry club. So, did it work? Did the cake survive?

Find out on Thursday, September 2nd, at 10pm EST. The episode is called "Full Throttle Bakery".

No hints, but the cake was tasty.

Team America Rocketry Challenge 2009

Yesterday was the 2009 Team America Rocketry Challenge. 100 teams of students from all over the US (43 states had teams entered and 36 states were represented in the finals) competed for scholarship money, educational prizes and more.

A high school from Madison, Wisconsin took top honors. Twice, in fact. They had three teams make the finals. One team won the flight competition and another team won the presentation award. Kick ass, and their teacher was a justifiably proud man.

Here's a brief recap for those reading about this for the first time. Teams of students (middle school, high school, 4H, Boy Scouts, Explorers, home schoolers, etc) are given a task and must design, build and fly a rocket to do successfully do that task. Adults can mentor and advise, but the kids do all the actual work. Teams make official entry flights and send the results in, and the 100 best scores are selected for the finals. A one-day flyoff determines the winners.

Seven years ago, the first TARC was held to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Wright Brothers first flight. The aerospace industry saw it as a chance to get kids interested in math, science and technology, because the industry is rapidly aging and new blood is needed. Some 13% of all aerospace workers are now eligible for retirement! Remember, the big catalyst for these guys was Sputnik and Apollo.

After batting around ideas about radio controlled airplanes and such, the organizers of the event, the Aerospace Industries Association (AIA) decided to ask the National Association of Rocketry (NAR) to help out. And TARC was born.

It was so successful that it has grown to be an annual event, and the payoffs are starting to roll in. Companies are hiring the college graduates who participated in TARC as high schoolers. They're taking it that seriously.

How seriously? Last year our keynote speaker at the awards ceremony was Secretary of Defense Gates. This year it was the Secretary of the Air Force. We've had the Director of NASA. Buzz Aldrin has attended, as have many other astronauts.

So this year the challenge was to design, build and fly a rocket that would fly as close as possible to 750 feet and spend as close to 45 seconds as possible in the air from first motion to landing on the ground. The payload was a raw egg and it had to be carried sideways inside the rocket and be returned unbroken.

The prizes get better every year. Besides the scholarship money, telescopes were awarded, as were seminars and workshops for teachers. The winning team is going to the Paris airshow, courtesy of Raytheon, who also flew out the winning team from the UK to participate in our finals in the second "Transatlantic Championship". The kids from Great Britain won for the second year in a row.

So it was a long, satisfying day. My job again this year was access control to the team prep area. When we say that the kids have to do the work, we mean it. Adults are not allowed into the areas where the kids prep their rockets, or on the field where the kids set 'em up and launch them. The kids have to go through the safety check alone, and they have to know what's going on to pass that. I mostly spent the day answering questions from nervous parents and teachers who, for the first time, couldn't hover around the kids while they did their rocketry.

I spent quite a bit of time talking to the adults with the British team. We were laughing about the bureaucracy that exists in both countries. His daughter is 14 years old and has her explosives permit from the London police department. She also has a government license to handle explosives, both required in England to fly high-power rockets. She can legally purchase over 100 lbs of black powder. Yet because she's not 18, she can't buy fireworks, even though she's better qualified than the people selling them. Bizarre.

I also learned a bit about Mr. Arundel (pronounced Aaron-dell, not a-RUN-dell), who founded the Great Meadow foundation, the field we fly on. When he found out that developers wanted to buy that land and slap 200 homes on it, he bought it instead and turned it into the most beautiful equestrian park, and made it available to the public for all kinds of events. Like rocket launches. Mr. Arundel is one of those quiet heroes you never hear about.

Another long (at the field before 6am, home around 8pm), tiring, yet oh-so-rewarding day.

1:10 Scale Saturn V

All systems were go, and the launch last weekend was beautiful!

Check out this page for photos.

A few details: Altitude 4,441', max velocity 450mph, 7 G's, something like 181,000Ns? and about 187lbs of propellant. That was a P motor surrounded by eight N motors, making for a total thrust equivalent to an R!

Thanks to the Rocket Dungeon for the pointers. Check out his blog for more photos and links.

Rocket's Red Glare, Amen

Check out this video.

In a bizarre but long-cherished local tradition to celebrate the Orthodox Easter holiday, two churches in the town of Vrodandos fire rockets at each other's churches - while services are held.

Thanks to Dick's Rocket Dungeon for the pointer.

Holy Cow

It starts with an Estes kit flying on A or B motors, and before you know it, you're pushing the envelope.

Check out this video of "The Cow" taking off. That's 450lbs of rocket being lifted by a P10,000 motor.

Sweet!

Oh, and while we're lusting after admiring awesome rocket projects, this Saturday, April 25, is the scheduled launch of the 1/10 scale Saturn V in Price, Maryland.

See Dick's Rocket Dungeon for more information on both of these rockets.

I Love The Smell Of APCP In The Morning

The subject line of the email says it all: VICTORY.

Several years ago, the two main rocketry organizations in the US sued the BATFE (Bureau of Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives) over their decision to classify APCP-based rocket motors as explosives.

From the email:

The BATFE regulation of APCP was found by Judge Walton to be ".. arbitrary and capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance with the law." and has been ordered by the Court to be "vacated" or canceled.

I'm doing the happy dance. Now we'll see what kind of underhanded bullshit the BATFE will try now that they've been properly slapped down.

Launch Report - 2/7/2009

First rocket launch of the season for me, and it was pretty doggone good. The sky is sunny and the temps are an unseasonably warm 50-ish. If only there was less wind (10-20mph), not that it stopped anyone.

As I drove up to Great Meadow, I saw that the launch range was on the back side of the field. I understand this is probably a permanent change, but no matter, the new setup works just fine with plenty of parking.

So what did I fly?

1. Estes Snitch - D12-0/C6-3 - This is the plastic ready-to-fly UFO from Estes. I CHAD-stage (CHeap And Dirty) the D12 to give it a swift kick, and then the second motor lights when it's up there. Always fun, and I almost landed the saucer in the trash can near the range head.

2. YJ-218 - 2x C6-7 - My oldest and most-flown cluster rocket, very reliable. Once again, perfection.

3. Zen Doggie - 3x A6-4 - Three little Quest motors in this cluster, making another proving flight after I modified the fin geometry. Nice launch, not very high, but a perfect flight. I think this rocket is ready for more power.

4. Barenaked Lady - E18-7 - Ultralight rocket and big honkin' motor (for this rocket) equals big altitude. My longest walk of the day, maybe 300 yards, right to the edge of the field. Oh yeah, the copperhead igniter worked first time (wonder of wonders).

5. Angel - D12-3 - This ring-fin did a little tail waggle on the way up. I knew the delay was too short, but it was all I had. Not that it mattered, because the chute got tangled and never opened. I have some minor repairs to do, but she'll be ready to fly again in no time.

That was it for me. I talked to old friends, caught up on some East Coast rocket gossip, and helped a kid and his dad put a new shock cord on their rocket. For some reason, they thought that it would be a good idea to use hot-melt glue. Oh well, they now know better, and I set 'em up with a good length of kevlar shock cord.

These launch reports may bore you, but I use them to document my flights over the years. As always (well, except for this time because I forgot), y'all are invited to attend our club rocket launches. Spectators welcomed, low-power (Estes-sized) flies for free, and it's a good chance to do something interesting with the family.