At 7:30 a.m., Orlando was already humid and HOT!
From ground level I couldn't feel any wind . . .
Here's one last look at the CORKSCREW.
It looked great spiraling during boost with the A3-4t in it's tail.
At ejection the drift was evident and it landed in some body's back yard.
I rarely lose rockets, maybe one out of 100 launches.
Not a big deal losing this one, I've got plenty of spare parts to make another.
The FRANKEN GOBLIN probably got 200' altitude with an A8-3 engine.
After losing the Corkscrew to the winds I made a launch rod adjustment on my camera tripod launcher. Under a spill holed parachute, it landed within 25' feet of the pad. I did catch this one before it hit the ground.
My Powered FLIC had a straight boost with an A10-3t engine to 650' feet. It did drift a bit and hit the basketball court surface hard. One fin was bent on landing but Scotch tape makes it an easy repair.
Here's my Starlight JAYHAWK. The A8-3 boost took it up to 275'.
Recovery looked good until I picked up the model.
The nose cone canard and leading edge of one large fin took a hard hit.
It's not easily repairable, but I'll patch it enough to fly again.
Also flown:
The carded downscale PIGASUS with a Quest MicroMaxx engine. Straight up, nose blow ejection and straight down. Altitude was an estimated 75 feet.
Jawhawk: OWCH! I feel for you. And I'll keep that in mind when I get around to building mine. How could that be avoided? Longer shock cord? Chute closer to the NC?
ReplyDeleteHi Ray,
ReplyDeleteWho knows why? I always make my shock cords plenty long. I don't usually attach my chutes at the nose cone but 1/3 the way down. Probably just a real hot shotgun ejection charge.
"Smileys" (half-round body tube dents in the nose cone) just happen sometimes!
Chris
I noticed the engines I got from the Boy Scouts online store clearance have really violent ejections. Did you use one of those engines with it?
ReplyDeleteHi Ray,
ReplyDeleteNo, I haven't even opened a box from the ScoutStuff sale yet! It's not just the engines from the ScoutStuff clearance.
Since getting back into the hobby a few years back, I have noticed stronger ejection charges from all Estes engines. Even before I bought my engines from the ScoutStuff clearance engines from many other sources had big ejections. These "shotgun" ejections have been talked about quite a bit on the forums over the past couple of years and are not limited to the clearance engines from Scout Stuff.
It might be Estes' way of insuring a parachute ejection in a bigger model with a larger tube to pressurize? Who knows?
I still use Estes engines that are over 35 years old. They still work fine and the ejections seem much milder.
It's not just you - it's across the board, wherever you get Estes engines it seems.
Chris