Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Baby Bertha Fest - Coming this Spring

I'm officially delaying this until the spring. Hopefully I can work in another group launch in early November however.

I'm still processing the 5,000 pictures I took during Oktoberfest. Hopefully I'll get those up later this week. Lots of great shots.. both pictures and launches.

Monday, September 29, 2008

Baby Bertha Fest and Oktoberfest

I think I'm going to delay the Baby Bertha fest until the spring. I'm not going to be able to get mine built or it organized before November at this rate.

I'll be attending NCR's Oktoberfest this weekend. Friday-Sunday rockets all day, I'm excited.

Monday, August 11, 2008

Baby Bertha Fest

Coming in September.... Baby Bertha Drag Races! I've asked all my rocket building friends to build a Baby Bertha kit. Then in Sept. we are all going to get together for a launch day and spend it solely on the Berthas. I think we have enough pads to do a 4+ drag race as well as other fun things. So if you are in the Broomfield area and want to join in, start building.

Monday, August 4, 2008

Saturday's launch report


IMG_1685
Originally uploaded by ActiveOptics
Several people joined me early Saturday morning to do some low-power flights. Justin, Kevin, Jeremiah, Andy and his son all made it out. We flew a lot with several great flights and recoveries. I'll have a nice photo of all the spent motors up later tonight that gives some indication of the flights we did.

I tested The Outsider (seen at the right), the first flight went decent, the second flight I jumped from one A8-3 to a C6-5 and 2 A8-3 motors. The C6-5 was just too powerful and caused all kinds of problems. Both boosters ripped up early, then it sustainer took off horizontal and slammed into a concrete step across the field. The sustainer was destroyed, the boosters are re-usable with a little work.


Overall we had a great time and all the new launch electronics, etc. worked very well. If you'd like to see all the photos from our little launch day please visit my Flickr Page.

I ended up flying:
The Outsider x2 (1 failure)
Eulogy x1 solid recovery... in a tree.
36 D Squared x1 great boost on two E's, recovery failure, undamaged
The Patient x1 on a C11-3, great flight to 450'
Vanishing x1 on a E9-6, flight to 2053' but the ejection charge fried the body tube
Blue Streak x1/2 shredded on an Aerotech D21
Big Daddy x2 the Aerotech E30 blew out the baffle, I flew it again on a C11-3, perfect low altitude flight with ejection right at apogee.

Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Did some work last night

I got my Kevlar supplies finally so I was able to get some more work done. I glued in the Kevlar line and 1/2 an Estes shock cord to Vanishing. A somewhat difficult feet given that its a minimum dia. rocket and the engine block is already in place. Hopefully it will hold.

I also tied the lines around the engine pods for The Outsider and hope to have it ready to launch this Saturday, we'll see how that goes.

I started work on an Estes Big Daddy to launch this weekend. I'm only doing minor changes to the kit; Kevlar shock cord with 1/2 estes cord, ejection baffle (first try at this), papered fins, foaming the fin can/motor mount. It will most likely fly unpainted.

Oh, I also got a box and the parts together for my 12v cluster ignitor and made a 6 lead clip-whip to light off forthcoming clusters.

More to come after I get another build night on Wednesday.

Friday, July 25, 2008

Next launch date - 8/2 9AM - Broomfield Commons

I'll be heading out with some friends to do launches on 8/2 at Broomfield Commons park. If you are in the area and want to come launch with us, stop by. I plan on setting up around 9AM and flying for several hours.

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Attended my first High Power launch

I went to the Northern Colorado Rocketry club Research Launch on the 19th and 20th. Their site is located on a national grassland in northern Colorado. It was a beautiful area that reminded me a lot of Wyoming where I grew up.

In attendance was a great group of rocketeers that took me in and made me feel very welcomed. Everyone was very patient with my questions and invited me to hang around and assist with things.

I also met Ray LaPanse who gave me some wonderful tips on rocket photography and really helped me get up to speed quickly.

To see all the pictures I took this past weekend check out my Flickr Collection

Here is one of the major projects that was launched, Freeze Frame: