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Flight #3
She's very Python-esque in appearance, and at almost 34", nearly the same length, if much thinner. Tipping the scales at only 3½ ounces, you wouldn't think she really needs the 24 mm motor mount I frenched into her with a couple of modified BT-5055 centering rings, but without it she was gonna be a rather pokey performer.
Her first flight on a D12-5 melted the lower portion of the fin canister, so I had to cut off the bottom ½ inch. The exposed motor mount tube was pretty discolored, so I sectioned a piece of Rogue motor mount tube that has a brilliant red finish and CAed it over the top. The resultant poor-man's boat tail and slight reduction in weight actually improves her performance a little. Ejection was way early, verifying my drag estimate (which is another way of saying that I didn't believe it), and as a result, she popped two shroud lines loose on the Estes pre-built 18" 'chute, so I replaced that with a nylon unit also from Rogue. While the Pratt Hobbies heat shield parachute protector held up and did its job pretty well, their 100# test safety line that I used between the motor block and the shock cord didn't. Not its fault, I guess, this isn't the first rocket its failed on; I suppose its just not meant for that kind of work. I replaced it with a section of Rogue 300# test Kevlar.
Her next flight was on a D12-7, which ejected just a bit late, but recovery was perfect. Drift is an issue, she wound up almost a mile away in a small marsh. No damage, though, so she's back in the active stable. Her next D12-7 shot was done with a Rogue 12" nylon 'chute and she came down a lot faster. Since this could produce some damage, I'm going to replace it with a 14" unit before she flies a D again.
Before the conversion, though, I put her up on a couple of C6-5s just to see how she'd behave, and she did pretty well. Ejection darn near dead on, and recovery was fine with no damage. I'll keep the 12" 'chute handy for those motors. I then flew her on the D13-7, boy does that scoot! Ejection was a bit early with that D motor, too, but it was sweet and the girl suffered no ill effects.
Her next loft was on a C11, and even though it was windy, she didn't weathercock a bit. This might be a good bird for predicted duration. Ejection was right at apogee and recovery was flawless. The motor after that was the D15, and while not as impressive as the D13, she moved out quickly. I didn't see ejection, there was a full cloud cover, but recovery was perfect and no damage was apparent.
She's done so well on the low impulse D motors, that I jumped up to the E15 for her next flight. It went great, incredibly high, and I had to count on other rocketeers to track it. Recovery was a good distance from the pad, but I got a good line of sight and had the bird back in just a few minutes. Another flight on the D12-7 was early, but still a great flight, especially compared to the stock Nike-Ks that flew against her that day.
Her next four flights were on the C6-5, and these carried the PerfectFlite microAlt 4600 altimeter in the payload bay. Some modifications were necessary for this to work; I attached the bay to the coupler with a pair of tiny metal screws and drilled two air holes in the top to allow air in and out. With the motor adapter and altimeter installed she massed ~113 grams, which was gonna make her later on the five second motor than usual. This was fine, as I wanted the altimeter to give me a true apogee reading. I discarded the errant data from one flight and came up with two at 420 feet and a third at 440, for an average of 427 feet. Backing her Cd out of wRASP with this yields a 0.645, very close to AeroDRAG's prediction of 0.634.
Her next four flights were on D12-7s. The first was on an older engine that had to be reignited, and the nozzle suffered as a result. Recorded altitude was only 920 feet, but as she wiggled off the rod under deflected thrust, I discarded this datapoint. The next three flights were all to 960 feet, which yielded an estimated Cd of 0.639, again, very close to the models'.
She's flown many, many times since on D12-7s or C11-5s, and lately with a bit 4x40 inch streamer. Once was to get a qualified flight in D Streamer Duration in competition, and another was on the C for a demo at Middletown High School. She's been surprisingly durable.
| Engine(s) | AGL (ft.) | Speed (ft./sec.) | Accel (Gs) |
|---|---|---|---|
| C6-5 | 535 | 175 | 10.9 |
| C11-5 | 490 | 195 | 16.6 |
| D12-7 | 1,085 | 320 | 21.0 |
| D13-7 | 1,290 | 390 | 17.8 |
| D15-7 | 1,170 | 355 | 21.5 |
| D21-7 | 1,310 | 450 | 26.3 |
| D24-7 | 1,275 | 435 | 32.0 |
| E15-7 | 2,340 | 560 | 19.1 |
| E18-7 | 2,080 | 545 | 18.5 |
