Indiana Rocketry May 2013
May 2013
/ Ash Grove Site
1 flight, 2550 N-sec burned
The May launch snuck up on me, with finals and end-of-semester business, so I only had one rocket prepped. The forecast was pretty poor, but in the end the weekend was pretty good -- we had ~50 flights ranging from A to L, with only light rain for a few minutes on both days. The field was remarkably dry and the skies remarkably blue -- it was a nice way to end the Ash Grove season for this year!
Flight 1: Competitor 4, TDK K850
With wet weather on Saturday and windy weather on Sunday, I only got off one of two planned flights at Red Glare. Luckily, the wet ground also let us fly at Ash Grove one more time this season, providing the perfect opportunity to bang off flight #2. I showed up on Saturday morning without any rockets to fly, as it was a bit overcast. But throughout the day, the clouds cleared, so (twist my arm) I went back and grabbed the Competitor and buttoned it up to fly. Richard Cash donated shear pins and loaned me his tracker to speed prep along. By the time I got it ready, some big puffy cumulus clouds had showed up to darken the sky a bit and make the liftoff photos more dramatic. Richard, Tom, and I were the only ones there, so the flight went off without much fanfare -- a quick five count and the Competitor was airborne once again atop four feet of red shock waves. The photos don't do the flame justice -- but you can see how trashed the paint job is, I really need to repaint it. It turned into the light breeze and headed up to apogee; descent was a bit tumultuous on the drogue, but the main appeared on cue at 700' with the backup charge firing shortly after. The Perfectflite beeped out 7229', consistent with other 2550 flights -- we'll see how it does at the end of the month at mini MWP!
