emFire

One goal I had for this year's Balls was to clean out the motor box a bit. Back in 2007, Todd and I had cast up an oxamide-laden 98/17.5k for John Van Norman, but the finished product had speckles in the grains that we didn't quite trust, so we elected to scrub the burn. We static tested a few smaller motors from the batch with some success, and so after 12 years I finally screwed up the courage to try and burn some of the bigger stuff. I split the original grains into two 3g loads, figuring the environments would be less intense than in the aggressive 6XL environment of the 17.5k case. emFire was a natural fit for this reload—with the oxamide, it was going to be slow, and it was! The morning was windless and cloudless, and after Waysie gave the five-count, emFire slowly rose from the pad on a ratty smokeless orange plume. James Russell commented to me on the cleanliness of the exhaust; it was a surprising change of pace! As the R14 popped at apogee, I was once again relieved that there was no wind involved, as recoveries in this corner of Black Rock had been quite harrowing, and I didn't want to end up too far off the lakebed. (What's the point of having a launch at Black Rock if we're flying from the brush, anyway?) Descent took forever, but the rocket gently touched down and settled in to the brush just over the first row of mud hills. Dad and I were easily able to walk out and get it back.

This motor was originally intended for my IQSY Tomahawk in Indiana, but after I cracked the fins on its last flight I never got around to flying it. When Ryan was in town, we dug around in the magazine and found it all bonded and ready to go. Ryan prepped the rest of the motor while I did avionics and deployment charges and packed the chute. The morning of, we picked up Cancel on the way to the MTA and arrived in style around 11:00 (fashionably late). Final prep was fast, and we had it on the pad in no time. Ryan did the honors, and things were off and away on a nice blue flame that elicited comments from the sugar-happy FAR attendees. (That case seals, even with paint on the inside of it, oops.) Deployment was of the single variety, and after the chute appeared, we spent several relaxing minutes lying on the ground staring skyward at the neon green jellyfish slowly lowering the bird to the ground.

The race to complete emFire was a sprint to the finish line, as I was painting the booster section and nose cone the night before, but it all came together in flyable condition for Perchlorathon. I traded in one of my last L630s for an L1175 from Frank to get the rail speed up a little bit. Prep went smoothly, with apogee-only deployment (since my ARRD was destroyed at Balls...) of a Rocketman R14C. I hauled the bird out to the pad on my shoulder, armed the avionics, and installed the igniter. My primary concern was the structural integrity of the recovery attachment bulkhead; I had spent the evening before the launch feverishly filleting and fiberglassing it in to make sure it didn't pull out, so hopefully the epoxy was cured! Hulan called out the count and hit the button; the igniter popped and the motor ROARED to life, lifting emFire gently into the air. The thunder continued for another three seconds or so before the motor shut down with a pronounced puff of black smoke. The big delay element gave nice smoke up to apogee, where the black powder did its thing and deployed the chute; it was all together, and I could breathe again. The landing was gentle about 3/4 of a mile from the pad. A perfect first flight.