Perchlorathon January 2006
January 2006
/ Lucerne Dry Lake
2 flights, 3220 N-sec burned
The first Perchlorathon of 2006 had beautiful weather, with no breeze and only a few thin clouds. Eric and I burned off a bunch of motors, including a few high pressure tests of our blue propellant, and a 2550 white in Charlie's "UPS Yours" (which apparently went into orbit). It was a great day of flying.
Flight 1: Arcas, AMW K240
When I got my 76mm cases from Hulan, they came with a few reloads, including one two-grain and two three-grain Skidmarks. These were the old Skid formulation, with a dash of yellow iron oxide (rather than the heaping spoonfuls in the new AMW loads), making them really slow - and really spectacular. The 2-grain load went in the Arcas at this launch, and put on quite the show. Though it only made it to 6000 feet (as opposed to the 8k+ it should do on a full K), it was worth it!
Altitude: 5,876 ft
others: me 'n eric | liftoff
video
Flight 2: Thor, Kosdon K350
We had a 1400 blue load to burn, but I wanted to be sure and burn my K350 for the case first, just in case the blue was a bit more aggressive than planned. So we loaded up the Thor and put her on the pad. The flight was normal until about 1000' up, when an apparently loose payload section wobbled a bit and caused the rocket to draw a few spirals in the air. This limited the maximum altitude, but the flight still ejected safely and returned to Earth under a SkyAngle 44" classic chute.
