70 Scouts, 140 model rocket engines, now I am sore and smell like Sulphur.
Martin_H
Posts: 4,051
Today was the pack's annual model rocket launch. Over the span of 2 1/2 hours an assistant and I packed 140 recovery streamers and engines. We then directed the scout to a launch pad where an assistant helped them launch their rocket. We then unload the spent casing, reloaded, and relaunched. We were close to one launch a minute which was quite a pace. We had a few misfires where the rocket doesn't leave the pad, and one loss of fins on takeoff with the predictable unstable flight. But overall things went off without a problem.
For the engineering meeting we're planning to build a small cardboard trebuchet. Which perhaps might not be the best idea, maybe we should stick with robots like last year.
For the engineering meeting we're planning to build a small cardboard trebuchet. Which perhaps might not be the best idea, maybe we should stick with robots like last year.
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This year was windy, so we mostly used A engines, with a few B's to see how the wind would take them. One leader put a C6 into a personal rocket and nearly lost it.
Last year we had perfect conditions, so we would occasionally throw a C6 into the mix so things wouldn't be so predictable.
Last year we launched one with a digital camera, this year things were too windy. We've never used an altimeter, but a small rocket with a C6 will go 1500 feet under good conditions.
When I was a teen I used to do multi-stage and altitudes of 2500 are achievable with black powder engines. If you switch over to composite engines that's small potatoes, but you need to get an FAA waver above a certain power. If you got that route, it is easiest to join a club and fly using their field and they coordinate with the FAA.
A young man in our club posted onboard video just this morning from his junior L1 certification flight (high power composite motor):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnBLKWxH4uM&feature=youtu.be
An awful lot of spinning, and his parachute attaches to the wrong point on the shock cord (leaving the two halves of the rocket banging against each other), but a successful flight, and you get a nice look at the abandoned Air Force runway we fly from.
The older scouts build them on their own, parents help their younger scout, we then inspect them and fix up any mistakes. I think there were only a few major goofs and we were able to resolve those. Yes,70 is a big group, so we split them into two subgroups and staggered the arrival time. That way there's less waiting around for the kids and it was easier for us to handle.
That was quite a flight. I paused the video just as it was arcing over and it was a great view.