Launchimage


As you can see from these images, there were modifications made to the motor mount design and in the number of motor tubes. Eight 38 mm motor tubes were added to the central 98mm core. and a 54 mm adapter was made to allow the widest possible motor configurations for flight. I used plastic plumbing pipe to facilitate running wires for the ejection charges and the accelerometer, this allowed me to place the accelerometer more towards the front of the rocket and run the cables for ignition of the outboards through this guide. The guides worked extremely well in both directions, it was also used to carry the ejection charge wire from an altimeter placed in one of the empty 38mm tubes.	Seeing my level 2&3 bird standing next to this Estes Phoenix makes me wonder how I ever got it off the ground. I am still surprised at how far rocketry has come since I was a kid. The rocket weighed about 23 pounds at this point with no weight in the nose at all. The upper fins were placed into the tube after the motor mount had been installed. If I was to do it over again I would slit the tube the entire length to accommodate the mounting of the upper fins directly to the inner motor mount their entire length.
The nosecone was made into a payload section to accommodate a wide range of weights. Melted lead shot was made into castings of slugs at various weight increments. These slugs allowed me to adjust the CP/CG relationship for the various motor /flight configurations possible. The lead slugs were cored and then placed over the rod, the rod is permanently mounted to the inside of the nosecone and acts as the safety to keep the weights in place.	The recovery system used a Cambridge Group Accelerometer the IAX-95 and a Pratt ECS2B with two deployment charges of fourteen grams each. Charge one was hooked to channel one on the Cambridge and Channel two on the Pratt. Charge 2 was connected to channel 1 on the Pratt. Charge one was to be fired at apogee or T-max which was 11.97 seconds by the Cambridge and charge two was to be a backup which I could fire manually.
Being prepped for flight with a Rocketman R14 for recovery.

All three motors were lit simultaneously using electric matches and thermalite, I had prepped the rocket using thermalite in Teflon tubes to airstart the outboards after the K1100, as was recommended to me by my Prefect. At the prep table though the RSO (Sonny Thompson) decided it would be better to light all three motors simultaneously. He removed the teflon tubes and set all three motorswith electric matches, this resulted in the smaller diameter I-283's pressurizing first as you can see in the picture above. Due to this the Rocket had insuffcient thrust when the top guide cleared the the Rod causing it to fall slightly and this placed the trajectory at an angle less than desired. Exactly (.7) seconds later the K1100 reached full pressure and flamed on just after this picture was taken. It then reached an altitude of about 700 feet where it weather cocked hard into the wind. It then weather cocked again at burnout, where because of the lighter aft section it became stable. It continued in about a 50 degree flight path until it reaching aproximately 1800 feet. At this time the Cambridge unit fired the number one charge at Tmax or 11.97 seconds. I fired the Pratt which deployed the chute using the second charge. It actually took both charges to blow the nosecone. The 14 foot Rocketman chute then deployed bringing the rocket back safely.

[Note: I am looking for a photo taken after the K1100 lit. If you have one please email me]