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Photo: Shane Miles

Photo: Shane Miles

Date:  25th June 2011 8:30am - 1:00pm
Location: Doonside, NSW, Australia
Conditions:  Calm, blue skies, perfect flying conditions, temp ~20C
Team Members at Event: John K and GK

I've had a really busy the last 2 weeks so only a quick update this week....

Servo Timer II

In the last few weeks we've been focusing on getting the STII finally finished along with all the associated testing and documentation so there hasn't been much time for actual rocket building. Construction of the timers has been going a lot faster now than the first few prototypes. I was originally going to get someone else to do the assembly on all the timers, but it turns out that it's not that time consuming so I am just making them in my spare time. We only did a small initial run, but with the great response from water rocketeers, I've had to place an order for more components for more of the timers. The support is very much appreciated. We'd be very keen to hear from the people who purchased the timers about your experiences with them. 

2 weeks ago we also did a few more test flights with the production versions to make sure the timers were behaving themselves properly with the new firmware changes. We have now flown the timers on close to 20 flights from small to large rockets.

We also made a small test jig for the timers so that it makes it easier to test each of them fully after they are assembled.

Launch Day Report

We got to the launch site at around 8:30am to be greeted by beautiful blue skies and virtually no wind. The new launcher was quickly set up (I'm definitely liking the new launcher) and the first rocket was on the pad within 15 minutes. We did 5 launches in all some with water only and some with foam. All the rockets used the new STII. We were particularly interested in the slow takeoffs during foam launches to see how well the timers trigger, In all the flights the timers performed well.

On the third flight the parachute came out, but either got tangled around a fin or rail button. I think the main problem there was that the shock cord was too short and the parachute didn't go past the end of the rocket. So the parachute inflated right about where the fin is. Because of the flapping parachute the rocket had increased drag and although it hit hard only minor damage was done. The top two bottles on the rocket were bent and nosecone fairing was damaged, but the whole payload and electronics survived without a problem and will be re-used as is.

Here is a brief video from the flight day.

Williams "Wildfire" Westernationals 2011

In June I took the whole family to Williams which is about 2 hours out of Perth for Australia's largest pyro rocket launch event of the year. Like last year it was an amazing experience to see so many big rockets go up. There were quite a few highlights including an N2000 drag race between the CGN and QRS guys, the "Mach Madness" competition, with Dave and Simon taking out the top prize at Mach 2.64 and some very interesting rockets including Mike's "Shock Factor" ... with 850 feet of shock cord! There were quite a few certification attempts as well from L1 to a couple of people doing their L3. Congratulations to all those who certified. Chris even managed to break the sound barrier on his L1 certification flight! Andrew's micro-hybrid that went over 1000' was very cool as well.

A big thank you goes to Dave and Mel for organizing such a great event.  All the rocketeers were very well looked after. The whole family really enjoyed the weekend.

I took plenty of video at the event, and even now am still processing it. So far I've put together a video of the drag race, and I'm about half way through editing the first of two highlights videos. Here is the drag race:

There is serious talk now about NSW putting together an entry into the drag race for next year. That should be a fun club build. :)

We also flew the HD camera on Dave's big M to M project called "Starsky and Hutch" (see photo on left), but unfortunately the sustainer failed to light and crashed heavily destroying the camera. We never found the SD card so we don't know if the video on it was good. In any case it was a spectacular flight and I'll post some ground footage of it soon. Luckily the cameras are easily replaceable. Dave should be able to repair the rocket and fly it again.

Here is a photo thread on the forum from the weekend: http://ausrocketry.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=37&t=3045&start=15

Flight Details - Doonside