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Day 126 - Hat-trick and Macquarie University Astronomy
Open Night
Setting up for the first launch.
First hat-trick flight. Launched with foam.
Just prior to pulling the hat off.
About 15m of string.
With the extra drag the rocket didn't go all
that high.
No worries!
You can see the shadow of the hat just as it
came off.
Looking back towards Doonside Road.
Good landing.
Last launch of the day is pointed away from
the trees.
Also landed well.
Getting "Waterless" ready to fly on
a F20-7W
Rocket retrieved successfully 500m
downrange.
Macquarie University Open Night
Starting to set up the displays about 2
hours before the doors open.
There was a quite a large crowd that came to
the open night.
Explaining the finer details of water
rockets.
A lot of club members came to talk to the
public about rockets.
200-300 people gather around for the static
motor firing.
Static motor firing of a G64.
Date:
27th
October 2012, 8:45am - 12:30pm
Location:Doonside, NSW, Australia
Conditions:15 - 25km/h , ~20C, blue
skies, partly cloudy later.
Team Members at Event: PK and
GK
Launch Procedure
This week we took our regular Axion
rockets to Doonside. We wanted to get the
Shadow II ready for this launch but with
work commitments we ran out of time. The day
was fairly windy anyway so we wouldn't have
been able to launch even if the rocket had
been ready. We had to replace the LiPo
batteries on the Shadow because power was
accidentally left on and they were
completely drained.
The first
launch of the morning was dedicated to
filming our set up and launch procedure as
we've now had a number of people request a
video of how we carry out a typical launch.
Hat-trick
The day before launch Dad came up with
the idea that we should get the rocket to
pull a hat off our head during launch. So we
worked out the details on the way to the
launch site.
The second and third launches were done
to film the hat-trick videos. We decided to
use about 15m of string from the rocket to
the hat so that the rocket had enough time
to accelerate. We knew the hat was going to
be a bit of a drag on the rocket so we
shortened the deployment delay on the
parachute by 1 second. We also laid the
string out zig-zag style on a box so that it
wouldn't get caught on the grass.
We also did a couple of practice pulls of
the string to see what it was going to do.
Dad had the hat on very lightly so there was
no effort to pull it off.
Both launches
went well and the rocket landed without
issues. In the onboard video you really
couldn't see the hat clearly, but you could
see the jolt on the rocket as it pulled it
off dad's head. (see
highlights video)
We also launched my "Waterless" pyro
rocket on a F20-7W. The launch rod pointed
down wind a little and with the strong
breeze the rocket took off at a bit of an
angle. It flew great and the predicted
altitude was around 1800 feet. We didn't fly
a camera or altimeter on the rocket because
there was a chance we were going to loose
the rocket. Even with a small chute it
landed over 500m away down range. Thanks to
Norm and David for helping to retrieve the
rocket. We had another motor ready to go but
decided to wait for another calmer day.
The last launch of the day was just the
Axion rocket which we now pointed down range
because the wind had swung around and was
now heading directly for the big trees. The
rocket flew well but again coned on the way
up. We're not quite sure why that is, perhaps due
to the camera strapped to the side or
a slight bend in the rocket? We need to re-align
the fins too as the rocket rolls more than
we would like especially for video flights.
Here is a
highlights video from the day:
Macquarie University Astronomy Open
Night
A couple of weeks ago NSWRA had a stand at the
Macquarie University astronomy open night.
It was a great night with a huge turnout. We
had quite a few people from the club helping
to man the stand and helping out with the
demos as well. We did the G64 static motor
firing outside and had around 200-300 people
come and watch which was a lot more than we
were expecting. Overall it was a great
success and a number of people expressed
interest in coming out to watch or
participate in future launches.
