Today was the last launch day at Doonside. Unfortunately the NSWRA club has had to relocate due to the ever expanding urban sprawl in Sydney. We've been watching the housing expand right next to the flying field over the past couple of years, and knew that time was limited. The new location isn't as large and is about 10 minutes further than Doonside, but it should still be fine for most of our rockets. The club is also looking at a number of high power launch sites where we will be able to launch much bigger rockets than at Doonside.

For the last launch at Doonside we decided to just bring a few of the smaller rockets. (We're still flat out working on the Polaron G2)

The first flight of the day was continued the roll correction flights from last time. The flight went well and on video review we noticed that the trim this time was too much in the other direction so we put some trim back in.

On the second flight the rocket went up well but the parachute got snagged on a fin and failed to inflate properly. The rocket came down nose first. The nosecone fairing was damaged as was the top bottle, but all the electronics survived so it will be an easy repair. Again the ejection mechanism survived the crash mostly intact. The video though turned out great and the rocket had virtually no roll during the entire ascent.

 

We've seen quite a few people using the new keychain cameras (808 #16 V3) that already come fitted with a wide angle lens so a couple of months ago we bought one in preparation for some of the bigger projects we want to fly at the high power launch site. We used the camera on this launch to evaluate its performance. The wide angle allows you to see so much more of the ground. We were quite happy with the performance.

The last 3 launches of the day were all with foam, with the last 2 launched at 125psi. All the flights went well and landed safely. Other than the small tangle it was a very good day for rockets. There were quite a few pyro rockets launched on G motors and a couple on H's as well.

Some of the rockets flown by other club members on the day

Coming in for a soft landing

 

 

Downloading video between flights

Locking up Doonside for the last time

Here is a highlights video from the day.

The next launch report should come from the new launch site.

Flight Details