As with last years report, I'm not going to go into great depth about what everyone flew, apart from mentioning a couple of the big flights. This launch report is more about what I got up to, since I managed to fly three times and get my UKRA Level 2 certification. I was supposed to be helping out but didn't really do anything in the end, which was a refreshing change from running the monthly EARS launches. I'd also ran Big EARS, which was an official UKRA event, so I wasn't too bothered by not doing as much as some others.

The UKRA event was on for three days this year, which is a first and I was intending on going along on the Thursday night so that I was there the whole time. As it turned out I got a job interview on the Friday, so I ended up getting there late on the Friday evening. After pinching a table and getting all setup, I was ready to start finishing off those small job that were needing done on Psychodelic, my Level 2 rocket. Many thanks to Paul Shackleton, who lent an extra pair of hands to hold the rocket and an eagle eye to get the Hypertek vent tube in place. After getting my rocket into a flyable state, all that was left to do was drink some beer and shoot the breeze with all the other flyers.

After a quick breakfast of peanut butter sarnies, I retired to the loo for a final read of the Level 2 study guide, before going off to sit the exam. I was a bit worried about a few of the questions in the exam, but it's more of a memory test than anything else and I ended up passing with 100%! So everything was set, I had my free Hypertek motor, I'd managed to persuade Pete to put the hammerhead tank and 0.125" orifice on it so that it was a K240 and the rocket was ready to go. I headed up to the flight line after being supervised putting the rocket together and borrowed one of Chris Eilbeck's trackers and Steve Woolhead's pad, I was ready to go.

I was starting to get really nervous at this point as I'd never flown a Hypertek before and the rocket was unproven, even though it boasted my best ever construction effort. A few deep breaths and encouraging words for those around me and I was ready to start with filling the tank with nitrous. It seemed to take ages to fill, but was only about 80 seconds before it really started venting. I hit the button for the oxygen and then immediately hit the spark button and the rocket leaped off the pad trailing screams and farts.

The flight was nominal, although it didn't go as high as I would have liked, but the best thing was that recovery was about 75 yards from Pete's shop, so I didn't have to walk far to return the motor. The altimeter recorded 3,779 feet, which was way lower than the simulations had predicated, I did use an old files for them, so it was probably to be expected. After downloading the data, I cleaned the motor up and returned it to Pete, before I started to prepare the rocket for its second flight on the might K1100.

I've had a K1100 in my range box for ages and I'd always planned on using it to certify Level 2 on. Since I was made redundant at the end of October last year, I haven't really had any money to buy motors with, so the opportunity of a free motor was just too good to pass up. I felt a bit bad about not using K1100, but in my current situation getting a free motor is a godsend.

I borrowed a casing from Cath Bashford and set about building the motor, it was at this point I made my big mistake. Still high on the buzz of passing my Level 2, I just assumed that I had an extra long delay as that's what I'd wanted to fly with, in fact I had a medium delay. The motor went together with no problems, as did the rest of the rocket and it wasn't long before I was ready to take the rocket back up to the range head.

While I had been preparing my rocket, Hugh Gemmell had been finalising the preparation of his Level 3 flight. So when I got my rocket onto the pad, I had to wait a short while until Hugh had launched his, so that the trackers wouldn't interfere with each other. Hugh's flight was really cool and the noise from over 150m away was most impressive, I really wish I could have been closer. All too soon it was my turn and with everything armed and ready I pressed the button, nothing happened, so I pressed it again. While I was looking down at the controller, the motor lit, so I didn't get to see the full ignition sequence of this glorious motor, which was a bit of a shame.

I knew something was wrong, when the rocket separated while still travelling at speed. Luckily I build the rocket strong so when the Skyangle chute was turfed out by the altimeter, everything held together. The problem now was having a rocket under a very large main chute at over 4,000 feet, which meant that I was going to have to do a bit of walking to recover it. Initially I set out with Wilhelm, although we decided after two fields that we should really have brought some tracking equipment.

After returning to base, I picked up Chris Eilbeck and off we set with all of Chris' tracking gear. We walked straight to the rocket with no problems at all and it was all recovered with no damage. The use of trackers is something I'm going to have to investigate more and may be even have a brain fart about, in high crops they are totally indispensable.

Once back at base, I downloaded the altimeter data and looking at the altitude graph, the time that separation occurred is very close to the stated length of a medium K1100 delay. So I went and dug out the packaging from the bin and sure enough, where I though I had an extra long delay, I in fact only had a medium. Not a greatest of starts to being a Level 2 flyer.

On the Saturday evening I had a quick UKRA council meeting followed by a quick EARS committee meeting before I could get myself down to The Agra for a serious curry. The Agra just gets better and better, as they now do a proper vegetarian menu that has everything cooked in vegetable oil rather than gee. To celebrate to two flights and my Level 2 I plumped for the Potato Madras, absolutely lovely!

Sunday morning dawned all grey and miserable, which in no great surprise as there's always a really bad days weather at any UKRA event. The cloud base was low and the wind was up and it really didn't look like it was going to clear. I prepared Jabiru with a J570, just in case, as you never know what the weather will do next and headed up to the flight line.

Now, if truth be told I should never have attempted to fly the rocket as it was clearly going to go into the cloud, I should also not have been allowed to fly it by the RSO, but there you go. Jabiru ended up on a pad with an ignitor in the motor and angled slightly into the wind to take the edge of the altitude. I waited for a higher gap in the clouds, because there were a few about, and then went for it. Wow those J570 are fast! The rocket left the pad like there was no tomorrow and streaked up into the sky before disappearing from view.

I'm really glad I put Chris Eilbeck's tracking in my rocket before flying it, as no one saw the rocket come back down, although Chris immediately got a track on it. So off we set to the other side of the village with Hugh Gemmell's tracking equipment, after a heart stopping moment when the battery died in Chris' receiver. We stared a basic triangulation pattern and very soon had a position on a map where the rocket should be close to.

So we both set into a field following the trackers signal, very soon we had to attenuate the receiver, as we were getting very close. Normally at this point you can see the main parachute sitting on top of the crops, but there was no evidence of the main parachute. As we got even closer, I had to hand Chris all the tracking gear, as I'm just not skilled enough with it at the moment. Chris got us even closer by fiddling with the connectors and I was beginning to get a bit worried as we should have been standing on it, but there was still no sign of the parachute.

I was beginning to think the unthinkable, the tracker may have fallen out of the rocket and were chasing that and not the rest of the rocket. I walked a few paces forward and suddenly heard the being from my RDAS Compact, so I looked down and was practically standing on the rocket. The reason that no main chute was evident was because it hadn't fully deployed, it had rotated in the airframe tube and got stuck. The only damage to the airframe was a small chip at the nose cone end of the payload tube, amazing since it had basically flat spun in from over 5,800 feet.

Over all the event was really good, I finally got my Level 2, I finally flew that K1100, I flew my first hybrid motor and flew over a mile in height. So it was quite a successful weekend for me even with the glitches I had along the way.

There are no photos at the moment due to the fact that the computer that has the film scanner attached to it is bust. As soon as I can get some of the images scanned in, I'll put a selection in this report.

Copyright © 1999-2007, Fatboab, all rights reserved.
Please read the copyright notice regarding use of my photos.
Website, HTML code & graphic design by Fatboab.

Last update: Tuesday, 30-Mar-2004 03:44:49 EST