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Well it was a cold day to begin with. But none the less I had to give the rocket system a try for the project. It was January 1st 2002, about 25 degrees outside and with a 10 mph wind. The first flight of the Vaughn Brothers VB Extreme 24 was on a Estes D12-5 motor. Everything went great flight wise. Straight boost, deployment right on time. When I arrived to the rocket after it had landed I noticed it wasn't beeping like it should be. When I got back to the car I asked our rocketry clubs president what he thought happened. He looked it over and thought it had maybe knocked the battery loose on landing, which clears the flight data memory. So I touched the battery and sure enough it was out of place. He let me borrow some tape so I could hold the altimeter battery in place better, and retain it during landing. Here are some pictures of me taping the battery in and prepping the rocket for its second test flight.
Boost on this one was good as well. It went even higher than the first one from our perspective. It landed in about the same place as the first one. When I got to it, I didn't hear any beeping. I was quite puzzled. On the walk back I contemplated what could have went wrong. I came to the conclusion that I had the jumper set wrong. I thought I might have had the altimeter in the wrong mode or setting. When I got back to the car I detached the leads and let it sit for a while (I was freezing cold). When I went back to prep it for a third flight I asked the club president again on his thoughts. He reminded me of what is called the altimeter set height. This means that the altimeter must reach a certain altitude before it will begin recording. As he was talking I turned the altimeter back on. Instead of one long beep notifying me it was on, I heard beep-beep-beep - beep-beep-beep-beep - beep. The president and I looked at each other in amazement. "That was a reading! We actually got a reading!!!! 341 feet!!!! " I proclaimed. I was very pleased that it worked. As I then began to think of why the first one didn't work, I came to the conclusion it didn't reach the 300 foot mark to arm the altimeter. This would make sense because the second flight was obviously higher than the first from our ground perspective. Here are some more pictures from that launch.....
I decided to buy an "E" class motor to see how much more altitude we could get. I purchased an Aerotech E15-4. I loaded it up again, prepped the rocket and put it onto the pad. The first igniter didn't work. So I borrowed one from a friend and it lit but didn't light the motor. So I let it sit for a bit to make sure it was safe and then tried a third and final igniter. After fizzling on the pad the rocket screamed into the air. Easily going out of sight. When the ejection charge went off it kicked out the motor instead of ejecting the parachute. I cringed as I thought of what I might find when I located my rocket. After searching for about an hour with my mom, we located the rocket laying on it side, with fatal damage. The entire front end of the rocket was smashed in, the coupling where it separated to allow for parachute deployment was jammed together. And worst of all, the $114 altimeter was snapped in half. I was horrified. Here are some pictures of the destroyed rocket, altimeter and me discussing what happened with fellow rocketeers.
While chatting about what happened some suggestions came up that I'm going to try in my next rocket. First off it's going to be painted a bright orange, so it will be found easily. Second I'm going to buy a slightly larger kit and put a motor retainer in so that wont happen again. Last but not least, I'm going to build some kind of reinforcement so the altimeter might be able to take a crash landing such as that. |
