Last year, I posted a video compilation of all the rocket launches I'd filmed up to that point, played in slow motion. I decided this will be an annual thing.
I got less video than I wanted to, but that turns out to have been a blessing. They're not all my rockets - some are from the Rocket Camp kids I taught last summer, and some are other CMASS members' rockets.
I missed my self-imposed deadline of December 31 for this year's video. It was a lot harder to trim down this year, because there are about 84 individual launches in this video!
But it's done. Enjoy.
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The FlisKits 13th Anniversary/Bill Spadafora Memorial launch with CMASS in Amesbury, Massachusetts last Saturday was awesome.
Seen above is the CMASS club flag, featuring a minuteman holding a rocket. I think it's beautiful.
A casual rocket launch with friends is a lot of fun, but joining a club, be it a NAR section or Tripoli prefecture, is a great way to enhance your rocketry experience. You get to meet other rocketeers, many of whom may have skills you haven't developed yet, from whom you can learn. You might also find yourself flying from a much bigger field - meaning you can fly high with less worry about not recovering your rockets.
I hadn't launched a rocket in many months, and I really had the itch. Still, I decided to take only five rockets, and ended up launching only four. Mostly, I wanted to check things out and see how a club launch worked. A few of my rockets, including the Quest Big Dog, have micro rail buttons on them, meaning they have to be launched from a pad with a Makerbeam or OpenBeam rail.
The Quest Big Dog on a Makerbeam rail pad
I have such a pad, but I didn't know if it would be OK to show up and just start setting it up. Rather than be presumptuous, I decided to take it slow at first, observe, and just see what a club launch was like.
People were arranged on one side of the range, most of them with those large tent canopies you see at picnics. Many of them had their rockets on display, either lying on blankets, or arranged carefully on racks. There were larger rockets than I'd ever seen in person before, and some really nice craftsmanship.
I was a little too shy at first to go around asking "Can I take pictures of your rockets for my blog?" so I don't have a lot of pictures of those. But a few rockets really impressed me.
There was one guy who had about five or six high power scale models of historic rockets: a Vostok, two Saturn V's, a Saturn B, and one other that I'm forgetting. They were beautiful.
Another guy had this rocket I recognized, but which really surprised me. It was an Estes Air Commander two-stage rocket.
What impressed me was the size of this rocket. I actually own this kit, but haven't taken it out of the bag yet, and I thought what I was looking at was some kind of upscale version. But it turns out this rocket is really bigger than I'd thought, and this guy's craftsmanship was simply amazing.
Well, to the launch...
There was a set of 12 low/mid power launch pads arranged in a circle, and further afield were three high power rail launch pads.
First of all, I lost my first ever scratch build, Janus I.
Pad 9, ready to go
Janus I, taking off for the last time
The flight was beautiful. But the rocket went much higher than I remember it going on its maiden flight. The winds were quite high, and despite the fact that the field was really large, it drifted away. I had my eye on it the entire time, but looked down at the ground for a split second to make sure I wasn't about to step on the booster stage, and when I looked back, I couldn't find it in the sky again. I walked to the edge of a field with enormously tall grass and thorns, and figured it must have been lost. It cost me about 8 bucks to build, so I decided I had to let it go, rather than spend an hour looking for it.
Rather than jump back in, I decided to watch some high power rocket launches, something I'd never before witnessed.
I don't know whose rocket this was, but it was one of the first we witnessed.
Liftoff from high power pad A!
These were so impressive.
My second launch was another scratch build, my three-motor cluster, Trident. I finally got the Q2G2 igniters installed correctly.
When installed correctly, the Q2G2 igniter is really solidly in there, and there's little chance of them falling out at the launch pad before ignition. If they weren't so darned expensive, I'd use them for every small rocket, not just cluster rockets.
When installing igniters in a cluster rocket, the igniters must be wired in parallel for reliable ignition. Here, I've twisted one end of each igniter to the others, then did the same for the second end of each igniter. This gives you two leads.
The launch two launch controller clips then go onto one or another of the twisted bundles.
When you go to a club launch, you have to fill out a flight card for each rocket you launch.
You fill in your name, the name of your rocket, type of recovery, and other pertinent information. Then you take your rocket to the Range Safety Officer, or RSO, who checks out the rocket to make sure it's flightworthy, then assigns you to a launch pad. You take your rocket to the pad, put it on the rod, hook up the launch controller leads to the igniter wires, and wait your turn to launch.
"Here goes nothing!"
Walking to the RSO station
Nervously showing my rocket to new people - more experienced rocketeers than I.
Waiting on the pad for launch
Unlike at a casual launch, at a club launch, you generally don't press the launch controller button yourself. The person who does that is the Launch Control Officer, or LSO. Over a PA system, he or she announces the rocket to be launched, the name of the rocketeer, and other interesting information, such as "This is his first club launch ever," or "This is a Level 1 Certification flight" (for those getting into high power rocketry). Then he or she does a countdown from 5 and launches the rocket.
Trident also flew really well - much higher than I thought it would. Then the shock cord broke. The parachute and nose cone drifted far away. I never did see it. The airframe fell back to earth and had a hard landing. A bit of damage, but I've actually fixed this rocket before. It's sturdy, and can take hard landings (including on asphalt. It flew three times at my rocket camp. The kids loved it, but it did have at least one hard landing!).
Still, I felt I wasn't having much luck. I decided to just observe for a bit, and had one of those famous CMASS hot dogs I'd heard so much about.
This post could be another really long one. I was there from 10:30 a.m. until 4:30 p.m, then helped break things down, and joined some of the club members for dinner. It was awesome. I'll just give you a few highlights.
I did decide to fly again, after a couple hours. I put a smaller motor in the Cosmic Explorer, and it flew well, but arced over the crowd. Not far over, and lot of rockets did this, but I was disappointed in myself that during my launch the LCO had to remind everyone to point their rockets away from the crowd. I did do this, but the Cosmic Explorer is what we'd call overstable, meaning it tends to weathercock, or arc into the wind, rather badly, so I should have angled it a little further downrange.
But it was a good flight. The chute opened perfectly, the rocket drifted back over the launch area, and I got the rocket back in one piece.
I didn't get this guy's name, but he had some beautifully-crafted scale models.
This is the Saturn IB, part of the Apollo program.
Also at the launch were some TARC students, members of the NASA Student
Launch Initiative, and some of the MIT Rocketry Team. I got this cool
video:
Here are some more pictures. Sorry I can't credit the rocketeers pictured - there were nearly 300 flights that day, and I didn't keep track of whose rocket was whose!
The Tin Man
This one moved fast! I was lucky to catch it.
This one too!
Joining or starting a rocketry club will greatly enhance your experience and knowledge as a rocketeer. I encourage you to do it.
Starting with the next post, I'm re-booting The Rocket N00b blog. Getting back to basics - rocketry for beginners, by a beginner. I realized recently I've gotten away from the basics, and skipped a lot of information for newbies. Partly this is because some of the more informative posts I've written (like the series on stability) take a while to research, write, and illustrate, in an attempt to get the information correct and make it understandable to a n00b.
Every time I'm on my way to launch rockets (only casually with friends, until tomorrow), I sing a little song that popped into my head one day.
It goes:
Get me to the launch on time Get me to the launch on time Da-dum da-dum da-dee Da-dee da-dee-dee-dee Get me to the launch on time
I haven't fully fleshed out the lyrics.
I'm not sure where the melody comes from, but I think it might be an old Hank Williams tune.
Anyway, tonight I've been prepping for tomorrow's first club launch in Amesbury, Massachusetts, with CMASS. Launch prep always takes me longer than I think it will. I'll talk about launch prep in another post.
What I will say is that I've taken Janus I, my first scratch design, out of retirement. I had to make some modifications to it, but I think it's flight-worthy. It's a simple rocket, but a two-stager, and it flew beautifully - one time. I figured it would be a shame not to fly it again.
I'll talk about the repair briefly in a future post. It wasn't a major operation, but I had to change a few things.
Starting probably next week, I'll be doing a bit of a re-boot of The Rocket N00b blog. I've strayed a bit from my intentions and done too many posts where I talk about what I've purchased, what I'm building, or my feelings. There hasn't been enough that a n00b to rocketry can actually learn from. Some of these instructional posts take a lot of time and thought, but I don't just want to write a personal journal with some rocket pics, here, I actually want some rocket n00bs to get some use from this blog.
So, after tomorrow, I'll probably have some cool pictures, video, and stories for you, including some high power stuff. Apparently, they're launching the first high power two-stager CMASS has ever been able to get sanctioned (the airspace in New England is a little busy, I guess).
After that, it's back to basics: rocketry, for beginners, from a beginner's perspective. The I'm building this and look what I got in the mail posts will creep in occasionally, but I want to make sure this blog has some value to people who are just getting into the craft, science and discipline of building and flying rockets.
Also, some cool pictures that hopefully the more advanced rocketeers will like.
I'm only taking five rockets to the launch tomorrow - but one is the Quest Quadrunner - a four motor cluster I've never launched. I hope it does not disappoint.
I've just realized my little song sounds a little like the chorus to In the Jailhouse Now. Jimmie Rodgers. A bit older than Hank Williams. But a classic.
I'm nervous about this weekend's upcoming CMASS rocket launch in Amesbury, MA.
At first, I was nervous about joining the club. What if I have nobody to talk to at launches? What if they don't like me?
That's just the kind of social anxiety you develop when you move to a new city and it's hard to meet people. But rocketeers have the reputation of being very friendly folk - if you like rockets, they like you. And I've been welcomed by some of the club members, chatted with a few of them online, so even though I haven't met any of them in person, I feel good about meeting some fellow rocketeers. Joining a club is a great way to expand your rocketry experience and meet new people.
No, what has me nervous now is simply that I haven't launched in a long time, and I am hoping to launch a few rockets I've built but never flown.
The Quest Quadrunner was finished last December.
This beautiful Quest Aerospace kit is about 3 feet tall, just under 2 inches in diameter, and flies on a cluster of four standard B or C motors. And I put a lot of work into this rocket - and had some moments where I thought my work would be ruined. But I really like the way it came out.
This rocket is the first I've completed with a 29mm motor mount, big enough for an F or G motor (or a small H, but that would probably be ill-advised with this rocket, and would require high power certification in any case). It's another beauty, and like the Quadrunner, has never flown.
Then there's the Estes Cosmic Explorer with an E motor mount.
I have a standard Cosmic Explorer, and I have in fact built one with an E mount before. It flew beautifully, and then disappeared in fast-moving high altitude winds. But this second attempt at an E Cosmic Explorer is perhaps the best work I've ever done on a rocket, and I have not launched it yet, so I really want to see how it performs.
The Quest Magnum Sport Loader has flown before - one time.
Magnum Sport Loader on the left, next to its Quest brothers
This is yet another beautiful Quest rocket capable of carrying a payload - the chamber is in fact large enough to loft two eggs at once. It's a two-motor cluster which has a dramatic flight.
I love these rockets. But, apart from the Sport Loader, they are much larger rockets than I've flown before. It's part of the reason I hesitated attempting to launch several times in Bloomington.
They're by far not the largest rockets you can build and launch. Amesbury is a high power field, so there will be much larger, more complicated, and higher-flying rockets than these. But they're the largest I've attempted so far, and I'm nervous about them.
What if the parachute does not eject? What if it gets tangled and doesn't open? What if my clusters don't ignite simultaneously? What if they have a hard landing and break on the first flight?
These are the things which make me nervous. It's because I haven't flown in a while, and because I'm new at this whole mid power thing. And it's because these rockets have been waiting on the shelf so long, I'm worried they won't make it back, because I've grown attached to them.
But these rockets are made to fly. I'm confident I built them well. I built them with care. I just need to get out there and do it.
Failure is part of the learning process. Sometimes your rockets will crash. Sometimes you'll lose them. But if you're not willing to risk a loss, you'll miss out on the excitement of a successful flight.
Someone on one of the Facebook model rocketry forums recently posted a picture of his first rocket - the Estes Crossfire ISX - a great, high-flying little rocket.
And he confessed that he was nervous about launching it. I could understand - he'd done a beautiful job building it, and now it was time to strap a motor in it an launch it into the sky??
But that is why we do this. We don't take unnecessary risks - sometimes you put a less powerful motor in than at other times. Sometimes you have to scrub a launch. But we launch these rockets, because that's what this is all about.
But, get out there, rocket n00bs. Build those rockets - then go out and fly them.
I have been in the market for a table for my Rocket Room. I was thinking of getting a folding table - a six-foot long, plastic top folding table, the sturdy kind you find at your finer non-profit board meetings and family reunions. Something perfectly flat. My current work surface wasn't cutting it.
A metal shelving unit with a board on top was my previous work surface these last few months. The shelves are great, but the top is a little high, a little small, and the board isn't flat.
I found a nice folding table on Amazon which I could get delivered free for about $59.
Then, the other night, the city of Boston presented me a gift: A solid, sturdy, six-foot long oak table, discarded, left by the curb right outside my house.
The top alone may have weighed nearly 100 pounds, and it wasn't fun getting it upstairs, but you can't beat free, and it's perfect for rocket-building.
There's just one problem with this table.
Right now, I have about 5 or 6 rocket projects on it, and I haven't made much progress at all on any of them. I've been working very slowly.
Last Saturday, I hung out in the rocket room almost all day, and only did one thing: sanded some wood filler off a balsa nose cone.
I need some inspiration.
Thankfully, I am four days away from my first club rocket launch, in Amesbury, MA, with CMASS.
I spend a lot more time building than I do launching. And I love building rockets. But there has to be a goal. Rockets are meant to fly. I noticed in the past that if I hadn't launched in a while, I tended to slow down my building.
Further complications to living here is that I can only go so far in a build before I encounter a major challenge - painting.
At the old homestead, I had a large grassy area surrounded by trees. As long as it wasn't too breezy, it was a perfect painting area.
I'm considering several options here: joining a maker space, or maybe building an indoor painting booth. Perhaps I'll make friends with someone at the club who happens to work in an auto body painting shop, and we could paint rockets on the weekend.
So, there are some challenges to being a rocketeer in a big city, as opposed to a suburban area, one of them being that I can't just go outside and launch whenever I feel the need. I'm considering a future post on this subject - Challenges for the Big City Rocketeer - but I need to find some solutions for it first!
My final challenge lately is this blog. It's been too filled with posts exactly like this one: what I'm doing, what I'm not doing, blah blah... This is exactly what I want this blog not to be - a personal catalog of rockets I'm building or not building. This is meant to be a blog for rocket n00bs to get some tips and information, and for more experienced rocketeers to have another place to read about rockets, even if it's stuff they probably already know, and to look at cool rocket pictures.
This launch should do the trick. I have a feeling my mind is going to be blown this weekend, with higher flights and larger rockets than I've ever seen in person before. In the past, whenever I've come back from a launch, I'm inspired and ready to build!
My short-term goals therefore:
Finish building a rocket, already!
Figure out the painting problem
Write some more how-to posts for n00bs on this blog.
I did get a little bit of inspriation in the mail yesterday. One perk of membership in the National Association of Rocketry is a subscription to Sport Rocketry magazine - the official NAR magazine. I haven't had a magazine subscription in ages, and I was excited to finally see my first issue in the mailbox.
Launch. Then build. And write something of substance for all my fellow rocket n00bs.
I haven't launched a rocket in months. Last time it was with the Ivy Tech Rocket Camp I taught in June. The rockets were all really small, I was the only adult, and because of where we launched, I had to make sure the rockets didn't go much above 300 feet.
Big News for Me, Guys
This weekend, I sent off the a check for dues plus a season launch pass to what will be my first rocketry club - CMASS, the Central Massachusetts Spacemodeling Society, a NAR section.
I'll be attending my first ever club launch in just under two weeks, up in Amesbury, MA.
For the last year, I've been pursuing this hobby mostly in a vacuum. My friends would occasionally go launch with me. Chad himself likes rockets, and built a few, but is far too busy a guy to really throw himself into rocketry like I did. So, it's just been me, a few books, some websites, and a huge online community to turn to for help. This will be my first time meeting other rocketeers in the flesh. I'm terribly excited. This will be my chance to hang out with other rocket obsessives, and meet people I can learn from - back in Bloomington, I was the local rocket "expert." But I still have a ton to learn, and this... This is gonna be awesome.
This post was going to be about how nervous I was to go out to the launch and meet people, as I'll probably be going alone - my girlfriend wants to go, but she probably has a thing she has to do. I'm a pretty outgoing guy, but sometimes in new situations where I don't know anybody, I get a little shy.
But I just got a message from Howard, one of the officers of CMASS - three messages, actually - and not only has my membership been approved, but he told me there are probably several members of the section who either live near or work in Boston, and he kindly invited me to tomorrow night's meeting in Gloucester.
Gloucester is a little far, but I'll go as long as I can get my local parking pass worked out (driving in Boston... Not as bad as parking in Boston). In any case, rocketeers are a friendly bunch, and even if I don't get to meet anybody before I show up in Amesbury, I know it's going to be great!
Hearing such a welcoming message was really great. Rocketry is a real passion for me (you might be able to tell, if you read this blog), and I need it. CMASS is my best option to continue and to grow in this pursuit, so it's really good to feel welcomed.
. . .
The upcoming launch is a big one. The Amesbury field is CMASS' high power range, meaning that I'll see some high power rockets in person for the first time. But that's not what makes this particular launch a big deal. Actually, now that I read that last sentence, it totally is a big deal for me... It's a huge deal for me! But for the club in general, it's a special event.
It's the Jim Flis Anniversary Launch. Jim Flis is the owner and founder of FlisKits, a model rocket company. Estes is the 600 pound gorilla of the model rocketry world, and Quest has some great kits. But if you're looking for something a little different, FlisKits is one of the independent companies you should check out.
They do have standard sport models, of course, and some scale historical models, but what stands out in my mind when I think of FlisKits is the slightly more oddball-looking rocket. Boost gliders (for n00bs, this is a rocket that looks a bit like an airplane - it goes up under rocket power, then glides to a safe recovery), oddrocs (something that just doesn't look like a traditional rocket), or sport models which have unusual fins -
either very large, or attached at unusual angles. Or insanely wicked futuristic models. Check out this newer kit - the Tesla.
Copyright FlisKits, Inc.
I have no idea the kind of mad modeling skills it would take to build this rocket! Maybe I'll see one of these in person.
Here are a few other interesting FlisKits rockets (the above and following six images are copyright FlisKits, Inc.).
Frick-n-Frack, and oddroc which
is also a two-stage rocket.
Rose-a-Roc - a helicopter recovery rocket.
It goes up like a normal model rocket, then
the helicopter blades eject and the whole
thing rotates slowly to the ground.
S.P.A.D - a fat sport model
Decaffeinator. Yes - it's made of
coffee cups
Nantucket Sound. Yes. It's a flying lighthouse.
This is a rocket company with a sense of humor. And adventure.
FlisKits has been in business for 13 years, and Jim Flis apparently goes to CMASS launches quite regularly, so they're throwing him a rocket party.
. . .
I've got a huge rocket wish list. I forget to check it now and then. Now that I'm going to the Jim Flis Anniversary Launch, I really wish I'd checked it earlier.
One rocket that's been on my wish list for some time is the FlisKits Deuce's Wild.
Copyright Fliskits, Inc.
Very early on, I developed a fascination for cluster rockets - rockets which have multiple motors burning side-by-side. Though I haven't had the chance to launch very many of them (mostly because of wind conditions and the size of the field from which I was launching), I find them spectacular, and it may be my favorite kind of model rocket.
The first cluster I built and successfully launched was the Quest Magnum Sport Loader. You can see how much more smoke and flame comes out the back of a cluster - so awesome to watch!
As you can see from the above image, the Deuce's Wild is a two-motor cluster rocket. But it's special feature is that it has canted motor tubes. The thrust comes at an angle. Both motors fire slightly outward, producing a fatter smoke trail. It has the added advantage that the motors are pointed roughly through the rocket's center of gravity. That's a good feature.
One of the tough parts about launching clustered rockets is getting all of the motors to actually ignite simultaneously. Sometimes you'll have the rocket leave the pad with one or more motors unignited. That can lead to a crooked, uneven flight (and, of course, less altitude). With the canted motor mount, even if one of the two motors does not ignite, the Deuce's Wild will still tend to fly more or less straight.
And it's an affordable rocket. I definitely should have bought one of these before, so I'd have a Flis rocket to launch in a couple of weeks. But maybe it will be even better to buy it directly from the guy himself at the field.
. . .
I have three rockets I've built but never launched - the Estes Cosmic Explorer with an E motor mount, the Quest Big Dog, and the Quest Quadrunner - a 4 motor cluster rocket. Some of those require a special launch pad with a miniature launch rail. I have built the pad, but until I have met some people in the club, I'm not going to show up with a bunch of my own stuff and say "OK, guys, where do I set up?" That seems presumptuous.
The pad is well-constructed, and I'm sure I'll eventually be able to get the Big Dog and Cosmic Explorer in the air, but for now, I need to see how the club operates. Some clubs have a range setup called "misfire alley," where rocketeers bring their own launch pads and controllers, and everyone sets up their own stuff. But that's often, if I understand it correctly, for newer clubs who don't have a lot of their own equipment. From what I've read, CMASS is pretty well-established.
I'll probably just take a few smaller rockets with me the first time, and see what I can launch.
I cannot wait - it's been too long!
Check out Jim Flis' personal website: jflis.com Thanks to Jim for allowing me to repost images from FlisKits.
I haven't written much here in over a week. I'm directing a show for the Bloomington Playwrights Project, and it's been a lot of work. I've barely been able to touch my rocket projects in the last week!
But I've had a couple of really great things happen, so I wanted to share them here.
The first is that I'll be teaching a rocketry camp this summer!
The Bloomington campus of Ivy Tech Community College has a College for Kids series of classes every summer, and model rocketry is apparently the most popular.
From the 2010 College for Kids model rocketry camp
I'll be leading a group of kids aged 11-14 through a week-long rocket building project this June, and we're going to launch at the end of the week! If any of you College for Kids students or parents are reading this, we're going to have a blast doing this, and I'll post more here soon about the class.
This means that within seven months of becoming a rocketeer, I've landed a rocketry job! It shows that if you're serious about rocketry, you can learn a lot and then go and share that knowledge with other people - which makes it more fun.
I have a lot of choices to make in the next month about what we'll do and what we'll build, but I've been actively pursuing the rocketry camp for a few months now, and I now have official confirmation.
The second exciting piece of news is that I'll be moving to Boston later in the summer! My girlfriend got a great job at Boston University, so we'll be going out there. We're even looking for a place with a little extra space for me to build and store my rockets. She's awesome.
Now, I know that Boston is currently buried under a ton of snow right now, but that's no discouragement for me. I like snow.
Yes, it's deep. But isn't it beautiful?
And there's a lot of exciting rocketry stuff going on in the Boston area and New England in general. I hope to go join CMASS - one of the country's great rocket clubs - and to check out the great clubs in the neighboring states as well.
I'm busting through my skin with excitement about this. Apart from two years' living in France and one year in Oviedo, Florida, I've not lived outside Indiana, and I've always wanted to see what it's like living in another part of the country. I love Boston, and it's a great city, I can't wait to get out there.
Does this mean that this will be the only and final rocketry class I'll teach at Ivy Tech? Not necessarily. I'm hoping to drum up some interest among not only the kids in the class, but among parents as well.
People who aren't involved in rocketry don't realize it, but the hobby has really grown up in the last twenty years. I don't know the actual statistics or demographics, but from my many hours spent online talking to other rocketeers, I get the feeling that, these days, there are a lot more adults building and launching rockets. With the advent of mid- and high power rocketry, there's lots of room to grow with the hobby.
So, I'm hoping to get some of the kids' parents involved in rocketry here in Bloomington, and who knows - perhaps a local club will sprout up. I may come back for several weeks to teach a rocketry course for adults. I keep learning more and more about this exciting hobby, and all I'm really looking for is someone with which to share what I've learned - and then go out and launch some rockets.
Oh, I have slowly pecked away at my Estes Partizon rocket - which is nearly as tall as my mother. Here's a teaser - my first attempt at internal fillets (fellow rocket n00bs, I'll explain this later):
