Today, I once again made the short hop to Douglas County High School for another of my 7 a.m. 'shoe box' rocket launch sessions. This is my third such event over a span of four days.
This morning's weather was absolutely ideal - 75 degrees and virtually no wind.
Today, I left the EAC Viper flagship at home in favor of putting up another keychain video camera flight as well as another of my earlier models that hasn't been flown in awhile.
The carrier rocket for the camera was the Quest Big Rage. This model seems to have become the workhorse for handling all of these video flights.
Powered by a B6-4 motor the model boosted very nicely to an estimated 300-350 foot altitude. At ejection the parachute deployed fully and brought the model in to land about twenty feet from the launch pad.
The second flight of the session went to the diminutive Star Seeker. This was one of the three rockets in the long ago Estes Mini-Tri-Pac kit. I built it a few years ago because I just like the design.
Flying on a 1/2A3-4T motor, the Seeker boosted surprisingly high. Once again, I was elated to see its little 6 inch parachute deploy and bring it in for a safe landing, again quite close to the launch pad. I resorted to using a parachute because the model's previous flights relied on either break-apart or streamer recovery, and always ended up with one or both of the fragile fin assemblies breaking off. This time the model landed intact.
After I got home, I connected the keychain cam to the ol' PC to check out the flight video. It recorded successfully, but the video was quite unremarkable. Apparently, the ejection charge went off just before apogee, so the model didn't arc over and get any images of the horizon, or any interesting features surrounding the flying field. The entire video consisted of aerial shots of the launch field grass.
Here is one still frame showing the cement pad from which the model was launched:
I intend to improve this on future vid-cam flights by cobbling together a rigging system that will hold the camera at an angle under the parachute. Lots to learn....
