July 12 2009 PARC launch

It's taken me a while to get to this, here's a summary of my latest launches. We went up to the field a bit late and it was pretty windy but that didn't stop us. I only launched the AMRAAM, twice on G64-7W's and once on a H238-T with a medium delay. On the second G64 launch I attached the internal payload bay I've built for my Pico AA-1 accelerometer based altimeter. I'll do another post detailing my results shortly.

The H238 launch was for my Level 1 Certification. The motor had a total impulse of 175N-sec and burned out in under 0.8 seconds. It was a Blue Thunder propellent type, the first one of these I've launched. Talk about a quick burn! I was lucky enough to recover my AMRAAM intact after the launch. I say lucky because it destroyed one of the Mantis pads in the process. Guess they just don't have the strength to handle the thrust of high power motors! Have a look at the pics below as well as the little vid of the H launch.

On the pad, loaded with a G64.


Ready to go beside a James's Loc V2.


G64 launch, Thanks goes to James for the rest of these shots. I'm going to have to get a nice DSLR soon I reckon.


Gaining altitude...



Still going, those G64's burn for nearly 2.5 seconds.
Here is a cropped image of the previous photo to give more detail.


Some of the less impressed spectators.


Here's a shot of the launch field. I'm not 100% certain, but I think this is the launch of Rich and Atla's Grappler as well as my 2nd Amraam launch of the day. The Grappler is above, with my Amraam just coming off the pad.

Last but definitely not least, here's my L1 launch on the H238.



A big thanks goes to Rich and Atla. Cheers to James for the high res shots and PARC for supervising my L1. Now I can launch motors up to 640 N-sec. Sweet.