4" Upscale of the Estes Super Neon. 54mm Motor Mount, Dual Deploy with dual Pefrectflite Altimeters.
Flight Date: | 2018-08-05 |
Rocket Name: | 4.01x Upscale Super Neon "Old Glory" |
Flyer's Name: | Matthew Bond |
Motors: | K550-ALTIM |
Expected Altitude: | 3,850 Feet |
Wind Speed: | 8.00 mph |
Launch Site: | NARAM 60 |
Actual Altitude: | 1,880 Feet |
OUCH! Wind at the field starting to pick up and blow back across the parking area. Adjusted the rail to allow for a safe recovery. Awesome boost, loud and proud off the rail, nice and straight. Somewhere around motor burnout the Rocket came apart and descended to the field in multiple parts. Recovered the fin can, drogue harness with the booster bulkhead, and chunk of the av bay bulkhead attached. Drogue chute was missing but the barrel swivel with traces of the drogue shroud lines was still attached to the harness. The lower payload bay was still attached to the av bay, and the upper payload bay was still attached to its harness although it had separated from the av bay, pulling the main chute charge free. The main chute was still packed inside. All sections of the rocket were damaged significantly. After examining the pieces recovered and the data files for both altimeters it looks like the Perfectflite MAWD malfunctioned. The altitude data was very erratic and appeared to level off around 2 seconds into the flight, subsequently detecting apogee and firing the drogue charge around 3.5 seconds into the flight. The data from both altimeters shows massive jumps consistent with the rocket coming apart, and then both seem to level out around 1880 feet as the av bay descends. Not sure what went wrong, the MAWD was my oldest operating altimeter, with 31 flights in two different rockets over a 9 year span. Kind of bummed about this one, it was the 6th flight of this bird and I was finally starting to feel like I had everything dialed in.
Stage | Motor(s) |
---|---|
1 | Aerotech K550W-ALTIM |
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