Flight Log - 2011-10-08 - Rich DeAngelis's Nike-X

The Nike-X: One of my favorite '70s kits. This design was inspired by air defense missiles. The real Nike-X project was begun, but cancelled before it saw the light of day; this is only a suggestion to what the real one would have looked like.  The pseudo-second-stage fins and the great Black & White decals are the highlight of the design.

I have modified this kit by adding an altimeter payload bay ("Iris"), which adds 3 inches and 17.5 grams of weight. Of course, now she's just a bit too heavy to fly safely with A8-3 motors. (Iris is named after the Greek god of the rainbow. She is a messenger of the gods, linking the gods with humanity.) This rocket has flown higher than torch of the Statue of Liberty, including its base.

Flight Date: 2011-10-08
Rocket Name: Nike-X
Kit Name: Estes - Nike-X {Kit} (1270) [1975-1984]
Flyer's Name: Rich DeAngelis
Motors: C6-3
Launch Site: Penn Manor School Lancaster PA
Actual Altitude: 362.00 Feet

This flight was looking like my last flight of the day, so I called upon the venerable Nike-X with an Iris payload. This rocket never disapoints. I was anxious to try out the newer and lighter "Top-Flight" nylon parachute. (Find them on JonRocket.com) Very well built, very light and "un-sticky" cloth, and the colors are really nice too!  I also doubled the length of the shock cord to prevent those snap-back dings I always seem to get.

So I lit the motor which burned for 2 seconds with a nice slow liftoff of this fairly heavy bird. The average acceleration was only 1.9Gs, and peaked at 7.2Gs. It reached a top speed of 83 mph, then coasted up for another 3.2 seconds. The ejection was about a half-second early, at 346 feet, so it only reached an apogee of 362 feet. A C6-5 would have been better with this model. The model then descended under a full canopy at 6 mph. The flight was over in 43.4 seconds. A fun flight to watch and a fair sucess. Only issue I found was a bit of singe on the parachute but not enough to need replacing. The Nomex cloth I was using to protect the chute seemed a bit small for this BT-55 body diameter (3"x3"...as recommended by the Apogee website I bought it from.) While the 3x3 is only 1.7 grams, the next larger 6x6 is almost 7 grams - so it's a judgement call. 

StageMotor(s)
1Estes C6-3

 

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