The Vector Force: The Vector Force is a modern Estes kit. This was my first model I made as a BAR. It had very good quality balsa fins on my kit, thick and sturdy. You can see the design is inspired by air defense missiles. It is rather tall, but somewhat heavy because of the two reducers. Because it has two reducer stages it has two separate payload tubes. Estes tells you to glue the payload tubes, but why? Good idea if you want to be sure the rocket doesn't separate in flight, but why waste two very nice payload bays? I just make sure they are always good and tight with some masking tape. Mine is painted school-bus yellow and gloss black to better match the included decals. I added about 3 heavy coats of clear coat for a really deep shine. String stability tests with a C motor required about 20-ish grams of nose weight, but now it flies really straight up - provided there is little wind. The top payload tube has vent holes for a barometric altimeter. I've recorded flights in excess of 400 feet with C6 motors. This is my current go-to flagship rocket. I have tried some test flights with composite D engines, to see if I could kick this puppy past 1000 feet. It sure did! In the process, the shock cord was torn out from the mount. This model was repaired by installing a custom ejection baffle with a Kevlar shock cord attachment. Now I think she'll hold up to a few more D-powered launches and ejections. This rocket has flown higher than the NY Times Building in NY, and also the Chrysler Building including the pinnacle, and the Bank of America Plaza in Atlanta.
| Flight Date: | 2012-09-01 |
| Rocket Name: | Vector Force |
| Kit Name: | Estes - Vector Force {Kit} (003210) |
| Flyer's Name: | Rich DeAngelis |
| Motors: | C6-3 |
| Launch Site: | Fort Indiantown Gap, PA |
| Actual Altitude: | 346.00 Feet |
This was to be a test flight with less nose weight, in hopes that it would better resist turning into the wind. The 10 mph wind was just right for this test. Although I wanted to try a 5 second delay, I thought it would be safer with 3 and have it eject while coasting instead of while plummeting towards the ground.
The motor lit and it burned for two seconds, accelerating to a peak of 7.2 Gs and averaging 2.1 for the burn. That was better than before, probably because of the 11 gram weight reduction (I removed three ¼” nuts on the nose cone). The rocket flew well, only slightly turned into the wind this time, and reached a better speed of 90 mph, certainly better than the last C6 flight did.
It coasted for the next 2.9 seconds and at 339 feet the ejection fired a bit early while still going up. 3/10 seconds later, after travelling an additional 7 feet up it reached its apogee of 346 feet. As it happened the ejection was timed as well as can be expected. A good Nylon ‘chute appeared and it descended at 9 mph, landing about 100 feet upwind in 29.5 seconds. In conclusion it appears that it does fly better with less nose weight. The nose weight was added originally to get it to pass a string-stability test, which I later learned is quite conservative, often causing one to add too much weight.
| Stage | Motor(s) |
|---|---|
| 1 | Estes C6-3 |
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