October 16th saw the final Tripoli launch of 2011. we were greeted with a bright clear day along with quite a stiff breeze. Being the last launch of the year, quite a few certifications were attempted - some successful, others not.
(Right: Mark's Successful L2 flight)
The highlight of the day was Les's Level 3 certification flight. The launch rail was moved back to a safe distance and rocket loaded up. The NOTAM had been entered during the week prior as the estimated altitude was going to exceed our standard waver of 10,000'. The launch window had been approved and preparations were completed in time. Les's rocket got away well for a great flight however, recovery wasn't completely successful. Les had designed the nosecone to be recovered on a separate parachute. Due to the wind it was blown some distance from the rest of the airframe and not recovered on the day.
The good news is, however, a local farmer located the nosecone and returned it - Les's certification has subsequently been approved! Congratulations Les!
To see all the photos of the launch, take a look at my Flickr album.
I've been building a few kits of late, the first one is The Launch Pad's Hellfire AGM-114A.
The Launch Pad kits have been described before as a kit for scratch-builders and that's a pretty fair description.
I bought this kit along with three other Launch Pad kits a couple of years ago but put them aside and have only just got back to building them.
The kit includes the usual assortment of parts - motor mount, 2.6" body tube, centring rings etc. The fins aren't pre-cut; you get a template and a sheet of balsa. Unfortunately, the balsa isn't quite big enough to fit the fins :( I ended up re-drafting the fins in CorelDRAW and laser cut them from 1.5mm ply.
I airbrushed the rocket with matt olive green and created a stencil for the lettering and yellow squares. To paint the nosecone, I mounted it in the chuck of my lathe and turned it by hand. Once finished, the Hellfire stands almost 2" tall and is designed to fly on 24mm motors. (Click image to Embiggen)
For a long time I've used a plastic storage tub for my low-power BP motors and decided to use this old army surplus ammo box for my motors. I picked this up recently partly because it was cheap ($5) but mostly because it looked cool.
When I originally got it, there were some markings in white paint on the outside of the box - denoting the original contents. I removed this with 'goo off' without damaging the underlying green paint.
I laser-cut a stencil and applied new markings :)
I still need to line the box with MDF before I load it up with motors, but once done, will perfectly fit 18mm motors across it's width.
I've just returned from a 1950km (1211 mile) road trip up to central New South Wales for Lydia's graduation at the Charles Sturt University. Since we were in the neighbourhood, I thought a visit to the Parkes Radio Telescope was in order :)
The Parkes Radio Telescope was built in 1961, It's a 64 meter antenna, making it the second largest radio telescope in the Southern Hemisphere. (The largest is the 70 meter antenna at Tidbinbilla near Canberra) It's known locally as "The Dish"
When Buzz Aldrin switched on the TV camera on the Apollo 11 Lunar Module, three tracking antennas received the signals simultaneously. They were the 64 metre Goldstone antenna in California, the 26 metre antenna at Honeysuckle Creek near Canberra in Australia, and the 64 metre dish at Parkes.
In the first few minutes of the broadcast, NASA alternated between the signals being received from its two stations at Goldstone and Honeysuckle Creek, searching for the best quality picture.
A little under nine minutes into the broadcast, the TV was switched to the Parkes signal. The quality of the TV pictures from Parkes was so superior that NASA stayed with Parkes as the source of the TV for the remainder of the 2.5 hour broadcast.
How could I not take the opportunity to visit this piece of space history!
Here's some photos I took of the dish.
(Click to embiggen)
More after the jump.... (or see the full set on Flickr)
I finally had a chance to launch Freefall in an attempt to gain my Level 2 Certification. The launch was stunning, with the Freefall being pushed to a simmed 3,100' on a J570.
Upon ejection, the nose cone has whipped around and struck the rear launch-lug, causing some damage. unfortunately since this requires a repair before I can fly it again, I didn't certify :(
Not to worry! A little bog and some fibreglass will have the Freefall all ready to fly again in time for the next launch & will try for the cert again :)
Here's the video of the on-board camera! (Video cuts out a few seconds after deployment. I suspect that the shock cord has hit the power button on the camera.)
The ground camera video and photos of the damage available after the jump:
