About a year ago - or perhaps longer - I purchased the Aspire from Apogee Rockets. Designed to go supersonic on a G motor. I built it up and waited for the right time to fly it. Sitting on top of a G80, it was to fly at nearly Mach 1.2 to an altitude of around 4,000'
I had to have the perfect day - clear sky, no wind. Month after month I loaded it into the back of the car and drove up to the Serpentine range. Month after month it was too windy or too cloudy. So back it came again, to sit on the shelf for another day.
This week, however, conditions were perfect! So I carefully slid the motor into the back of the rocket, securely taped it in place, re-packed the purple Mylar streamer and loaded it up on the pad.
A short while later, it was my turn to launch. The launch controller gave the customary count-down and pressed the button. The surge of power through the igniter caused the pyrogen to burn and in turn lit the propellant.
Within the blink of an eye, the Aspire was climbing skyward towards it's predicted top speed of 1400km/hr - Mach 1.16.
Something went wrong - very very wrong. As the rocket began pushing it's way through the sound barrier the cardboard and balsa decided it was time to pack up and go home; A voice in the crowd called out 'We've had an event'. I recovered about the top 2/3 of the airframe and nose cone. The fins and motor were never recovered. I didn't expect to see the rocket again - so I guess getting 2/3 back is better than nothing - and boy, was it a spectacular flight!! I do plan on re-building it, but this time i'm going to use Blue Tube. I will hit Mach and live to talk about it!
The rocket Gods were on our side for the May launch. Perfect weather, virtually no wind and not a cloud to be seen anywhere! The stubble in the paddock is short and all rockets were easily recovered :)
First off, the most impressive flight of the day was Blake's successful Level 3 flight. I've not seen many big projects flown and to see an M up close was simply amazing :) Australia now has 4 L3 certified flyers. Karl also had success flying his LOC V2 on a H for his Level 1 cert.
After waiting a year to fly my Binder Design Excel, I put it up today on a 38mm Aerotech H123 for my TRA Level 1 certification.
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Despite winds gusting to 20km/hr, the Excel had a great boost and perfect recovery, landing only a short walk from the launch site. My paperwork was signed off in short order, and now I can hang out with the tough kids and fly high power rockets!
Over the course of the next few months, 8 students assisted, by Tom Atchison and the Rocket Mavericks team will attempt to design, launch and operate a rocket using new Sony® VAIO notebooks..
Recently I decided I needed a stand to support my rockets horizontally while I glued bits on (like launch lugs and fins). And since I'm building lots of little rockets, I thought I had better build a little rocket stand!
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Built using 5mm balsa & wood glue in about 20 minutes - not the prettiest stand on the block, but works a treat!
One of the blogs that I often visit is Dick's Rocket Dungeon and his New Years Day post featured a scan of if Worlds of Science Fiction magazine from x-ray delta one's Flickr photostream. I really loved that it looks both futuristic and time-worn at the same time.
And since I'm now the proud owner of RockSim 9, I thought I would see if I could make it fly (at least in the sim). And it seems as if it's nice and stable!
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Built using an 18" length of BT50 body tube, paper laminated balsa fins and an 18mm motor mount, this should get to about 400' or so with a C6 motor.
The body and large fins are painted grey while the nose cone and small fins are painted black - the whole lot then got the dry-brush treatment with silver.
A couple of days ago, I uploaded the photos of Rocket2 on to my Flickr page. I also dropped a couple of photos into the Make Pool. The photos in this pool appear on the side-bar of the Make blog. Well! One of the authors noticed it and decided to feature it! Neat :)
As my last scratch-build of 2009, I thought it was time I would have a go at building a square rocket. So here I present Rocket Squared or Rocket2!
Built using a central core of BT50 body tube with four strips of balsa glued around the outside. The rocket stands 42cm (or 16½") tall and has a 18mm motor mount. I have no idea how to build this in Rocksim?!
I spent some time trying to build a square nose cone but nothing looked quite right, so I sanded down the corners of the top-end of the airframe and stuck in a round one. Launch report to follow!
Rocketry 
