D & E Certify Level 3
Porthos Takes Flight

Subsonic

Altitude
Waiver

Subsonic

Subsonic

Introduction

ROCstock XII would be huge launch for us, either way: a huge success, or a huge failure.  This was a three-day launch, put on by ROC, our home club.  We planned on drag racing our level 3 projects on Friday afternoon, launching Porthos Saturday morning, Saturday afternoon putting Athos up again fully clustered, and Sunday morning putting up Aramis and Aramis II in a two-stage configuration. Three days, five big launches.  Aggressive? Yes.  Unfortunately the weather was not working with us.  Upon arriving Friday morning to set up, it was 30 degrees out, with scattered showers, and howling winds.  Freezing, we set up camp as well as we could, gave up on launching any thing on Friday, and headed to our hotel to prep for Saturday.  We packed the motors for our level 3 certification flights (two 75mm M1315Ws), packed our chutes, and actually got a decent nights sleep.  Up early the next morning, now 23 degrees out, we drove back to Lucerne Dry Lakebed and surveyed the once again windy weather.  Consulting with our tap members, Ken Biba and Scott Bartel, we decided a drag race in the wind was not a good idea.

Aramis II, 2nd Flight

We finished prepping D’s Level 3 project, Aramis II and finally decided to brave the winds at 9:30am.  This was to be an exciting flight, because as well as having a downward facing video camera, we also installed a second, upward facing, video camera to catch the parachutes deploying.  At 9:30am we had Aramis II on pad 39A, ready to launch.  As luck would have it, the control to the pad was not working and we fiddled around with it for a while before we set up a second launch control.  It took almost an hour to get her in the air – unfortunately killing the battery on the upward facing camera.  A tight fit had forced us to use a small battery in the upward facing camera bay.  In fact, even the downward facing camera ran out of tape one minute after landing.   We learned our lesson: work with the LCO when you’ve got hot electronics cooking away on the pad and time is of the essence.   Aramis II took off at 10:30am, and had a gorgeous flight.  At 6100 ft. the drogue deployed, and we anxiously awaited the main.  At 1500 ft. the main fired, but once again it didn’t clear the body tube.  Fortunately E had the presence of mind to reach down and hit the Missile Works WRC² remote and the back-up charge cleared the main.  The main opened and down she came on three 12 ft. chutes.  The descent, though, was a tad unorthodox in that the pilot chute (we remembered this time) cleared the airframe before the back-up charge finally cleared the main.  This caused the recovery harness to get wrapped around the upper airframe once, resulting in the whole thing floating down to earth in a horizontal position under three fully deployed chutes.  No matter, D was now level 3.  On the down side, the winds dragged Aramis II 100 ft. across the ground before someone was able to get there.  Ouch!  

Athos, 1st Flight

We pondered launching Athos, E’s level 3 project in the wind.  Athos at 12 ft. tall and 72 lbs. was a good 50% heavier than Aramis II and would be slower off the rail, slightly underpowered on a single M1315W.  Athos was designed as a clustered rocket, but level 3 certification flights can’t be clustered.  In the end, we opted to fly Athos in a single recovery configuration, taking 20lbs off the weight, and making the rail speed much faster.  Unfortunately, we had waited hours, hoping for the winds to die down, before we came up with this solution, and the day was dragging on into the late afternoon.  Once decided, though, it was a quick prep to reconfigure Athos and get her ready for the pad.  This time E also employed the help of a dirt bike rider to help chase Athos and keep it from being dragged by the wind on landing.  Athos hit the pad at 3:30pm and wind cocked rather severely off the rail as feared.  The main deployed at apogee, and two 14 ft. parachutes brought Athos back to earth in spectacular fashion, earning E his level 3 certification.  Athos landed right on the edge of the highway, with the recovery harness stretching out across the highway, but thanks to our chase man it was bundled up quickly, suffering only minor cosmetic scratches from landing in the gravel at the road’s edge.  On the down side, the video camera failed before take-off, never recording anything (probably too much dust from the day before).

Porthos, 1st Flight

We spent the late afternoon Saturday searching for a rail to launch Porthos on.  With Porthos being 16 ft. tall and weighing 200lbs., we needed a beefy rail.  Ron McGough offered us the use of his, and we bought some rail guides from him to use with his monster rail.  Next we tackled the question of just what to fly it on.  We had been considering a central M1939W and six outboard K185Ws.  But after struggling all day to find a way to get Athos off the rail at a reasonable speed, especially considering the wind, we were concerned that the M1939W, even with the help of 2 of the K185Ws, wouldn’t get Porthos moving fast enough off Ron’s rail.  After consulting with a number of people, and discussing the issue of launch velocity at great length, we found our answer:  Blue Thunder motors.  We debated between a central M2400T or M2500T and finally settled on the M2400T, giving us the ability to pack at least 4 full K700W as outboards and stay under the 20,480NS limit in California.  The last tweak was to swap the other two K185Ws out for two K1100Ts at lift off.  This gave us three Blue Thunder motors to take Porthos off the pad with a combined average thrust of 4600N – and much more than that in the first tenth of a second.  This configuration should kick Porthos right in the butt and get it moving quick.  After rounding up the motors, we packed it in for the day, and headed back to the hotel to prep Porthos for its maiden voyage on Sunday morning.  We prepped, mounted rail guides, and packed once again until 2:00 in the morning, and were right back out at the launch site at 8:00am the next morning.  We needed all the help we could get to get Porthos out to, and up on, the rail.  We employed Team Rage members, as well as others who happened by, as volunteer Porthos movers.  Porthos was on the rail early and launched at 10:00am under a beautiful blue, cloudless, and thankfully, windless, sky.  It was awesome to see it thunder into the sky on a M2400T and two K1100Ts. Five seconds into the flight two K700Ws lit, and 2 seconds later two more K700Ws lit.  It was a beautiful flight, culminating many months and hundreds of hours of planning, building, and prepping.  The on board video was awesome, clearly showing the multiple airstarts which caused Porthos to sway slightly each time a pair of motors came to life, one a split second before the other.  You can check it out in our Movie Theater.   On the way down, though, Porthos’ three 18 ft. chutes tangled, with only one fully deploying.  Yet because we built her like a tank, Porthos had but small scratches.  We can’t wait to put her back up again next summer at Black Rock with a full complement of motors, free from the restrictions here in California.  Porthos flew to 6200 ft. at 425ft/sec. – not bad for a 200lb. rocket.  

Conclusion

We didn’t get all the launches in we had planned and now the winds were picking up, so a clustered Athos and Aramis two-stage would have to wait.  We headed home Sunday all smiles, both now level 3 certified, and with having launched – and recovered – Porthos – with no damage.  We would miss the next month’s launch due to Christmas parties and the kid’s Christmas recitals.  But this gave us time to recover, plan and order parts for the new year, and build a web site to document our triumphs and failures to help those who are as addicted as we are!