UKRA 2001 Meeting at Pete's Farm

(June 15th to 17th)

Group image taken above is courtesy of Andrew Bevan (my camera packed in!)

This was our (NWR) first meeting of the year. We had planned to goto BOGLOB but this had been cancelled because of the foot and mouth crisis.

Sean was going for his Level 2 certification after successfully completing the exam a few days before. Andy was going for a first attempt at his Level 1. Sean had come up with some cool Tee shirts with our Logo on. Unfortunately only two had been made as the machine to produce them had broken down. We hope to have more to go around our members by Largs.

I myself was flying for fun and hoping to get me IRIS back in one piece after two spacks. Once at Pete's at K-Lob 1999 and the other at UKRA2000.

Myself, my son David and my Dad arrived at the little Chef outside Sleaford on the Saturday morning. Sean had arrived just before us and met us inside. Andy had gone down the night before and was camping out at Pete's.

The weather forecast had not been good and turned out to be almost as forecast. Crap! Windy, wet and overcast most of the time. This did not stop the flying and many launches took place over the weekend. Many of the usual faces and groups had turned out, MARS, NSR, EARS etc. The facilities arranged were good and we had additional smaller marquees set up at the launch site for the RSO and for prepping rockets. Sean and I began with some 29mm single use G40's just to get something into the air. The drift was considerable and we had to reef the chutes to keep this down. Many rockets drifted well out of sight. Sean finally got his Upscale Estes Thunderhawk up and down in one piece. Image left shows Sean and my son david getting the even more upscale Estes Thunderhawk ready. It did not fly in the end and we hope Sean can fly it up at Largs later in the year.

I began to prepare the IRIS for a later afternoon flight. This was to be launched on a K550W. The rocket had undergone some modifications over the last week to convert it to CPR and also to beef up the recovery harness. The 24inch-drogue chute was in the lower section and was to be deployed by the Gwhizz at apogee. Two charges facing rearward from the center payload section where used. A backup separation charge was used. This was a long delay charge given from the motor itself. A long delay was chosen as this was simulated to fire after the expected apogee.

The upper section below the nose cone held the main 60inch chute. This was also deployed by the Gwhizz but at 400 feet. Again, two forward facing charges where used. No other redundancy system was used.

The recovery harness used 1.5inch flat webbing with triangular quick links and heavy duty D links for chute connections.

Above images show myself and Sean setting up the IRIS on the pad

VIDEO TRANSMITTER AND RECIVER PACKAGE

The upper nose cone payload was a Video sender unit that had been used a number of times before. The system used was the same as at the UKRA2000 meeting.

The pad had to be set up beyond the HPR pad to a special area for K class and above. The video system was checked ok and radar clearance was given for an expected apogee above cloud level. The launch countdown commenced and the rocket accelerated quickly off the pad. K550's are a cool motor!!

The TV screen showed the rocket accelerating up at a rapid rate and it began to weathercock near apogee. The drogue was seen to be deployed as it was still ascending and not at or after apogee. The pictures validated that the sections where still connected and that the drogue was still connected. Both sections tumbled around rapidly during the initial decent. It seemed quite a while before we saw the rocket appear out of the cloud base. It tumbled further to what seemed a very low 400 feet AGL before the main was deployed. The rocket gently came down a few hundred feet away and was recovered intacke with no damage except for a broken drogue chute line.

The altimeter reported 3188 feet. This was way lower than the 4500 feet simulated. Main reasons for this could be weather, yet the large delta clipper seemed to go higher than reported back at the IRW000 event. Could it be that the system is not reporting the correct altitude? Maybe to verify by ground base line observations could verify the data.

Many other flights look place. The model pad was very busy. MARS had also prepped KEV Bullet for another spectacular flight. We where not disappointed. The rocket screamed off the pad.

Andy Issott had his Blank Brant ready to fly for his level 1 certification attempt. The rocket was very nicely finished. The countdown ended and the button was pushed. Puff!! Nothing. This happened at least three times before Andy got the bird off the ground. The rocket flew high and straight. Recovery was just above cloud level. We could hear the charges go and it was not long before the rocket appeared fully in-tacked below the chute. Level 1 achieved. Well done Andy!

Myself, David (my son) and my Dad stayed at a local Travel lodge overnight which had a great little Chef next door. We woke up next morning to the weather being no better than the day before. We had breakfast and made our way to Pete's Farm.

Sean began prepping his upscale optima for his level 2 flight. I transferred the Video sender unit and camera into the nose cone of the Optima. Sean was flying on a J350W with medium delay. We managed to persuade Pete to let us use Sean's van to get all the equipment up to the launch site. The previous day we had a lot of trekking up and down the long track to the lunch site from the farm. We moved the pad from the day before onto the closer HPR clearing and loaded up Sean's onto the rail. The camera was armed and Sean was given the all clear. The rocket lifted majestically off the pad to a decent altitude. The video transmission was good and unbroken. But all was not well !! The delay was way too long and the rocket was coming down at a fair speed before the ejection charge went. The nose cone came off but the chute stayed in the body. It appeared as if the air pressure created during the decent kept in the chute. The rocket came in hard and fast into the adjacent field and the camera stopped transmitting.

The remains where scattered over a wide area. Not much appeared to be left intact. After further inspection all fins, motor mount, bulkheads, couplers, harness etc were undamaged and could be recovered due to the bolt together nature of the design. The nose cone was damaged but repairable and the camera and sender unit had only minor cosmetic damage. The chute had been cute by the impact. Two new body tubes lengths and the rocket could be back together quite quickly. Sean was not too pleased !! level 2 was not to be this day.

I had prepped my old camera rocket to fly on a J570W. The camera was loaded and Andy supplied one of his homemade trackers to be put in the nose cone. The rocket was then put onto the rail. The rocket accelerated VERY quickly off the pad and disappeared well into the higher cloud. That J570 really does kick but!! We could hear the ejection charge go and it was a while before it was seen drifting well down range. Andy and myself began walking to retrieve the rocket using Andy's receiver. We spent what seemed like many hours walking through fields and coming across other rocket nuts looking for their rockets too. Andy tracked down ours while I searched around for some body else's.

By the time we had got back Sean had his smaller Thunderhawk ready to fly on a G35J and Hugh Gimmell was ready to fly his Little Man on a K700 and 3xJ570W !!! Hughs was a spectacular flight and all recovered from a 5700 foot flight.

Sean's flight went well but managed to land on one of the few buildings near by. Myself Andy, Sean and a guy from Sweden (forgot his name) spent the next few hours trying to get it down off a 25-foot barn roof. We tried a ladder in many postions. A part filled Coke bottle on a piece of string and thick pieces of rope with big knotts on the end! In the end an accurately thrown Old Horse shoe tied onto a thin piece of string thrown by me managed to hook over the body and drag the rocket over the edge. The rocket was finally recovered with some minor damage. Next up maybe EARS and then IRW 2001…..

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