Project Home On Saturday, March 23, nine members from all three teams traveled to the Virginia launch site on for our last attempt to qualify for the national fly-off. It was cold (40f), mostly sunny, and wind below 10mph. We used the 7ft launch rail for all the launches. The wind speed picked up a little during the day, causing us to set the angle with the wind to about 5d. Our first flight was set too straight because a hill was blocking the wind. As soon as the first flight of the red rocket got up above the hill, it tilted into the wind and lost altitude. We completed ten launches during the 3.5 hour launch window. All three teams had three completed launches with no disqualifications. Now we have to wait to see what the cutoff score is for the National Fly-off.

Objectives Each team wanted to do at least one test launch and finish their qualifying launches. Team 13256 had only one qualifier remaining. The other two teams could do two more qualifier launches. Lessons All the launches were relatively straight, all rockets were recovered, no eggs were broken, all ejections worked as planned, and the teams worked well together. Good job. All three teams had a good flights and altitudes. They adjusted weights between 378g and 396g.to get around 750ft. Team 13254's yellow rocket flew the most consistently, even though it wiggled as it ascended. We used a variety of igniters, including three different igniters in the package, some older copperheads. We continued to have igniters spitting before they ignited the propellant. We only had two igniter failures with the small {blue) package igniters. The spitting just seems to be a property of the White Lighting propellant. We had a great variety in descent times. Again Team 13254's yellow rocket was most consistent. The teams all had considerable spill holes and longer parachute connections to the cargo unit. We never got control of the descent oscillations. We now think the tape connection between the parachute and the streamer may be causing some of the problems. We again had considerable inconsistency in ejection times; any where from 8 seconds to 11 seconds. This could be related to the igniter spitting, placement of the igniter, or just manufacturing. Someday we need to figure out how to control this, perhaps going back to reloadables or electronic ejection.

Launches

Altimeter Data (Excel format)

Pictures

Getting ready                                                                              Team 13254
    

Team 13255                                                                               Team 13256