IRW 2001 - Sunday 26th August, Largs

Clockwise:
• The view west
• The view north east
• It went thataway... Pete spots a counter-clockwise haggis scuttling for cover

By Sunday some of us had recovered enough to contemplate climbing HPR Hill again. We were all a little wiser though and it was noticeable that those who had been up before were travelling lighter this time :-)

• Pete Davy flew a rocket! His 1/2 scale PML Patriot. Actually Pete deserved a medal for even getting the rocket up to the site!
• Here its is on the pad.
• Pete, Pete, do you want this pic for a brochure? Competitive rates :-)
• Pete had a full complemenet of electronics: A couple of R-DASes (R-Di?), a GPS unit and data transmitter

• Richard's Horizon
• George with his PML Black Brant X / Terrier booster

Lakov-Flare

Flare is the rocket Shaun built for the Golden Bunsen competition that he won. It's flown once before at UKRA 2001. For IRW 2001, Shaun and darren decide to soup it up a bit by adding a boster stage. This would be their first electonically staged flight. Hopefully there will be an entry on the project page about this rocket soon. Briefly though, the stages are connected together by carbon fibre rodes running in aluminium tubing. The Booster uses motor ejection for deployment of a streamer. The sustainer is ignited by an R-DAS carried in the sustainer payload bay, timed from take off. Deployment is again by motor ejection, but with a timed charge igited by the R-DAS as back up. An RF transmitter completes the contents of the payload bay.

Left to right:
• Darren don's the prep-face
• Done at last

The flight had been delayed from Saturday, and we had forgotten to finish checking out how we were actually going to prep the rocket. When we got up on the hill it became apparent that there were some things that we hadn't really thought it through! The igniters for staging and deployment had to be fed through the body from both ends first :-S Panic almost ensued, but Andy Issot stepped in, a rational head in a microstorm of chaos. A quick rethink some chopped and extended igniter leads, masking tape, insulation tape and baling string (yes, baling string - what of it?) and we were all set.

Left to right:
• Shaun & Darren with Lakov-Flare
• On the pad
• Lift off

For the first flight we chose a G80 for the booster to an F62T reload in the sustainer. We hoped the blue thunder would make the sustainer easier to light. Both motors lit perfectly, with almost no delay between booster burn out and sustainer ignition. There was deployment of the booster streamer, but the Sustainer deployed the chute perfectly. However the payload bay appeared to detach from the rest of the sustainer on descent. Shaun and Darren headed off after the sustainer, while Richard went after the booster. The sustainer motor section was fairly easy to find. But later when walking back we discovered that the motor casing wasn't there. It's not knowm if it came out in the air or while we were walking back. A quick search of the hillside didn't turn it up either. The payload bay wasn't found until Andy Issot brought out his Yagi, after which it was easy to find.

Left to right:
• Booster recovery. Streamer and streamer bay cap badly chared - audio beeper completely gone
• Sustainer recovery - no major damage

The Flights