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Special Projects and Miscellany |
We marched down to the park at about noon armed with
SAM-66 and Big Bertha.
Big Bertha hadn't flown for almost three years. On its last flight, on July 2, 1997, the big black rocket crashed, breaking three of the four fins off and breaking the motor mount. I got all of the fins fixed, but not the motor mount. Finally, sometime in April of 2000 I got around to fixing the motor mount. Big Bertha could now fly. And it did. It was carrying a small yellow capsule that was the prototype ejection capsule that someday insects will ride in. At apogee it popped out and parachuted to the ground. Big Bertha fell to the earth and broke a fin off. For all the work I invested into Big Bertha's fins, they sure do seem to fall off a lot. Then we flew SAM-66 on its second two-stage mission. I had some ignition problems because of poor first stage design, but on the second try it streaked into the sky. This flight was, for the most part, a repeat of its first two-stage flight, using a B6-0 for the booster and an A8-3 for the sustainer. This time, unfortunately, we had no crowd watching us. The first stage cut off and staging occurred. The booster headed south after separation. I think SAM-66 flew higher on its second two-stage flight than its first because of some modifications. The second stage came down from this high altitude and disappeared behind some buildings, or so I thought. I ran towards the supposed impact site and walked around the building, but didn't find anything. My dad was smart enough to look up, and found SAM-66 lying on roof of the building I thought it had landed behind. We had to pack up and go home. Two hours later my dad and I returned with an extension ladder. With the resident of the house's consent I scrambled up on to the roof and retrieved my rocket. This was the first serious mishap SAM-66 has had. When SAM-66 hit the roof one fin broke all of the way off. There was something very strange about my SAM-66 landing on that roof. One of my rockets, Mongoose, landed on that same roof, on the same side, in September of 1997. Spooky. I realized why I've had trouble confining my rockets to the recovery area: My rockets are outgrowing my launch field. Next time I want to fly a high-altitude mission, I'll have to find somewhere else to launch. |
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| All materials herein copyright 2000 and 2006
by Willy Logan willy@wilhelm-aerospace.org |
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