Panta Rhei on the rail ( and some dodgy geezer) Photo Credit Charles Simpson.
Panta Rhei is away... Photo credit Damian Burrin
Lovely to see the chute deployed! Photo Credit Damian Burrin
So I've been building up to this for a while and in a way I have done it in a tricky but rewarding manner.. I scratchbuilt Panta Rhei after creating the design in the opensource rocket design software Openrocket and it was designed to use some cheap cardboard postage tubes I had bought off ebay as opposed to tubes made specifically for rocketry. As postal tubes are slightly random sizes it means you have to make everything (nosecones, centring rings, coupling sections etc) from scratch and so you can't buy anything off the shelf that fits! So the cnc router and the 3d printer saw a lot of use in the construction of Panta Rhei... I went even further in that I didn't even buy a parachute I rather cut and stitched my own and even went as far as buying a length of Nomex to sew a flameproof parachute protector!
The other challenge for me, was that I (until arriving at this event) I had never been to a high power rocket event and had no knowledge/had never seen another high power rocket in real life! I had no real knowledge of launch rails and launch procedures or indeed how (apart from I had read in a book) the delay adjustment tools for rocket motors work or how they are packed etc...
Motor all prepped!
By around 11.30 am everything was ready and walked out to the launch rail and proceeded to mount Panta Rhei and connect the ignitor. My nerves got the better of me though and after the obligatory photo I nearly forgot to remove the remove before flight tag that would arm the altimeter! However, the tag was removed, the bleeps confirmed the altimeter was working and I retreated to the launch controller. After the RSO and those present looked around the sky the RSO called that the airspace of interest was clear and gave me the signal to put the key in the launchpad.. once confirmed a countdown was given and I hit the button!
Panta Rhei leapt off the pad in a beautiful (even if I say so myself) vertical flight into lovely blues skies with no wind.. perfect! The motor fired the deployment charge a little after apogee and seperation was followed by a couple of heart stopping seconds before the bright yellow chute unfurled perfectly! I didn't have too long a walk but arrived to find Panta Rhei in great condition in a textbook landing with everything laid out in a straight line! Having launched and recovered with no damage... I'd passed my level 1 high power rocketry certification! The altimeter put the apogee at 460 meters which was around what was simulated.
So finally.. I can heartily recommend trying to get your L1 certification, but I definitely recommend its a good idea to go and check out how launch days work and look at some HPR rockets being prepped in advance if you can.. dates of launch events can be found on the UKRA website.
3 comments:
Welcome to High Power. A nice article that will,hopefully bring more people into the hobby.
Hope to see you at more launches.
Looking forward to you L2 blog.
W00t!
I certed with the same motor. Lots of kick!
Congratulations!
All the best people cert on a h133... :) It did go with a kick for sure!
Post a Comment