INTERNATIONAL ROCKETRY WEEK, IRW2001

(LARGS, SCOTLAND)

Tuesday 21st August 2001

Time again disappeared and the IRW was here. Each year we say that we must allow plenty of time to get ready and develop something new for the event. But every year we run out of time. Sean had managed to complete his larger upscale Estes Thunderhawk for UKRA2001 but did not fly it. I myself did not have much time to complete any new projects or repair the large Delta Clipper form last years event. This was mainly due to building my new garage, which is at issue of this report (Sept 2001) almost complete. I did however manage to complete a small stumpy rocket with an active roll control system and my first boost glider (Vaun Brothers Buzzard) that I hoped to enter into the competitions later in the week.

Andy Issott said he would meet us up there around Wednesday. Sean and myself planned to get up to Largs late Tuesday. Myself, my Dad, and my son made our way up to Largs with my Dad's caravan in tow late on Tuesday morning. We had a rather wet trip up but the forecast looked good from Wednesday onwards. We arrived at the Kelburn center late in the afternoon. The wind was very strong and delayed us putting up the awning until the Wednesday morning. We pitched the caravan and settled down for our evening meal followed by a sample of the local fire water (16 year old Lagavulin). My Dad checked the mobile for messages to find that Sean had called. It turns out that he was not able to make it that evening due to his company not letting him use his works van. In the end he had to arrange for a hire car for the next morning.

Wednesday 22nd August 2001

We arose to a beautiful morning with the sun shining and a very light breeze. Andy had arrived and was setting up his tent. Wednesday was not a HPR day, so we began to prep some model stuff for later on in the afternoon. My son David would fly his Estes Tidal wave again. This RTF model has been flying at the IRW for 3 years now and had many good flights. A great intro kit for the younger ones. He would also fly his Naboo Star ship which was also a RTF Estes kit , both flying on C6 motors.

I began to get a 2inch scratch model ready that was to carry my new 2.4Ghz transmitter and camera payload. This rocket had flown many times before (it's first at the IRW in 1997) but was the first time with a significant payload. The main purpose of the flight was to try out the new transmitter and dipole antenna.

The transmitter, camera and battery were mounted onto a thin strip of aluminum that could be easily removed from the nose cone and loaded into the larger IRIS for a HPR flight on Thursday. Aluminum was used for strength to prevent movement of the components within the nose cone. In the end this may have been one of the factors why the range of the new transmitter was very much reduced from the original Response unit that I had been using before it's demise in Sean's Optima at UKRA2001.

My son's flight of his Tidal wave was perfect as usual. In fact it flew twice that night. Best flight was on a C6-5. A couple of modifications had been done to it from the standard kit, which were a much stronger shock cord and a streamer instead of a parachute.

The Naboo starship flight was interesting to say the least!! The rocket left the pad and immediately went unstable. It did a flat spin a few yards in front of us before hitting the deck and ejecting the parachute and setting fire to it. This will be going back to the shop. My concern is that other similar scale models from this range may do the same.

The camera down link was checked out for my flight. I did not have time at home to do any decent ground testing and with the HPR on Thursday it would be a case of emperical testing! The rocket was loaded with a G35-4W Econojet single use. The flight was good with some weather cocking but landed back in the field ok. The in flight recording was good but did show some breakup near apogee while it was rotating. The altitude was around 1000 feet.

Below are some frame grabbed images of the in flight video. You can see how the motor spits into life!

Sean launched his upscale Thunderhawk on a G40W-4. This has been a regular and has had many flights, but STILL breaks fins on landing. Good job they are bolt on!

Thursday 23rd August 2001

HPR launches from Les's farm at Birtlebog had been cancelled due to Foot and Mouth. HPR flights would be up the top of Ward Hill at the back the of Kelburn centre.We made our way up to base camp and we could see one of the landrovers further up the hill.

We persuaded Andy to come down to help us move some of the heavy stuff in the landrover. My Dad went into the passenger's seat and had the 'ride of his life' up the side of the hill.!! "I am not going down in that" he said, "once is enough!".

We knew the High Power site was a bit of a hike, but, Sean didn't realise it was nearly going to kill him. He got to the site and left his rockets up at the top. Then came back down to give me a lift with all the video equipment from the landrover. We began to get the rest of the stuff up. Andy looked knackered too!

But as you can see from above, the view was worth it..!!!

Sean had a great impressive flight from his Phoenix;  lots of smoke, flame and noise. Problem though was a ripped chute on deployment and it sustained some slight damage on landing. He wanted to bin it despite being reassured by Andy and Myself that it was not as bad as it looked. Next flight for his upscale Thunderhawk on a G40-4W - excellent flight - it always breaks fins on landing due to design fault that he will conquer some day.

This frame grabbed image from our video shows the state of the chute!! This resulted in a hard landing, but was repaired quite quickly. I think recovery development is in order..

Andy launched his mini BBX on a H180W. Good flight but it was lost down the hill side for that day. It was found next day by me in the correct line but was nearer to pad than expected. Alt finally reported 2174 feet.

I launched my IRIS on a K550W. This had flown well at UKRA2001 recently. The sky today would hopefully give a better view of the flight. The camera and video were switched on and the rocket roared off the pad. The rocket did weather cock a little before deployment. The drogue ripped and the main had come out at apogee also, but the rocket was fine. You could hear and see the main deployment charges go at 400 feet, minus the main chute! The IRIS came down only a few hundred yards away. No damage sustained, except the damages drouge. I need to have the nose fixed tighter also!

Thanks to Adrian for letting me use his pic of the IRIS at launch. The other is poor image grabbed from a video.  I am always too busy to take in flight pics these days. Must stop pointing that bloody light sabre at them!

In this enhanced frame grabbed image you can see that the drouge is stripped and that the main is out. You can also see that the Gwhizz has reached 400 feet and fired the main ejection charges. Smoke can be seen coming from top of the middle section.

Another problem was that the video signal was lost at around 1000 feet and only came back in on way down. The new 2.4Ghz TX form Maplin did not seem t give the same o/p as the old response unit. It could be the new Dipole antenna that I used with it, but I have my doubts. The Gwhizz reported 3200 feet. Lower than predicted, probably because of the weathercocking. I decided to get the strongest Sky Angle drogue I could lay my hands on from Pete!!

Above are some frame grabbed images of the in flight video. You can see the shadow of the smoke trail on the ground in the lower two images with the spectators to the right of it.

Darren Longhawn launched Tintinuque on its biggest motor yet. It was an H somthing and went like stink! Pete Waddington did altitude attempt on G !! That went well out of sight and sadly was not recovered. Chris launch hi on a cluster of I's and it went out of sight over the hill and far away!! But he did get it back the next day…

I launched my roll control rocket that I had developed over the last week. It worked fine for a short while then lost reference and spun like hell!! I guess the rate movement on the rear fins was way too much.

The circuit utilizes a LDR (light dependant resistor) to detect the radial position of the rocket with respect to the Sun through a window in the side of the rocket. If the LDR is fully illuminated the servo it controls will go in one direction. If the LDR is full in shade then the servo moves in the other direction. The servo controls two pushrods that move two ailerons at the rear of the fins. The control circuit uses a 555 to provide pulses to the servo. The idea is to set the rocket so that the LDR is half covered and have the ailerons in a neutral position. Works fine on the bench but will need tweaking. The unit would be used to prevent roll of the rocket for photo work, or other work that requires the rocket to have a reference point.

The above image shows the control circuit with the LDR at the top just below the servo battery pack. The servo is at the bottom of the board. The jack plug is to arm the system.

Many thanks to Mike of NSRG who did the RSO all day. Thanks mike as I did bugger all to help.

We had a few pilgrimages down to Largs for fish and chips and quite a few goes on the bumper cars and arcade games. One of the most popular is the Daytona dual race game. I think my Dad is behind my son on this lap! My son usually wins by keeping his foot to the floor and hitting everything in sight..

Friday 24th August 2001

"NO CHANCE of getting me up that bloody hill again today!" said Sean.! Toy model field is the order of the day.

First thing was to get Andy's BBX from the day before. We spent a few hours looking up and down the hill until a lucky find by me spotted the BBX further up the hill than expected. All intact, no damage at all.

We did some model flying including Andy Issott finally deciding to launch his Archer after bringing it many times to the IRW but I had never seen it fly. The Archer was flown on a G80T single use motor. Good flight and recovered well within the model field.

Sean had a drag race with his Estes Phoenix. Darren had the upper hand from the word go - well he did have an "F" compared to his "D"! Next he scrounged an E15-7 from Andy and put in his veteran Shadow - 7 second delay - he got more that he bargained for ….. low altitude deployment it wasn't - very low it was!! Luckily, he got away with no damage! PHEW!! Last up, Thunderhawk again - igniter problems not once, not twice, but three times - forget it - there's always tomorrow.

Friday evening would be the BIG MATCH!! Liverpool against Bayern Munich. We all decided that it would be great idea to clear out the caravan awning and set up the TV using the inverter and 12V batteries as a power supply. The chairs where set up and everybody got their seats. In the seated stadium where My Dad, My son David, Geoff Regan and his son Christopher, Dave Owen, Sean O'Neill, Myself and Andy Issott. The match was a great 3-1 result for Liverpool!! It must have been a good match considering the number of bottles and cans I had to clear up off the floor the following morning!!

Saturday 25th August 2001

Saturday HPR was to be cancelled due to weather. So some of the competition events came forward.

It was nice in the afternoon. Flew my newly completed Van Brothers Buzzard boost glider on a C6-3. Up until then the longest duration for other entrants flights were around 30 seconds. I was amazed at how straight the boost was and how high considering the amount of drag that the glider appeared to have. The glider separated at ejection as planned but was too tail heavy causing it to do short loops. It appeared ok when tested on the ground, but the additional airspeed must exaggerate any out of trim. The glider stayed up for 1minute 20 seconds.

Many other flights form other gliders too place with the Buzzard kit being the most popular. But it looked like I was going to walk away with it at that time. I made the mistake of telling Pete and Angela Waddington that I was using a C6-3. Their next flight was on a C6-5. That flight was great. The glider was well trimmed also. Total flight time was 1 minute 37 seconds! OK, right, I see, so…….I will put in a C6-5 also! But nope, it only added a few extra seconds to the flight. That was after trimming it a little more. But still not enough. The main cause of the discrepancies between the flights was the weight of mine compared to Angela's. I had painted mine, but that was a mistake. You could easily tell the difference in weight, even though I did not use much spray paint. Well done Angela and the NSRG team!!

Above images show my painted version against Pete and Angela's naked version.

Sean launched his optima again and then we went down to Largs for fish and chips and another go at the arcade games.

We came back and I had a final launch of the camera rocket again in the evening on a G40W-4. The flight was getting late and the picture not too good because of the low light. Still good though.

Sean had the last flight of the night, with yes, his Thunderhawk on a G40W-4. Great flight, lots of smoke in the night air and landed only a short distance away.

Sunday 26th August 2001

We packed up the caravan and made our way home. A great event, even though I did not do much HPR. I did enjoy the competition flying

This was a great IRW, and we all owe a great deal, and give many thanks to all who organised the event. We will be back next year..!!