UKRA 2002 Meeting at Pete's Farm

(June 8th and 9th)

SATURDAY 8th JUNE

The weather for UKRA 2002 did not look good. The forecast was showing that Saturday was going to be the best day, with sunshine and showers. Sunday was looking like a washout! In the end we had a great day on Saturday with lots of sunshine, blue sky and Sun burn. Sunday was windy with some clear spells but with rain coming later in the afternoon.

We (My Son David and I) picked up Sean O'Neil at 6:30 on Saturday morning and headed off for Pete's Farm at Heckington and arrived at 1030pm. Andy Issott had arrived the night before and said that there had been some good flights late on Friday. All the usual crowd where there, including all the Big vendors. Pete Davy had a big building set up at the farm that was being used for prepping. All tables were full, so Sean and I set up our stuff at the main field. Richard Parkin of the WRS had also arrived at his first UKRA event, and was keen to see some big HPR's go!

This year we could drive down to the launch area. This made a BIG difference. Last year we had to lug all the video equipment, launch pad, rockets, tool kit etc nearly a quarter mile down a farm track.

Sean was flying his upscale Estes Optima on a J570W with dual deployment using a Gwhizz. Andy was flying hiss BBX staging from an H to G. David was flying his award winning Firebolt on an I154J. I had just completed a 2 inch rocket to fly on a J570W with Video down link, but decided on the day to launch on a J350W and keep it just below Mach.

Sean and my son David set up the pad while I started to get David's Firebolt ready.

The rocket was scratch built and made from 4 inch ducting. David had designed it himself. He also had cut, glued, drilled and screwed most of the parts. The lettering had been printed off the computer and then he cut out the letters from Solar film using the printout as a template. I had done some of the work that David could not do or manage, such as motor retention design, recovery harness design, ensuring that all bolts where tight, and mounted the rail buttons etc.

The motor was a I154J short delay. The flight was great. Straight as a die with deployment just after apogee. The chute was a Skyangle drogue that was to be used in my IRIS at a later date. This worked great and brought the rocket down safe without much drift or any damage.

Andy's BBX had flown at IRW2001 in single stage format, but this would be its first two stage flight. First stage was an H, then staging to a G. Recovery was by ALTAC. The launch was great and the rocket soared into the air. The staging was quite long and the rocket did arc over slightly before staging, But the flight was great with all systems working to plan. From what I can remember, Andy was the only one to do a two-stage flight at UKRA2002.

The booster came down and bounced off a distant power line, luckily not wrapping itself around the line. The upper stage came down quite a way off, but was recovered ok. The first stage suffered a little scorching due to staging, but would be easily repaired.

Sean had been prepping his upscale Estes Optima for a few hours. This had not flown as CPR before and he was being very careful not to get things wrong. Sean had changed the fins for Dibond. The plastic fins used previously had been seen to flex a lot during the UKRA2001 event just before it spacked. The rocket was rebuilt and then flown again a few weeks later at BIG Ears. During that flight the fins had ripped off at MaxQ, hence the new Dibond fin material.

The battery and arming switch had to be installed. Wiring in the ejection charges to the Gwhizz took a while and this was triple checked when completed. The recovery harness needed completing, but it all went together ok and was loaded onto the pad.

The launch was loud and spectacular. That J570W is a great motor. The Gwhizz deployed the drogue at apogee and the rocket descended towards the launch area. The main seemed to be very late in coming out, but the main chute did fully inflate before landing. Sean's homemade chutes are now working great!

I had been designing and building a 2 inch rocket for a few weeks. The prime requirements for this rocket where to:-

· Break the sound barrier

· Go to a high altitude

· Record the flight with a 2.4Ghz video down link

· Be quick, simple, strong and cheap to build

The rocket used motor ejection and did not use CPR. The chute, made by Sean, was hemispherical and built VERY strong. The rocket flew with a 433Mhz tracker that Andy had made, a 2.4Ghz video down link, camera, a 6inch long helical Ariel beeper and all the batteries to power the payload. The main issue was getting all the payload equipment into the small payload area.

VIDEO TRANSMITTER AND RECIVER PACKAGE

The upper nose cone payload contained the Video sender unit . The system used was similar to that used at the UKRA2000 meeting. except for the Transmitter being smaller and using a small helical in the nose cone and the reciever being 1m long not 500mm.

The body was 2-inch plastic drainpipe. The nose cone was home made from turned solid balsa. The fins are bolt on aluminum using our own design 'through the wall' Tee section aluminum strip. The motor mount was standard PML 38mm. The body is reinforced in the appropriate places that would be subjected to stress. The recovery harness is bolted to the body. No way was the chute going to fail for this flight.

To break the sound barrier I was going to have to fly it on a J570W. This would take it to around Mach 1.2 and an altitude of nearly 10,000 feet, max velocity of 817mph at 46G. With the weather being good, but not perfect, I decided to keep the altitude down and consequently the altitude down also.

The rocket was loaded with a J350W and was simulated to just over 7000 feet, Mach 0.83, 615mph max velocity under 26.3G. The flight was fantastic. The rocket leapt off the pad and was out of site in a few seconds. The video link recorded the flight for almost the duration of the ascent, going out of range well past the cloud base. The ground just disappeared below and the fields became very small on the TV screen before it was out of range. The rocket was seen quite a while later descending under the small chute. It landed quite close to the pad, just inside the adjacent cornfield. No damage was sustained. The design worked great!!

The above thumbnail images show the ground dissapearing within a few seconds. The last image shows that therocket is still climbing but the signal is getting out of range. The origianl video is of much better quality than the images given above.

Unfortunately the sound jack in the video had not been fully inserted and so no sound was recorded. I decided to clean out the motor and try again. This time Andy checked that the sound was recording ok and we launched again. The second flight was almost a replica of the first and it landed near the same area as the first flight!! Amazing after nearly being 1.5miles up…

The video again on this flight was amazing. The ground just disappeared. The large fields that the event was held in became very small, very quickly! Previous in flight videos from Pete's with my IRIS to 3300 feet show the fields MUCH larger than on this video. I am not sure, and never will be, but it may have been much higher than the simulated 6800 feet expected. I may alter the rocket to recover with the Gwhizz, but this will make it longer, heavier and more complex with more joints to fail under the G forces. Especially if ever subjected to 46+ G's with the J570W.

Other fliers made many other good flights on Saturday. Darren's (of NSRG) Evil-Twintinique made what appeared to be a final death dive with no deployment, but amazingly appears to be repairable. George of NSRG did a great first Hybrid flight. Mike Crew had a mid air explosion which was caught on camera and one of Ziggy's rockets went AWOL downwind, leaving the pad in a rather sorry state!!

Many other flights were made, but I cannot remember them all. See the following link to other reports:-

http://www.ukra.org.uk/news/2002/ukra2002.shtml

http://www.northstarrocketry.org.uk/ukra/2002/

SUNDAY 9th JUNE

David flew his Firebolt again on an I211W. The flight was great with the rocket deploying just after apogee. There was a little more drift downwind because of higher winds than the day before. The rocket came down behind us, some 400 to 500 yards away behind us.

David and I had to walk though the fields to get to it. The beeper was working but we had to get to within 100 feet of it before we could hear it. I had to jump a big ditch to get to it over the other side of a barbed wire fence. But it was recovered ok without any damage to the rocket, or me.

UKRA2002 was a great event and well organized as usual. Many thanks go to all that organized the event and for the RSO's who gave up their time to help get others off the ground!

SEE YOU ALL AT LARGS FOR IRW 2002 !!

FLIGHTS TABLE

Flier	Rocket	Motor	Notes
David J Thomson	Firebolt	I154J Short delay	First flight. Perfect flight and recovery
David J Thomson	Firebolt	I211W Short delay	Second flight. Perfect flight and recovery
David A Thomson	Black lightning	J350W Long delay	First flight. Perfect flight and recovery. On board 2.4Ghz video and tracker. Good videos to over 7000 feet, then out of range.
David A Thomson	Black lightning	J350W Long delay	Second flight. Perfect flight and recovery. On board 2.4Ghz video and tracker. Good videos to over 7000 feet, then out of range.
Andy Issott	BBX	H to G	H to G staged First two stage flight. Perfect flight and recovery
Sean O'Neil	Upscale Estes Optima	J570W	First flight using a Gwizz for CPR. Long delay for the drogue backup on the J570W. Perfect flight and recovery

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