We don't pour and cast our own grains in Ireland. Most of the commercial reloads we get use a round, not a star, grain.
Member
We don't pour and cast our own grains in Ireland. Most of the commercial reloads we get use a round, not a star, grain.
Absolutely awesome Ash!
One day you need to get out to either the NARAM or XPRS events... I've never been myself, but from what I've read on the web, it's rocketry heaven. (It's on my bucket-list...) I'm sure you would fit right in.
Adam
Member
Adam,
I was at NARAM-4, -5 and -6. I have 16mm film of me completing the first-ever successful eggloft (at a NARAM), on a Coaster F motor at Hanscom Field / NARAM-5. You can see Willy Ley and Harry Stine breaking the egg into a frying pan to show that I hadn't even broken the yolk.
I still have that rocket, minus fins, along with Harry Stine's egglofter from NARAM-4, wherein he made an omelette through a stupid engineering error. The back nine inches or so made me a dandy three-motor booster. Oh, and I forgot to mention, I won 3rd in PeeWee Altitude at NARAM-4
For NARAM-6, my parents were too cheap to spring for airfare, so I took Trailways from Salina, Kansas to Wallops Island, VA, a two-day trip with an entertaining and educational layover in the Washington DC bus station from 9:00 pm until 6:00 am. My steamer trunk full of rockets got lost around St. Louis and I spent NARAM-6 at Wallops Station under no competitive pressure, having a ball helping others with their rockets. The one I liked helping with most was an actual NASA launch. (They had nothing else to do with this 16-year-old kid and they were afraid I'd get into trouble; might as well let him see what a big SRB works like.)
They stacked five solid stages into this Frankenstein monster called a "Scout". The payload was a scaled version of the Apollo capsule heat shield. NASA stacked layer upon layer of the ablative material onto the shield, putting different pyrotechnic chemicals between layers so that when they filmed the re-entry from the ground, they could tell how far into the ablative material they'd burned at any given point during re-entry. Elegant! Didn't even require telemetry! Four stages fired almost straight up, out over the Atlantic, then it reached apogee, swapped ends and fired the fifth stage, boosting it straight down into the atmosphere at the same whopping 25,000mph expected for the Apollo capsule. I got to sign the booster and I have the launch recorded somewhere on 8mm film. Here's the official NASA pic they gave me for being a good sportsman after my rockets got lost.
They probably wouldn't have given me the award, had they known I was using the VW Microbus Atlantic Research Corp. had donated for NAR use to make beer runs over the state line into Maryland, or that we were terrorizing local tomato farmers by fixing cherry bombs onto hastily-built model rockets and launching them over their fields by night. We had some serious explaining to do about the buckshot in the back of the bus and the six cases of beer in the shower of the Bachelor Officers' Quarters.
Insert a long gap. The next sanctioned event I attended was Balls15.
Haven't attended XPRS, but I stay in touch with that crowd, too - they overlap. I did receive my NAR 50-year pin two years ago so I guess I'm forgiven or the statute of limitations in Virginia has run out.
Lack of time and a schoolteacher's budget has kept me from completing my Level 3 project, so right now, I'm concentrating on out-flying basic Level 3 standards (two redundant flight recorders, actuators, etc.) on Level 2 motors, specifically, anything 54mm. Hence my long G-12 tube. Exceeding 20,000 feet on a K motor? It's been done. Once or twice. A friend of a friend has big ideas about a 54mm L motor that would fit nicely and I wonder if 25,000 feet is possible.
Holy hell... This just keeps getting better and better!
Though I'm confused... If you live in Ireland, how is it that you're able to attend NARAM every year for the past 50? Or do you just live there now that you're retired?
Either way, it's pretty clear that you've seen a lot more of the technical rocketry side than anyone else here. (drool!) That alone qualifies you for free beer at FLEM (provided you're willing to share more stories!).
Adam
Member
Adam,
I haven't attended a NARAM since NARAM-6. I've just kept my NAR membership current.
Re: beer and stories: don't get me started! I'm Irish, remember...
This is going to be a sleepless weekend, I can see that already but... why should it be different than any other LEM!lol
Gotta get rid of that Florida snow though. That's why we're coming down there in the first place - to get away from this white silliness.
I'm giving you a no-snow guarantee, Brad!
Adam
PS: DZ was wondering about the venue. We should be able to get in there by 4 PM on Friday. Maybe earlier even. We have it through Saturday evening at midnight (or later).
Member
Tried the new Z-5 last evening at the Fiske Planetarium. Sure feels like a P-4, but does a lot more!
Jr. Woodchuckington Janitor III, Esq.
where's the video?
Originally Posted by AshMcFadden
suppose you're thinkin' about a plate o' shrimp. Suddenly someone'll say, like, plate, or shrimp, or plate o' shrimp out of the blue, no explanation. No point in lookin' for one, either. It's all part of a cosmic unconciousness.
Member
We'll make video at FLEM next weekend.
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