KLOB+1999

This was my first visit to Pete's farm. Myself, my Dad and may son David arrived around 10:00am to a sunny but very windy farm near Sleaford. We met Hugh when driving through the gate. He said that the wind had been getting worse and it didn't look good for today. The flying area looked great, flat with not many trees. Pete had a great marquee in the garden with refreshments too. We set up our spec and began to prep the rocket. This was to be the first flight of my 5inch scale IRIS. It was to be flown at Largs IRW 99 but the weather there got the better of us also...
 * K-LOB 1999**

The usual crowd was there including John Bonsor, Mars crew, Bob etc and much rocket banta ensuewed.

We had a session down at the flying field. John managed to fly his waverider with a great deployment and glide but the weather soon came in and flying was abandoned. We retreated to the marquee and prepped the IRIS more. Then the heavens really opened!!!!!! A bright flash of lightning followed immediately by the loudest band of thunder I have heard for a long while. Everybody froze. Then an extremely heavy hailstorm followed. I think some got it all on Video. The sky then cleared a little and the wind eased off. We packed up to go to the feild and set up the launch systems.

Only a few flights where made before the rains came again. Some people got absolutely soaked!! The rain then eased off again and this time it looked as if we would get a decent break from the rain...

We loaded the IRIS with a core J350W long delay surrounded by 6xG40W single use motors. These had 7 second delay's. The core J350W would be ignited from the ground first followed by airstarting the 6xG40 motors. The homemade staging unit for the G's would be initiated by a magnet from the end of the launch rail. This would close a reed switch in the nosecone starting the G's some 1.5 seconds after ignition of the J350. This combined with a long delay for the J350 would give first ejection some 1.5+3+7 seconds (11.5) from ignition of the core motor. The core motor would then give a backup charge at around 14 sec from ignition. This should get out both the 1M diameter chutes. The IRIS also had the camera payload transferred from my camera rocket.

At launch the rocket roared off the pad followed soon by the G's. The burn time seemed a good deal longer than a single J and then other motors kicked in at altitude. (Bob was heard saying on the video "there go the G's") It became apparent that there was something wrong as the nose cone then separated too early!!!!!!! Uh oh!!!!!!! Above images show the IRIS just after launch and after some of the G40's had kicked in with the J350W also. Note the image on the right has flares off the camera lens from the moror flame. The parachutes ripped off in the still fast travelling upward going rocket. Then it was in freefall. Liz gave the seriously heads up. The advantage with a large rocket if it goes a bit wrong is that at least you can see it and get out of the way! The rocket landed with a thump in the soft ploughed feild. The damage after inspection was not that bad. The camera was knackered but the film was saved (as you can see below!) The payload section and stager was also destroyed but the booster and nose cone are ok. It will be back next year. Above images show the cameras eye view. This also shows separation too early!! The motors on the last frame can still justr seen to be running as the nose cone is just separating from the booster. See below.... POST FLIGHT INVESTIGATION:- Following close examination and timings of the video taken it became apparent that one or more than one of the ejection charges went off too early causing separation!!!!! Timings showed that separation was at around 6.5 seconds after launch WAY too early. This could have been an early G or failure of the J delay grain!! We will never know. But I will be taking extra measure to ensure that this does not happen again. i.e. no more timed ejections!! I will be now concentrating on apogee ejection systems. Great flight it was though, as said by all..........see you there next year.
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