IRW+2002

 =__INTERNATIONAL ROCKETRY WEEK, IRW 2002 (LARGS SCOTLAND)__=

Wednesday 21ST August 2002
My son (David) and I Left home early morning and met up with Sean O'Neill at the Tebay services on the M6 near Kendal. We continued on in convoy and arrived at Largs at around 1:00pm. We set up tent and began preparing stuff for the week ahead.

The weather for the week ahead had looked bad, but the weather forcast the night before looked promising (as you can see below!). We have been coming to the IRW since 1995 and have only had one or two days lost to rain. Each year we seem to take more and more stuff!!!! I have no idea how I managed in the past. The last two years we have come in the caravan with my Dad, but this year he could not come. It was lucky that I had completed my latest project (a 30inch Dobsonian Telescope ) for which I needed a trailer to get it about. It would come in great for getting tents, chairs, tables and rockets about. Richard Parkin, Andy Issott and Mark Robinson arrived later in the day and set up camp close to us. There would be lots of Beer drunk late into the night over the next few days…..rockets being the topic of course. 

Model flying field
David (my son) flew his Estes Tidal Wave on a C6-5. This is a regular at the IRW and recovers fine on a streamer. David also flew his new newly constructed Estes Tracer on a C6-5. This again recovers fine on a streamer. The Estes chutes supplied with these kits do work, but the models drift far too much. A long streamer is fine for a safe recovery with little drift. These models are cheap and easy to build. The Tracer was only around £5 yet flies very high on a C6-5. Above shows David with his Estes Tidal Wave and his Estes Tracer on the 'NEW' model pad (my old telescope tripod!) Sean flew his Estes Shadow on a D12-5. The ejection was late and caused a split in the nose cone like I have never seen done before. Sean also flew his small Estes Thunderhawk on a C6-3. The chute came out far too quickly and was almost ripped completely off, but Sean was adamant that he had always flow the Thunderhawk on a C6-3 and not a C6-5. Richard Parkin flew his Blue Streak on C6-5. This flew very high but was accepted by the rocket gods, but then found again by the other Dave Thompson (of NSRG) later in the week. Image above show Marcel, Richard, Myself and Sean with Richards first flight at the IRW with his Blue Streak. I myself flew a 2-inch diameter rocket on an F25-4 econojet. The flight was great but the nose cone ripped off and hit the roof of a house some way off. This limited the model flying field to Estes 'D' motors. A wise move I think!
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MODEL FLYING FIELD
Sean and I had quickly built a UFO that was intended to replace the UFO/Lander we had built with Andy some years back. The UFO was designed to fly on 3 x D12-3 Estes motors. The main body was turned on a lathe from pink foam and then painted with emulsion before spraying silver. The top of the UFO had a Xeon beacon and a sounder for effects. The parachute was hidden below the Beacon. A funnel was used to 'hide' the motors and the underside covered in old CD's to reflect the light from the motors at dusk.

The flight was very stable. It looked wuite good in the evenig sky. The quick match lit the motors quickly and the UFO went up around 70 to 80 feet. The CD's reflected the flame from the motors on the way up. The chute did not deploy and the UFO can down upside down! Time for some mods me thinks... Richard Parkin flew his Anubis on a D12-5 to around 1,200 feet, arrow straight and recovered 20 yards upwind. Next up was his Yankee on B6-4.
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David flew his Estes Mant boost glider on a C6-5. This realy did go well. The glider stayed up for ages, around 3 minutes and 30 seconds. John Bonsor commented that the flight was probably the longest at an IRW event. It looked good for Sunday, so long as he got the glider back!! Luckily a local lad (Malcom) followed the glider all the way to the ground and brought it back to David in one piece. We all did a lot of prepping for the HPR flying that we expected to do the following day.
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Friday 23rd August 2002
It had been raining for a short while Friday morning was a little dull. But the weather soon improved later in the afternoon. Some HPR flying was done on Friday for a short while, but we decided to go for Saturday instead. Sean had been preparing hs Pheonix to fly on a J570W. He had spent ages on site building a payload section for the GWhizz rather than rely on the motor ejection alone. The fins had also been modified and used some special fibre stuff that was VERY strong. In the end it did not fly and he put the GWhizz back into the upscale Estes Thunderhawk. A newcomer to the IRW was Gary Blinco. He had brought a very nice PML Thunder and Lightning to fly that afternoon. He had also brought along some very nice designed rocket gliders. These used 18 and 24mm motors with a Large Delta wing design. Sean, Andy, Richard and I decided to build and upscale version!! I had some foam wings that I had made many years. David is by our 'incomplete' upscale plane. We cut out a profile from ¼ inch ply and had the basic shape completed quite quickly. The profile section was lightened by drilling it with lots of holes. Propulsion would be by two sets of 3 x D12 motors either side of the rudder. The elevator would be set to neutral for boost and the ejection charge would then trip the elevator for glide at apogee. It glided well when thrown by hand. Unfortunately the HPR overtook events and we did not have to complete the glider for Sunday. Maybe we would have it ready for next year? MODEL FLYING FIELD The UFO was modified to fly on 3 x D12-0 motors instead of the 3 x D12-3 the previous day. The flight was not quite as stable and the blow through form the D12-0's scorched the body and separated the upper section from the main body of the UFO. The image below shows the UFO incoming !!!!!

Richard Parkin again flew his Anubis on another D12-5, this time it attained about 500 feet then it decided to go horizontal. This was also accepted by the rocket gods and never returned. Richard blames the motor...

HPR FLYING FIELD
Sean flew his upscale Estes Thunderhawk on a I211W and Gwizz for the first time. The rocket looks great and flew very well on the I211W. The rocket suffered only a slightly broken fin on landing, but with the fins being bolt on this was soon fixed to fly the next day. Altitude on the I211W was 1956 feet.
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I myself flew my upscale Estes Delta Clipper on a J800T to a J570W. This model first flew at the IRW back in 2000 and only staged on its second flight because the Timer 2N did not see launch. Again the Timer 2N did not see the launch and did not stage. The J800T was great but only took the clipper to 900 feet.
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The rocket came in a little hard and broke a few fins on landing. The real bumer was that the on-board camera was heavily damaged. This must have happened at chute deployment. The inflight video for some reason was not as good as recent recordings but it did show why the camera was criticaly damaged. You can see the rocket deploy the drouge and then come back. The fins then smash into the camera!! We repaired the booster in the Pavilion later that night so we could fly the next day. During the repair work I noticed that the back up ejection from the J800 motor had also failed. The BP had been clogged with too much Vaseline in the forward closure.!!! George's Hypertek explosion was spectacular. The rocket made the loudest bang I have heard form a rocket went up 20 feet and bits of it landed all around the pad. The rocket was mostly destroyed. The reason for the explosion is still unknown. One idea may be that the motor did not vent correctly causing the rocket to 'chill down' too much. Or it may have been a faulty grain??

The rocket managed to arc over (bits trailing) and just miss my pad..!! Richard Parkin flew his Cirrus Dart on an F25-7W to around 1,300 feet. The flight was arrow straight and was recovered about 5 yards from pad with a slightly busted fin.
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MODEL FLYING FIELD
Mark Robinson flew his Estes R2D2 A10-3T motor. Good, short flight and recovery. John Bonsor commented on how well behaved it was; the last time someone flew an R2D2 it came off the pad and went for him. Mark also flew his Estes Mini Marz lander on an A10-3T motor. Again a short flight, but well behaved. Need to review chute packing as it didn't deploy properly on 2 flights, but the model was undamaged.

Richard Parkin flew his newly constructed Bullpup on an A8-3. (read the instructions properly Richard! Motor mount construction in particular!) Altitude around 900 feet, arrow straight, recovered about15 yards upwind. It then flew again on a B6-4 to around 1,200 feet, arrow straight. It was recovered about 15 yards upwind. David flew his Tidal wave again on a C6-5. Again a nice flight with the rocket coming back well within the filed on the streamer.  
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HPR FLYING FIELD
Sean flew his big upscale Estes Thunderhawk again. This time if was loaded with a J350W. The Thunderhawk broke fin at launch and then got to 3559 feet. Not a bad altitude for a large single stage rocket. I flew the upscale Estes Delta Clipper again. This time it was loaded with a K1100T and staging to a J570W. The rocket had been modified prior to flight so that the K1100T would fit in the booster. We also decided not to trust the Timer 2N to stage and by-passed the Timer 2N and used the staging capabilities of the Gwizz instead. This meant running a cable from the Gwizz down to the J570W on the outside of the body tube via the main power switch and through a coupler vent hole.

The flight was spectacular!! That K1100T gave the rocket a good boost off the pad. The rocket then seemed to coast for ages. Everybody was willing it to stage, and then it did….boomm. The J570W kicked in with a much louder noise than expected and the rocket was gone. The booster again unfortunately did not deploy its chute. The Timer 2N had failed again. The back up motor ejection came too late but the chute still did not deploy. The booster came in hard but was found to be undamaged (apart from some scorching). Pete Davy commented after the launch that the Sustainer had lost fins in flight!! This seemed to be confirmed when looking back at the ground launch video (it may also be another reason why the transmitted video was poor...vibration and spinning?) The ground video shows the rocket trail as a Helix just after second stage ignition, indicating an unstable flight??? You can see the booster falling away at the lower left of the image. The upper stage deployed its drogue at apogee fine (looked way higher than 3863 feet that the Ghizz reported) and descended down in the adjacent field and deployed the main at 400 feet. Again some fin damage on landing (bloody rocks!!). It was then noticed that the booster had been damaged during staging (again!…same as in IRW 2000) and the blast deflector that had been redesigned from a few years ago had been dislodged, therefore the ejection charge had bypassed the chutes!! Another redesign…. Andy flew his Mini BBX on an I170 using Pro38 reload staging to a G104T. The rocket went well under the power of the booster until around 1000 feet until the Altac set off both the main and drogue chutes at the same time. At about the same time the Ghwiz in the upper stage ignited the G104T, making the rocket spin all over the sky. The Mini BBX got to 1159 feet before coming back under it's chutes. The booster continued on up and passed the upper stage to an altitude of 1312 feet. Interesting flight!! Martin Sweeney got his level 1 on a mini Endeavor using an H110. Well done Martin. He was lucky to get the rocket back. The farmer, adjacent to Les's farm, found the rocket and came complaining (with rocket in hand) to Sean who was recovering my Delta Clipper at the time. Richard Parkin flew his Cirrus Dart (repaired) for it's second flight on G80-7T to around, 2,400 feet. The flight was, slightly into wind and was recovered in the next field down wind.
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MODEL FLYING FIELD
Sunday was competition day. First up were the boost gliders. David flew his Estes Manta on a C6-5. This had flown earlier in the week for more than 3 minutes 30 seconds!! The flight duration for the competition was 115 seconds. Mike and others came close but David's flight was the longest of the day and he had won the boost glider competition. I myself entered a Vaun Brothers Buzzard with a C6-5 (78 seconds). This model flies well and came second last year. Sean, Flat Cat on a C6-5 (Twice) Crap in Sean's words, it dropped like a brick. The booster hit the ground after the glider! It needs a little more trimming and it will be fine. Sean again launched his small Thunderhawk on a C6-5.
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Mark Robinson flew his Custom Razor (tube fins), B4-4 motor, great flight. Mark also flew his Vaun Brothers TFNC on a B6-4 motor. The elastic shock cord snapped from steel cable, so rocket came back in 2 parts, both recovered fine. Another onne of Marks flights was with his Vaun Brothers EX-18 2-stage rocket with a B6-0 booster staging to a A8-5. The rocket boosted fine but failed to stage slight damage to fuselage/nosecone interface but otherwise ok. Mark flew his Estes Seahawk D12-5 on a motor, superb flight. Only mod was to join both nose and "booster" shock cords together so that I either lose all the rocket or nothing. All she needs now is a motor retainer and some suitable RMS motors. This rocket was finished very well and would look great in upscale model. Sean yet again flew his Thunderhawk.....by now it was getting close to sunset.



Monday 28th August 2002
David receiving his prize for winning the Boost Glider competition form Sunday with his Estes Manta on a C6-5 (duration 115 seconds)

We had a great week and many great launches. This was one of the largest NS launch event for NWR with a total of over 6000NS total impulse burnt up!! Before we went home David and I went into Largs for the Annual ride on the Boat over to the Isle of Cumbrae. We had many good nights in Largs over the week and managed to spend LOTS on Time Crisis 2 (Got to Level 4!)

Pack up and made our way home. We then got stuck in traffic south of Glasgow. See you all at KLOB 2002… 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..! 