From the ground

We flew 7 times today, the primary changes were the addition of 25Kg of payload and some tuning of the vertical loop constants , both turned out perfect.

Flights 1,2,3  Perfect take off from the stands hover for 5 seconds at 1.5M then land.

Flight 4 Perfect Still attached to tether, but sitting on the ground Take off hover for 5 seconds land on the ground.

Flight 5 attempt on take off from the ground only got the ctalyst valve partially opened. We arn’t sure why,  we should  know more when we review the data. It took off, but could not maintain altitude and settled back on the ground in water rocket mode.  No damage. We reset the valve controller and …

Flight 6 the  third flight  from the ground to hover and back to ground was perfect.

The last flight was a very short flight to from the stands to burn off the remaining peroxide from the last flight. It lasted maybe 4 seconds. Again perfect no damage.

Some of the Masten folks came out to watch and Ben got some really cool slow motion footage of the flights. (Look for him to post it soon)  I’ll review data and post a video or two on Sunday. Right now its been a long hot day , I’m grumpy, sunburned and  don’t feel like editig video. ;-)

We have finally reached the point many rocketry people have dreamed about: Fuel is a significat cost. Our next flight series will include a 90 second hover with payload and the peroxide cost for that flight will be noticiable.

After that we need to do a free flight to 50 meters translate out, translate back and we will have completed the testing series required for our experimental permit.