BPASA

  Boris and Paul's Aeronautics
and Space Administration

Paul's TARC team ranks 17th in the 2015 finals out of 700 teams in the USA!

 

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2011 Missions  Most interesting BPASA flights of the year  
Flights are grouped by project   Click on any picture to enlarge   Most cluster flights use Rocketflite igniters and Cluster Box

TOGinator fires 30 motors, many at both ends!     build and earlier flights     Rocketry Forum thread

Flight 6 video:   3x G64 + 27x D12-0     11/19/11   CMASS   Amesbury, MA
800 Ns J cluster with onboard video

Including this flight the TOGinator has fired 161 motors in 6 flights.

Rocket has a fin design based on the FlisKits TOG, is 7ft tall x 4in diameter and flies at about 14lbs.
Painted tail section with West 206 slow Epoxy tinted black and sanded. Done to repair, harden and color tail section in one step.

Fired by cluster box which pushed about 110A at about 12V (1300W) to launch this. Powered by 14.8V 5Ah Lipo (4S 40C) battery, 200A Ford relay (triggered by a smaller relay to isolate from club launch system) and 10awg power leads.

The TOGinator prepped with motors. Used nearly a full roll of masking tape creating upper and lower (thrust) retention rings. Had to use more tape than previously as the short motor tubes "engine bikinis" have become sloppy with wear. The upper body tube with flame graphic by Stickershock was originally used for the Hot Rod Nitro FireBall project from a couple years ago.
The 30 Rocketflite igniters are arranged in series strings 2 long, then connected in 15 parallel strings.

                                                                                                                                 Dave Lindbergh

The TOGinator lifted off quickly on a column of fire and smoke at 2:30pm on a sunny but windy Saturday. All 30 motors fired. As D11-P motors are hard to get, used D12-0 engines. Many of the D12-0 motors burned at both ends creating the fireball effect at the tail of the rocket.

In the 2nd to last picture can see five motors that were spit out by the rocket after their tape burned off.
The rocket did a clean deployment on a 7ft chute after flying to 832ft.


Curtis Heisey                                                                                                

There was a fair amount of scorching which will be repaired with more black tinted epoxy.
Will need to add fiberglass in some areas that burned through. The TOGinator will return.....

Soyuz - 17 motor cluster scale rocket     Rocketry Forum thread

First flight video:   1x ProX 29mm G125 Red + 16x Estes D11-P   4/30/11   CMASS   Amesbury, MA
Total impulse: 477 Ns, average thrust: 301 N =  I 301

Modified build of the Vostok kit by Cosmodrome Rocketry. 60.5 inches tall, 1/33 scale.
Flight weight 8.5lbs, including 2lbs of motors and 0.5lb nose weight.


Mike Kruger of Cosmodrome Rocketry,     Bob Harrington's very nice        my son Paul and I prepping recovery       
                   his son and I                              paper Soyuz                                                                              


Rocketflite igniters wired in series strings of 2, then connected in parallel to cluster box

Soyuz went up for its first flight early in the afternoon. Flame effect was dramatic and pleasing.
The central G125 and 15 of the 16 D11-P motors fired. Altimeter reported apogee at 716 ft.

Initial liftoff was clean and straight up to about 400 feet, then there was a
pronounced corkscrew to its flight path, which ended at deployment.


Deployment went as planned, however when the lower rocket hit the ground all 4 boosters separated cleanly from the core. This was coming down slowly onto soft grass. Very fixable, but will require a much stronger connection method going forward.

My son suggested telling everyone that the boosters were supposed to do that...

English Electric Thunderbird     2012 flights     Rocketry Forum thread     playlist of all Thunderbird videos
2011 flights video     Flown 3 times in 2011, firing all 33 motors loaded.

The English Electric Thunderbird is a very cool looking surface to air missile deployed by the British from 1959 to 1977.
It has four drop off boosters with canted nose cones and engine nozzles.

FlisKits makes a very nice Thunderbird kit. The first time I saw one, I had to buy the kit, then decided to supersize it.
This is a 3/20x scale model of the actual missile and a 2x upscale the Fliskits kit.
As built: 11x motor cluster of 24mm engines, 42.5 inches tall, 7.5 lbs flight weight.

flight 5: 1x F30 + 6x D12-5 + 4x D11-P     4/30/11   CMASS    Amesbury, MA

flight 6: 1x F30 + 6x E9-6 + 4x D12     11/5/11   CMASS    Amesbury, MA

                                                                                                 separate NC and body recovery

The 1x F30 + 6x E9 engines in the center give a nice long 2.8 second burn and typically hit about 700 ft altitude.
Nice long fire and smoke flight effect and very recoverable for this single deployment rocket.
All motors fired these 3 flights.

flight 7: 1x F30 + 6x E9-6 + 4x D12     11/19/11   CMASS    Amesbury, MA

these 4 pictures by Dave Lindbergh

Autonomy     Rocketry Forum thread (includes multiple flight videos starting with post #86)
Flown a total of 9 flights on 10/22/11, 11/5/11 and 11/19/11 at CMASS / Amesbury, MA on engines from RR G80 to ProX H110.

Team project with fellow CMASS flier Dave Lindbergh. Dave has been doing advanced electronics work and field tests in the pursuit of GPS guided rocket recovery. Dave's website

Rocket is a delta wing designed for fast gliding, built with LOC 3.1" diameter body tube and nose cone and reinforced 1/4" balsa fins/wings. Flight weight 3.3 lbs, 47 inches tall.

Target flight profile:
1) straight up liftoff from normal rail
2) near apogee, control unit (with input from GPS and altimeter) adjusts elevons to glide position and guides rocket on a fast glide back towards the pad
3) at 100-200 ft altitude over the pad, elevons are raised to flare rocket and a conventional chute is deployed

Over the series of flights we were able to build on the level of autonomous control successfully executed by this project. However, there were persistent problems with GPS lock that were not resolved. Unfortunately, Dave and I walked away from the pad on its ninth and final flight without activating the onboard electronics and Autonomy did a fast spinning dive into the swamp. It was a very interesting project and we hope to go forward with an Autonomy 2 project in the future.

 
Dave and I with the boys                   Dave and his son                               these 2 pictures by Curtis Heisey

  Apollo Saturn V     build and earlier flights     Rocketry Forum thread
flight 9 video:   1x AMW J440 + 4x G64
  
10/22/11   CMASS   Amesbury, MA

Beautiful Scale High Power kit by Sirius Rocketry of the Greatest Rocket Ever Built
Modified for Level 2 Certification, dual deploy and clusters.
 5 feet tall by 6.3 inches diameter, flight weight 16 to 20 pounds.

Good flight to 1372 ft. Fired my last classic AMW reload. 
Rocketflite ML pyrogen at the top of each motor assisted with quick ignitions.
     

HellBoy     2012 flights     2010 build and flights     Rocketry Forum thread
2011 flights video     Flown twice in 2011, firing all 38 motors loaded.     playlist of all HellBoy videos

Built from the Polecat Fat Man kit - a 2x upscale of Estes Fat Boy. Modified for dual deploy and 19x 24mm motor cluster flight.
27 inches tall by 5.5 inches diameter, flight weight 8 pounds.

flight 3: 7x E9 + 12x D12     10/22/11   CMASS   Amesbury, MA

Upgrading 7x center D engines with E9's gave nice long burns and pushed the altitude to just under 1000ft.
Added 4oz more nose weight to maintain stability.
Both flights started with a big flash from the flashpans and fired all motors, hissing and rising on a tall column of fire and smoke. 

flight 4: 7x E9 + 12x D12     11/5/11   CMASS   Amesbury, MA

Turbine Rocket Saucer     2012 flights     2010 build and flights     Rocketry Forum thread

Turbine Rocket Saucer is featured in the Dec/Nov 2011 issue of Sport Rocketry

2011 flights video
includes a Cool Night Flight Video and 2 flights in snow


Turbine Rocket Saucer 2011 year-end update:

10 more flights in 2011, firing 54 of 55 motors loaded

As of 2011, rocket has flown 25 times, burning 128 motors

All 2011 flights were on 5x or 6x D11-P motors

Established that an unbalanced load of 5x motors flies well and used this at all low power launches to maximize impulse while complying with propellant limits

Flights 16-23 were day flights
 

Ended the season with night flights for flights 24 and 25,  shown in the video above and the amazing long exposure pictures to the right
 


photo by Jason Nadeau                                photo by Dave Lindbergh

Paul launching TRS - 8/13/11                                    flight 22: 6x D11-P     10/22/11   CMASS   Amesbury, MA                        

 Flown 3 times in deep snow  CMASS / Acton, MA - 1/15/11. Flight 16 pictured.
Only launch I've been to where recovery required brushing snow off rockets.

Applewhite Saucers      14 flights in 2011 from F to H impulse     artapplewhite.com

Stealth and Classic Saucer                              Saucer of DOOM / Applewhite 18" saucer         
deep snow / CMASS / Acton, MA - 1/15/11                          flight 22: ProX H143 SS - 4/30/11                    
 

Paul launching Applewhite Stealth 8/13/11       Paul as RSO while I stand a safe distance away 8/27/11