The weather forecast leading up to Fire & Ice was not good: lots of snow, too much wind, and much too cold. The original date was rescheduled to February 22, 2025. Hosted by the Edmonton Rocketry Club, this was the first high-power launch in Alberta for 2025, and you could not have asked for a better day!
2-Stage Romulus on right (photo by David Bossak)
First, the bad news: I didn’t fly my Journey 98. It was ready to go, but unassembled. Got it inspected and signed off. Assembled it and the GPS immediately died! A very helpful rocketeer removed the batteries from his own GPS receiver and loaned them to me, but that didn’t solve the problem. The actual GPS transmitter, that rides in the rocket, was not “field accessible” for repairs. I could have launched the rocket anyway, testing my L4 altimeter bay electronics and dual deployment system, but I might have lost the rocket. Also, motors are expensive and in very limited supply these days. Better to save it for Hanna 2025!
Now, the good news: “Plan B” was to fire my Romulus 2-stage model rocket, just for fun. This was its second flight and all went well. The 1st stage motor was an Estes C6-0, and the 2nd stage motor was an Estes C6-5. It reached an altitude of about 880 ft, and landed not too far away on the frozen lake. Even so, the snow cover on the ice was knee-deep, so after a few steps I gave up and let the “rocket rescue” team fetch it for me! I’m not getting any younger, you know…
2024 was a busy year. I built five fiberglass rockets, each one seeming to present different challenges. Finally started to get some good results with one of my GPS trackers, and upgraded to a Creality K1 3d-printer better able to produce rocket parts than my very old Dremel 3D20.
The Darkstar Mini from Wildman is a 1.6″ diameter rocket with a 29mm motor mount. It flies great on “F” model rocket engines, but would vanish with a high-power rocket. I do have the optional dual deployment kit for it, and hope to tackle that in 2025.
My Arcas from Madcow is a 2.6″ diameter rocket with a 38mm motor mount. It also performs well on “G” model rocket engines, but in 2025 it should fly to about a mile high on a J94 engine.
The Avalanche 3 from Madcow is a 3.0″ diameter rocket with a 54mm motor mount. Strictly a high-power flyer, it did well on its maiden flight and I am looking to reach about 6500 ft with it in 2025, powered by a J140.
Journey 98
Pandora
My most recent fiberglass build is a Journey 98 from Wildman. It is 4.0″ in diameter with a 54mm motor mount, and I plan to use it at Fire & Ice 2025 to test the electronics and recovery components from my L4 rocket.
Most of 2024 was spent building my L4 rocket: a DX3 XL from Madcow. This fiberglass rocket is 4.0″ diameter and has a 75mm motor mount. It required quite a few modifications, lots of money, plenty of swear words, more money, additional modifications, and a wide variety of components that could not be sourced from a single supplier. I’m not even going to mention all the paperwork that CAR requires!
I was going to name my L4 rocket “Blood, Sweat, and Tears” but decided it was nothing to sing about. It is called Pandora. It has been approved for its certification flight, which was going to happen in 2024 at Rock Lake on September 20th (my 77th birthday!), but the launch was cancelled. Fall Fire 2024 was a possibility, but they reluctantly declined since the flight was at the edge of their comfort zone. I won’t be able to try at Fire & Ice 2025 because their ceiling is 10,000 ft and Pandora thinks she’s going to over 14,000 ft, just hitting Mach 1 in the process.
Hydra Sandhawk
TTV
Besides these fiberglass rockets, I have built two more, 2-stage rockets. The Hydra Sandhawk from Rocketarium has a BT60 airframe. The booster has an 18mm motor mount, while the sustainer has a 24mm motor mount. The construction is somewhat similar to the smaller Romulus that I built previously. The maximum altitude is only about 1500 ft, so I can fly it in Calmar without any problems.
The second rocket is a TTV from Apogee. It is also BT60-based, but is intended for motors that use composite propellants, instead of the black powder used by most model rocket engines. Composite motors require an igniter in the upper stage motor, which means there must be an electronics bay that can fire the ignitor at the right time. This rocket was designed by Apogee as a “timer test vehicle” to get people comfortable with the technique before going on to high-power, multi-stage rockets.
This rocket is complete, but awaiting paint. I have the “Simple Timer” from Apogee that fits this rocket, and look forward to launching in Calmar, in 2025.
In 2024, I built seven new rockets, attended eight rocket launch events, and actually launched thirteen times! Not me, the rockets…
Fall Fire 2024 was hosted by the Saskatoon Rockety Society on October 19, 2024, in Kitscoty.
As usual, my wife and I drove to Lloydminster on Friday, attended the launch on Saturday, then returned to Edmonton on Sunday.
I brought my Arcas T, fitted with the GPS tracker and a Jolly Logic chute release. Since this was the last high-power launch on the year, I fired the Arcas T on a CTI Pro38 H125. It had a perfect flight, reaching an altitude of 3101 ft and landing not too far away. The GPS guided us right to it.
My wife and I spent the rest of the day talking to the many visitors that were there; some had never been to a high-power launch before. All things considered, this was a great event, with really nice people, and was the perfect way to close out the year. Well done, SRS!
The Edmonton Rocketry Club returned to Calmar for the second time in a month for another model rocket launch, on September 28th, 2024.
Romulus 2-Stage
My Romulus rocket had never been flown yet. Since this was the 2nd launch in September, I figured it was time to launch this 2-stage creature. The 1st stage had an Estes A8-0, and the 2nd stage used an Estes B6-4. That’s not very much power, but 2-stage rockets are tricky and I wanted a safe flight on my first attempt.
The rocket reached an altitude of 287 ft. The 1st stage did a “tumble” recovery, while the 2nd stage parachute failed to deploy. Even so, it landed softly and without damage.
Eris II
Small model rockets usually use plastic parachutes. Fire-resistant wadding is placed between the motor and the parachute to protect it from the ejection gases. In this rocket, I used a small baffle instead of the wadding. The baffle was too small to work properly and the hot gasses melted part of the parachute, sticking it to the inside of the rocket! This is why we do maiden flights on low power…
Eris II
The Eris II was another rocket that I built a while back but never flew. It featured several parts that I printed on my 3D printer. Flying on an Estes D12-5, it reached an altitude of 985 ft. The baffle in this rocket was also not very effective, burning a hole in the parachute. Still, the chute did deploy and the rocket made a safe landing.
The next model rocket launch hosted by the Edmonton Rocketry Club was in Calmar, on September 7, 2024.
I had my Black Tusk, fitted with a GPS tracker and a Jolly Logic chute release. Flying on a CTI Pro29 G126, it climbed to 1288 ft and performed perfectly, avoiding both the Legion building on one side of the field and the trees on the other side.
I also flew my Darkstar Mini on a CTI Pro29 F32. It reached 731 ft, with a perfect flight and recovery.
