Flight of the Phoenix Continued...

Here are some vidcaps of the flight (sorry about the crudity...this was the best I could do).  More real pics and eventually a video will come soon or later.  Can't give a time on that yet. Thie flight was great with the two G60's lighting first.  The I435T kicked in as it neared the end of the launch rail...GREAT Blue Thunder flame!!  On the last pic you can see the individual motor flames despite the blurred rocket.  The orange in the top of the flame is from the G60's, and (of course) the rest is from the I435T.

Vidcaps by Marcus Harmon from video by Mr. Harmon (Marcus' dad)

Recovery was okay....  The booster section recovered fine under the two 36" 'chutes, but the payload secton didn't fair so well.  Imagine a cone shaped object with nine pounds of sand in it falling to the ground from around 1000ft. Yea.  Stupid me wrapped Bob Schoners 60" 'chute for the payload section too tightly, and it did not unfurl.  The 10lb. payload section lawndarted...thankfully far from anyone.  The 9lb. nose got nicely buried, and the impact was so hard that it shoved the well-epoxied coupler almost all the way into the 5.5" payload tubing, and somehow separated the nose cone from the payload section.  The actual payload tubing only suffered some minor crimping on its forward end.  The sand kept the noses shape, causing no damage. But all the noses paint was stripped off, so it needs cleaning and painting.  After some pulling we got the nose out, and it left a great little hole in the ground (the white inside the hole is paint stripped off the nose).  The payload tubing and coupler can't be used on the rocket again, but I can use it for something else.  All I need to fix it is some tube and a coupler.

Photos by Chris Hamilton

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