Well the time came to fly the Type II rocket.
I drove 3.5 hours to the GHS launch near Kingman Arizona. The launch site truly is spectacular and perfect for rockets I hope to fly there again someday in the future.
I prepared the rocket with two different ejection charge sizes, the lower section that deploys at apogee used 0.80g of FFF black powder. Then the upper section was prepared with 0.90g of FFF blackpowder.
This was my second attempt at a L1 certification so needless to say I was nervous but excited at the same time.
The time came to launch and I loaded her onto a 8 foot rail. The one difference between this and the Blackhawk 38 flight was I succesfully armed the electronics and heard all 4 beeps multiple times. This calmed my nerves and was ready to fly.
Soon after that the rocket took of flying perfectly straight it was incredible to see her fly. I got many compliments on how well build she was and how straight she flew. Then when the rocket reached apogee the ejection charges worked perfectly leaving the rocket to fall back to earth drogueless. Shortly after the rocket tumbled back to the ground the altimere fired both of its ejection charges for the main parachute but the parachute was wedged within the body tube.
Leaving the rocket to hit the ground with a force of 16.7 g’s. But I was able to retrieve the data from the Raven. The rocket reached 3,700 feet according to the barometer and 3755 feet according to the accelerator with a max velocity of 539 ft/s.
As you can probably guess this means I did not receive my L1 certification and the rocket did loose a fin.
