Support Our Troops
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First off I wish to thank my Wife Pam and kids, Jarod and Jonathan for putting up with all the time I have put into building The Black Brant X also My Level 4 Certification Committee Members (L4CC) Dave Ross and Dave Buhler for all their advice and support with this project, As well as the meeting with The SARM Members at Sullivan lake X.
Post Flight Reports.
| Roc Lake V July, 2003 Click here |
| Sullivan Lake XI Sept, 2003 Click here |
In the Beginning.
The first thing that I needed to do was get my L3 certification before I could start to even think about this project. So at Roc Lake V
June 2002 I attempted to do my L1, L2 and L3 cert. flights. By the end of the weekend thanks to the rocket gods I was successful and started to think about doing a Level 4 project after seeing Wayne Gallinger and Scott West fly their successful Level 4 projects.
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The Pain and Stress of a L4 project.
Going for my Level 4 was something that I have spent a lot of time thinking about and whether I should even go ahead with it. After Roc Lake V, I started to build a 54 mm version of the Black Brant X for Sullivan lake X to prove electronic deploy and see if I can build a rocket without motor eject. On September 7th 2002 I launched the Black Brant X (54 mm) on a K550 . This was the day I joined SARM(Southern Alberta Rocket Mafia) with the death of my rocket we held a postmortem. We discovered that the cause of the failure was not enough black powder in the ejection charges and at the wake afterwards (until 5 am), I was set on the path to rebuild and try again.February 2003 at Fire and Ice I will launch the 54 mm Black Brant X (reborn) again to prove electronic deploy. The second flight will be at Fire and Ice or at the Cold Lake Launch in March 2003.
February 15th 2003 I launched the 54 mm Black Brant and had a great flight to 3380 feet using the FC877 electronics for full deploy. It was great to see the separation at apogee and then the main pop at 600 feet best feeling you can have is when the main comes out.
March 2003, at the Cold Lake Launch I attempted my second electronic deploy on a J415, unfortunately I had a problem. Please take note DO NOT program your electronics while you are drinking. I set the appogee timer to 0 feet plus 3 seconds well guess what after a very nice flat spin at 3000 feet the rocket came down hard.
May 24th, 2003 the FUBAR launch I did it I got my second electronic deploy, I built a 54mm minimum diameter rocket for the Level 3 launch with electronics. There was no way I was going to blow this launch. I had motor back up, an Altac and FC877 electronics . The flight was fantastic the rocket hit an altitude of 4065 feet and all electronics worked as planned with the exception of the Altac which seamed to fire just before apogee, this cause the airframe to go through a 21g hit. the landing was good however the air frame was damaged by the wind dragging the rocket over 200 yards past the landing point.
It's time to build something
I started working on my L4 project January 15th 2003, by doing up the drawings for the Black Brant X. I believe that one of the most important parts of the rocket is the fin-can. It must be strong enough to with stand the forces put upon it at lift off and deployment of the chute. I did up the drawings and then went to my Peers for their advice, they are a great resources of information in this hobby.
After talking with my L4CC members I have decided on a design for the internal works of the fin-can.
Work has now started first thing I had to do was find tube large enough for the airframe. Home Depot was the place to go. There I found some 6" Sono tube and by luck they also some just the right size for Coupler tube, Thanks to Team O Canada for pointing me in that direction for the tube.February 1st 2003 I have cut the tube and centering rings for the Fin Can
