M1250 CTI Grain one of three
The Carnage |
June 27, 2003
I spent most of the day jumping back and forth from my project and the Team-O-Canada project. It took me most of the day to assembly the rocket and assemble the motor. The Motor was by far the scariest part of the day, I took my time putting it together so not to make a mistake. At 4pm Friday afternoon the rocket was ready however the window didn't open until 7pm. Let me tell you that was the longest 3 hours of my life waiting for the window to open.
At 6:30pm I headed to the pad to get ready for the launch, with the help of Team-O-Canada and Shane. We got the rocket on the pad armed and ready for launch about 5 minutes before the window opened. I couldn't have asked for a better evening for a launch it was crystal clear no wind and about 30 degrees Celsius. With the sun at our backs we were ready, my nerves were starting to get to me by this time.
With butterflies in my stomach we waited for the countdown from the launch table. That's when the problems started on the continuity test the rocket launched. It was a great flight to 8,000 feet on the CTI M1250, The drogue worked as planed at apogee and the Main fired at 1000 feet we were jumping for joy thinking I had made my L4 cert. That's when the radio called to let us know there was a separation when the main deployed. As you can imagine my heart fell I just stood there staring at the chute floating across the sky. Now you may think I was thinking about what may have gone wrong but no for you see Discovery Channel was there with us filming the launch and when the call came in guess where the camera was? That's right about 6 inches from my face. All I wanted at the moment was for them to get the camera out of my face.
It took me about 1 hour to find all of the rocket and get it back to the camp site. By that time I had a pretty good idea what had happened. I had used 1 1/2 inch nylon webbing for the recovery harness. When the main pyro charge went off it scorched the nylon weakening it to the point that when the chute got some weight on it the nylon ripped separating the nosecone and the main, from the rest of the rocket.
The Separation was caught on film by Matthew Ornawka .
I have since repaired the damage to the rocket and she is ready to fly again. Next flight for the Black Brant X is Sullivan Lake XI. Sprits are high that this time it will work.
