The Night Rocket Fleet

Canon PowerShot S100

ƒ/4

11.274 mm

1/1,250

All new, or rebuilt from from ballistic mishaps in years past, they are finally ready to fly at the big Tripoli launch this weekend.

We’ll also have the the complex day projects; hoping to fly the Sledgehammer‘s seventh flight (now on the longest motor you can legally fly in Califiornia) and my son’s Epic with a moon burner J140 in the core and metalstorms at each fin tip. But that’s for tomorrow night’s prep. It should be zesty.

9 responses to “The Night Rocket Fleet”

Erik Charlton

May 16, 2012 at 4:42 am

I clicked a Steve flicker link. My heart rate quickens….Ohhh, NIGHT ROCKETS!!! Steve is on his way to DairyAire !

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jurvetson

May 16, 2012 at 4:53 am

Bingo!

Here is the last flight of that Nike smoke…

with photos of the recovery from the resulting crater by shovel… and the tricky rebuild.

She also does well with a strap-on video cam
+ recovery shot by you!

And for the spool, well, I learned at last year’s DairyAire not to fly it with one earring…

And here are prior launch photos of the LOC IV. She was so mangled from the Dilbert "Bad Management" launch, that I kept her as a train wreck spectacle in my office for four years, then had an idea how to rebuild her.

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scleroplex

May 16, 2012 at 4:55 am

enjoy 🙂

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solerena

May 16, 2012 at 4:57 am

Brave:)

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seatonsnet

May 16, 2012 at 6:33 am

Whoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooosh

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Pieces of Eye

May 17, 2012 at 4:42 am

Are you going to the Space X Dragon launch? BTW you should tweet. Your Flickr stream in tweet form would be popular among the huge science fan base on Twitter. I’ve enjoyed Twitter quite a bit and its connected me with people who would otherwise be inaccessible.

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rocketmavericks

May 17, 2012 at 11:39 pm

Will miss your fireworks display this year. 🙁

I am at NAWCWD China Lake this weekend for testing of my new 8" Q, 10"S, and 12" T rocket motors. The T weighs in at almost 220,000 lbs of impulse!! Thats the legal limit at 860,000 Ns. YIKES!!! Need military test stand.

I am sure your pictures will be awesome and I will look for posts. I have a small sponge titanium P motor for a night launch later this summer that I will definitely share photos from. Should make the K motor I launched at Balls with me behind the truck in your collection look like a sparkler.

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jurvetson

May 18, 2012 at 12:37 am

Hope I can be there for that night launch! Wow.

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jurvetson

Feb 5, 2013 at 7:00 am

We had fun, but my night rockets took some rough landings… and they are all fixed up again and ready to fly:

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The Night Rocket Fleet

9 responses to “The Night Rocket Fleet”

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