Summer Skies June 2008

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OregonRocketry held their annual three-day Summer Skies launch on June 20-22, 2008 at their launch site 2.5 miles southwest of Brothers Oregon.

As usual Friday was the research launch day for flying custom motors designed and built by individuals. Saturday and Sunday were the launch days devoted to flying commercial motors.

I arrived on Friday afternoon and immediately met Neil McGilvray and Bob Utley from ROCKETS magazine. Neil and Bob had flown out from Maryland to take lots of photos and videos of the launch for publication in their magazine and as a DVD. These two guys travel all over the country attending launches to gather material for the magazine. Sounds like a fun job to me! Sign me up! Neil's photos from this launch are already available for purchase through the ROCKETS magazine photoshop. The DVD will be available soon. Check the videos section of their website.

I had not planned to fly anything on Friday because it was going to take me all afternoon to get my gear, launch pad and rockets setup and ready for Saturday. My plan was to fly Angelfire Saturday morning on an AMW M2200 Skidmark motor to about 8500 feet. Then on Saturday afternoon to fly Wildfire with a new HD video camera on an Aerotech M1315 motor to about 8000 feet. Finally, on Sunday, the plan was to fly Coldfire on a HyperTek K240 hybrid motor to about 4000 feet. Unfortunately, the weather on Saturday was fairly windy and there was a heavy cloud deck sitting at about 4000-6000 feet the whole day. There were lot's of other low power as well as some low altitude high power flights on Saturday, but all in all, it was not a great day for flying rockets.

Sunday on the other hand was about as perfect a day as you can wish for. Clear blue skies, no wind, warm temperatures, a really great day! On Sunday morning I flew Angelfire for its 15^th flight and for the first time on the M2200SK motor. It was everything I had hoped for! A perfect boost to 8,147 feet with lots of noise, black smoke and titanium sparks from the motor. The drogue chute deployed at apogee and the main chute deployed at 1500 feet just as planned. To top it all off, it landed only 454 feet from the launch pad! (GPS ranging.) It doesn't get much better than that.

I could have stopped right there and been very happy with the whole trip. However, Wildfire was ready to go so it was next up on the launch pad. I recently modified the payload module for Wildfire to remove the video transmitter and replace it with an HD video camcorder along with a digital still camera. I was eager to see what kind of on-board video quality could be had with the new camera. As you will see below, I was not disappointed. It's some of my best ever.

Wildfire launched on the Aerotech M1315 and reached 8,357 feet. As planned, it deployed the main chute at apogee along with the payload module on a separate chute. The calm winds allowed Wildfire to land only 300 feet behind the flight line after dropping over 8000 feet on the main parachute. I love those recoveries that don't require long cross country hikes! This was the 24^th flight of Wildfire. All of them have been very successful.

I was two for two on the day and feeling great about both flights. Lots of photos and some videos from both flights are presented below. It was an A+ day and well worth the wait of not flying in all the wind and clouds on Saturday. There was no time left on Sunday to reconfigure the pad for the Coldfire hybrid launch so I scrubbed that flight and starting packing up to travel home.

I would like to thank all the OregonRocketry people that helped make this launch a success. Without their hard work and dedication, events like this would not be possible. I'm really looking forward to the next OROC launch in July!

Click on any photo on this page to see a larger version of it.

Photo by Neil McGilvray from ROCKETS Magazine

The photo above is a view of the west end of the flight line on Saturday morning. The low clouds hung around pretty much all day. Toward the very end of the day it did start to clear just enough to allow some higher flights.

Looking west.

My camp.

Looking east.

This image shows an aerial photo taken by a camera onboard Wildfire overlaid on to a Google Earth image of the launch site. The photo was taken Sunday afternoon, June 22, 2008. This view is looking north from above and behind the flight line. Interestingly, this is a point of view that Wildfire never actually "saw". However, once the image is properly incorporated into Google Earth it is possible to look at the launch site from any angle. Click on the image above for a better view.

Angelfire

One of my favorite motors is the AMW M2200 Skidmark and it was time to fly Angelfire on it! I was really looking forward to this flight. This motor is a spectacular display of smoke, fire, sparks and a very loud crackling roar of powerful sound. It has to be one of the most entertaining motors ever made. The photos below are pretty good but they still don't really do it justice.

Angelfire is 11 feet long, 5.2 inches in diameter and weighed 53 pounds with the motor installed. Expected altitude was about 8,500 feet.

This flight went absolutely perfect! The two on-board Missile Works altimeters reported 8,147 feet at apogee. Angelfire uses a dual deployment system so a drogue chute is put out at apogee and the main chute is deployed at 1500 feet. There was little to no wind during this flight so Angelfire settled back to the ground only 454 feet from the launch pad. It was a great sight to see the big rocket on a parachute coming in so close to the launch site. It certainly made recovery very easy!

Angelfire carried my custom GPS radio downlink electronics in the nosecone on this flight. The GPS system transmitted good data to the ground during the entire flight. This allowed the entire flight trajectory to be captured and it is presented in a pseudo 3D view further down this page.

Click here to view Angelfire construction details.

Photo by Neil McGilvray from ROCKETS Magazine

Robert Krausert helps me put Angelfire onto the launch rail.

Photo by Tsolo T. Tsolo

Pre-launch interview with Bob Utley for the DVD to be produced by ROCKETS magazine

Photo by Tsolo T. Tsolo	Photo by Tsolo T. Tsolo
Setting up all my remote controlled cameras to capture the liftoff.

Photo by Tsolo T. Tsolo

Photo by Vern Knowles

Photo by Neil McGilvray	Photo by Rick Clapp	Photo by Neil McGilvray
	The animation at the left shows the Angelfire liftoff as a series of still photos taken 150 ms apart. Click on the animation to view it as a larger size.
Photo by Tsolo T. Tsolo	Photo by Vern Knowles

Photo by Rick Clapp

Photo by Neil McGilvray

Photo by Vern Knowles	Photo by Vern Knowles
The two photos above show Angelfire as it landed. It landed only 454 feet from the launch pad!

Photo by Neil McGilvray from ROCKETS Magazine

I'm carrying Angelfire back to the flight line. Love those close-in recoveries that only require a short walk out to get the rocket. It doesn't get much better!

This was the 15^th flight of Angelfire. All of them have been very successful.

Click here to see photos from other Angelfire flights.

Angelfire GPS Flight Data

Angelfire carried a GPS receiver and a radio transmitter in the nosecone. The transmitter sent GPS coordinates as well as speed and altitude data to a receiver on the ground. This data was then recorded in a small hand held computer for later analysis. The photo at the right shows me monitoring the data on the hand held computer. It's fun to monitor the altitude in real time as the rocket is going up and coming down. Click here to see more details about this system. After the flight, this data was loaded into the Google Earth program so that the trajectory could be seen in a pseudo 3D view of the launch area. Three images generated by Google Earth are shown below. All three are looking west but each one is a more progressively close up view of the trajectory. An aerial image of the flight line (taken by Wildfire that same day) is also incorporated into this Google Earth imagery.

Photo by Neil McGilvray

You can also view this trajectory by downloading the data file at the link below and loading it into Google Earth. You can then use all the normal pan, tilt and zoom controls in Google Earth to see it from any angle. Just right click on the link below, save the file to a convenient place and then open the file from inside the Google Earth program.

Link for Google Earth data file of Angelfire flight trajectory.

Flight Trajectory Video

This video shows a 360 degree "fly around" of the Angelfire flight trajectory. It also includes the Angelfire pad camera liftoff video and the LCO audio recorded at the launch.

View High Resolution MPEG version (27 MB)

View low res Windows Media Player version (7 MB)

Altitude reported by GPS

Velocity reported by GPS

Click on the charts above to see the altitude and velocity data reported by the GPS. Each point in the plot represents one GPS reading. The GPS updates at five times per second, therefore, the readings are spaced apart by 200ms. The peak altitude reported by the GPS was 7,722 feet above the ground. The peak velocity was 506 mph. The descent velocity on the drogue chute was about 70 mph. The descent velocity on the main chute was about 17 mph.

There were two MissileWorks barometric altimeters on board. One reported 8,027 feet and the other reported 8,267 feet. The average of the two is 8,147 feet. The GPS reported 7,722 feet. This amounts to a 5.5% difference in altitude as determined by the barometric altimeters and the GPS system. That's within the expected tolerance range but a little more error than I typically see.

The GPS system stayed locked onto its satellites during almost the entire flight. However, there is a short 3 second dropout in the altitude data at about 125 seconds. I assume this is due to the GPS antenna in the nosecone pointing off in a direction of poor reception while hanging on the main chute.

Click here to see the altitude plot in PDF format

Click here to see the velocity plot in PDF format

Angelfire Launch Video

Pad Cam Video

This is a wide screen video of the Angelfire liftoff as recorded by an "pad cam" set up about 50 feet from the launch pad.

View High Resolution MPEG version (9 MB)

View QuickTime version of the video (16 MB)

View low res Windows Media Player version (6 MB)

PLEASE NOTE: To view this video it is probably best to right-click on the link and then select "Save Target As ..." so that it will store the movie file on your computer. You can then open the file and view it after it is completely downloaded. Doing so will allow it to play cleanly and continuously without all the starts and stops caused by internet traffic.

Videos from other Angelfire flights can be found here.

Wildfire

Wildfire was launched on an Aerotech M1315 and reached 8,357 feet. As planned, it deployed the main chute at apogee along with a payload module on a separate chute. The payload module was recently upgraded to include a new HD video camcorder as well as a digital still camera. The on-board video from this flight is presented further down on this page.

Click here to view Wildfire construction details.

Photo by Tsolo T. Tsolo Vern with Wildfire headed to the launch pad.	Photo by Neil McGilvray from ROCKETS Magazine Wildfire liftoff on an Aerotech M1315 white lightning motor.
Photo by Tsolo T. Tsolo Rob Lamb helped put Wildfire on the launch rail.
Photo by Rick Clapp Vern and Rob get Wildfire setup vertical.
Photo by Tsolo T. Tsolo Another preflight video interview with Bob Utley from ROCKETS magazine with the Three Sisters mountains in the background.
Photo by Vern Knowles

Photos by Vern Knowles

The animation at the left shows the Wildfire liftoff as a series of still photos taken 200ms apart.

Click on the animation to view it in a larger size.

These images were taken with a Canon EOS 20D digital SLR camera setup about 60 feet from the launch pad. Exposure was F3.2 at 1/8000 sec using a 50mm lens and an ISO 200 speed setting in the camera.

Photo by Neil McGilvray from ROCKETS Magazine

The Wildfire airframe drifted down on parachute and passed right over the flight line landing immediately behind it.

Photo by Neil McGilvray from ROCKETS Magazine

This shows the Wildfire camera payload module floating down on parachute. It has a small drogue chute (pink) attached to the back end to help keep it from spinning.

Photo by Vern Knowles

Calm winds allowed Wildfire to land only 300 feet behind the flight line after dropping over 8000 feet on the main parachute. If you look closely at the photo you can see how close the trailers and other vehicles on the flight line were to the landing site.

This was the 24^th flight of Wildfire. All of them have been very successful.

Click here to see photos from other Wildfire flights.

Wildfire Aerial Photos

This was the first flight of Wildfire with an HD camcorder on-board. I choose the Canon TX1 digital video camcorder due to its small size, great picture quality and the fact it's relatively inexpensive. "New" units (never used) can be had on eBay for about $250 or less. However, you also need to add a high speed 4GB SDHC card so that's another $40-$50 or so. The camera will record 15 minutes of 720p HD video at 30 frames per sec on a 4GB card. It can also record about 1 hour of standard 640x480 video. The images presented below are selected single frames from the video. Click on each image to see it in full size.

The flight line can be seen in these images as Wildfire is heading up.

The small community of Brothers Oregon can be seen in the photo above as Wildfire was beginning to arc over near the top of the flight trajectory. Brothers Oregon is about 2.5 miles from the launch site. Wildfire was about 8000 feet high at the point this photo was taken. Highway 20 runs from lower left to upper right and passes through the middle of Brothers.

The two photos above show the fin can during the first 0.5 seconds after the ejection charge went off to deploy the parachute. Wildfire had just passed through apogee and had its nosecone pointing down. That means the camera was looking up toward the sky. The fin can was kicked off the back end of the body tube. The large dark "ball" in the lower center portion of the photos is a Kevlar flame protector with all the tubular nylon recovery harness inside it. The two frames show a bit of the red recovery harness feeding itself out from inside that ball. The main chute is still wrapped inside a "yellowish" looking cylindrical Kevlar protector nearer to the fin can. It has not yet started to open up to release the main parachute. The motor is still streaming out tracking smoke.

The upper left photo was taken when the camera module was just above the airframe as both were descending on separate parachutes. The photo shows the top of the parachute holding the fin can and body tube. The upper right is a view of the entire launch site.

As the camera module dropped to a lower altitude, it captured this detailed image of the flight line and launch pad area. This image was then incorporated into the Google Earth program to show the flight line as well as the flight trajectory of Angelfire. This is the actual view captured by the camera. However, once this image is properly incorporated into Google Earth, the flight line can easily be viewed from other angles. (As was presented in the Angelfire section further up on this page.)

Photo by Tsolo T. Tsolo

This is me (Vern) showing off my new Wildfire camera module. The top half is for the Canon TX1 HD video camera. The lower section is a Canon SD400 5MPix digital still camera. The still camera has been modified so that the focus and shutter buttons can be operated by onboard electronics. That's why it has orange Kapton tape all over it holding wires in place. The video camera is powered-up and started by simply pushing buttons on it using a small tool inserted through holes in the body tube. It must be started right before liftoff since it only has a 15 minute record time in HD mode.

Click here for more details about the Wildfire camera module.

Wildfire Videos

Onboard Flight Video

It's a fun ride in wide screen! Unfortunately, it's not practical to present the full 720p HD version of this video from this web site. However, the MPEG version is still pretty good. The windows media player version is a bit more compressed but still looks great. Click on either link below to play the on-board video.

View High Resolution MPEG version (44 MB)

View low res Windows Media Player version (28 MB)

Pad Cam Video

This is a short video of just the liftoff as recorded by the "pad cam" setup about 50 feet from the launch pad.

View High Resolution MPEG version (9 MB)

View QuickTime version of the video (12 MB)

View low res Windows Media Player version (6 MB)

PLEASE NOTE: To view these videos it is probably best to right-click on the link and then select "Save Target As ..." so that it will store the movie file on your computer. You can then open the file and view it after it is completely downloaded. Doing so will allow it to play cleanly and continuously without all the starts and stops caused by internet traffic.

Videos from other Wildfire flights can be found here.

Photo by Neil McGilvray from ROCKETS Magazine

Sunset at the Summer Skies launch on Friday evening, June 20, 2008.

I also attended the Oregon Rocketry Summer Skies launch last year. Angelfire flew on an Aerotech M1419 motor at that launch. Some great photos of it and my report from that launch can be found here.

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