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PLEASE NOTE: To
view these videos it is probably best to right-click on the "Play Video"
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 as a movie
once it is completely downloaded. Doing so will allow it to play
cleanly and continuously without all the starts and stops caused by
internet traffic. It will also provide an easy way to see how long
the download will take and to track its progress. |
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Wildfire Launch at XPRS 2008 |
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OROC
Summer Skies Launch
June 22, 2008
Brothers, Oregon
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Wildfire was launched on an M1315 motor to
8,357 feet and was safely recovered with no damage. |
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Wildfire Launch #22 at LDRS-26 |
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LDRS 26 Launch
July 16, 2007
Jean Dry Lake, Nevada
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Wildfire was launched on an
Aerotech
M1297 motor to
6,247 feet and was safely recovered with no damage. |
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Wildfire Launch #21 at XPRS 2006 |
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XPRS Launch
September 24, 2006
Black Rock Desert, Nevada
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Wildfire was launched on an
Aerotech
M1297 motor to
6,187 feet and was safely recovered with no damage. It was a picture
perfect flight! |
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Wildfire had an
onboard GPS receiver for this flight and the information from the GPS was
overlaid as text on the transmitted video. Unfortunately, the GPS
lost lock a little before liftoff and therefore the information on this
video was frozen during the entire flight. The altitude shown as 1160 on
the video is in meters above sea level. This converts to 3805 feet and is
roughly the elevation of the playa at Black Rock. The time is UTC so liftoff
was shortly after midnight UTC.
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OROC
Desert Heat Launch
July 23, 2006
Brothers, Oregon
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Wildfire launched on an Aerotech M1315
motor and reached 8,020 feet. The airframe was recovered 0.63 miles
west of the launch pad. The TV transmitter module was recovered 0.39
miles southwest from the pad. There was no damage to either
one. |
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This is the onboard video that was transmitted
back to the ground during the flight. The image is overlaid with
textual information from the GPS. Unfortunately, the GPS lost lock
right at liftoff so the displayed information was frozen during the
flight. By the way, the indicated altitude is in meters above sea level
and the time is GMT. The KD7KYL is my HAM call sign.
View
higher resolution
MPEG2 version
(35 MB)
View low res Windows
Media Player version
(10.8 MB)
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Wildfire Launch #19 at FITS 2006 |
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FITS Launch
May 28, 2006
Mansfield, Washington
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Wildfire boosted straight up on an Aerotech
M1297 motor reaching 6,081 feet. Deployment occurred right at
apogee. Everything about the flight went perfectly, except that there were
two technical problems with the TV video. One was that the on-board
GPS system never locked-up properly. The second was that the
color camera failed and only produced a black and white image. |
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OROC
Summer Skies Launch
June 12, 2005
Brothers, Oregon
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Wildfire was launched on an L850 motor to
4,415 feet and was safely recovered with no damage. |
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It is interesting to
compare this ground video to the on-board video. The ground video
seems to show Wildfire going well past apogee before deploying the
parachute. Yet the on-board video clearly shows Wildfire was still
mostly 'pointed up' when deployment occurred. I've noticed this on
some previous flights as well. I conclude that it can sometimes be very
difficult and even deceiving to tell if deployment timing is correct
by just watching from the ground.
Play high
res ground based video
(15.9 MB mpeg2 file)
Play low res ground
based video
(2.4 MB wmv file)
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Wildfire Launch
#3 at FITS
2003 |
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Ground based video of the
entire flight of Wildfire on an L850 at the "Fire in the Sky" launch on
May 24, 2003. It was a spectacular flight that reached 4320
feet.
Everything about this flight went absolutely perfect. It even
landed only about 150 yards behind the launch pad. This was the 3rd
flight of Wildfire. |
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This is the on-board video
that was transmitted back to the ground in real time during the launch and
parachute recovery. The "Fire in the Sky" launch was held at Scott
Binder's farm near Lowden Washington. This on-board video captured
some quick looks at Scott's farm from way up high. |
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The on-board videos shown here were obtained by
transmitting the video and sound back to the ground while the rocket was
in flight. The video was then recorded on a standard VHS tape.
Later the VHS tape was replayed and converted into an mpeg file for this
web site. The transmitter operates at 1.3 GHz in the ham band.
Click here to view more information about
the camera and transmitter system. |
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Superimposed
on the on-board camera image is data from an on-board GPS unit.
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"Alt" is
in meters above sea level.
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"Speed" is
ground speed, not vertical speed. (Someday I'll change this.)
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"Heading" is in degrees.
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"Time" is
UTC or basically Greenwich mean time.
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My ham
license identification call sign KD7KYL is in the lower right corner.
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Latitude
and longitude are shown in the upper left corner in degrees, and decimal
minutes.
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Wildfire Launch near
Fairfield Idaho |
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This was the thirteenth
flight of Wildfire. Lucky 13! It launched at the Tripoli Idaho
launch site near Fairfield Idaho on August 28, 2004. Wildfire reached 4235
feet on an L1080 motor. This
on-board video was obtained by
transmitting the video and sound back to the ground while the rocket was
in flight. The transmitter
operates at 1.3 GHz in the ham band. |
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"Pad cam" video from a
camcorder that was up-close to the launch pad. In this short liftoff
video you can see the igniter burn first, and then a separate build up
comes after that as the motor comes up to pressure. Then away it
goes! Of course it all happens pretty quick.
This video has been rotated
so that the long axis is vertical. Hopefully it will play properly
on your system. Otherwise, you are going to see a awfully "squat"
looking rocket.
View still
photos of this flight.
View details about Wildfire construction. |
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Wildfire Launch at XPRS
2004 |
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Misc Wildfire Launches
During 2004 |
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Wildfire flights 10, 11, 12 and 15
This section contains four
different launch videos from Wildfire flights during 2004. All four
only show the liftoff to apogee part of the flight. All four
flights were nominal. |
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Wildfire Launch at XPRS
2003 |
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This was the seventh flight
of Wildfire and the first flight using my new higher power FM TV
transmitter.
This launch was on Sept.
26, 2003 with an M1315 motor and reached 7848 feet. At liftoff you
can see the XPRS flight line in the background. XPRS is an annual
launch held in September at the Black Rock dry lake bed in northwestern
Nevada.
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This flight was also the
first time that I suspended the camera so that it would look horizontally
while under chute. This gives a view of the horizon and mountains
surrounding the Black Rock dry lake bed. Previous flights had the
camera pointing almost straight down, but at Black Rock, there is
virtually NOTHING to see if you look straight down. (Unless of course, you
get lucky and happen to be right over the top of the flight line.)
Unfortunately, this horizontal orientation is more sensitive to the
"bounce" produced by the parachute as it inflates and deflates itself.
(Rocketman parachute behavior with a very light payload.) The camera
was also spinning to the right and left a great deal since this
orientation does not work well with the small drogue chute that I normally
use to stop the spinning.
In addition, since the
parachute connection was at the bottom of the camera module, the video of
the horizon was actually taken upside down! This was anticipated and
I simply inverted the video for that part of the flight in post
production. However, this also results in the GPS information
overlaid on the screen being upside down in the finished video.
Overall this flight was
very successful but I also learned about several things that could be
improved on future flights. And by the way, the XPRS launch itself
was simply OUTSTANDING! We had three days of perfect weather and
lots of big projects to watch fly. It just doesn't get any better.
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Wildfire was launched on an
L850 motor at the Swan Falls Tripoli Idaho launch site on Nov. 1, 2003.
It reached 4434 feet. Another successful flight!
View still
photos of this flight. |
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For this flight the video
camera was once again configured to hang on the parachute such that it
would look out horizontally. This gave a good view of the Snake
River canyon and the Birds of Prey area that is about 2 miles from the
launch site. However, the camera was still being tossed about by the
parachute as I have not yet done anything to prevent that in the
horizontal orientation. Unfortunately, the GPS information was
missing on this flight. I suspect the video overlay board is
beginning to go intermittent, but I have not yet determined the root cause
for this problem. This is now a total of 12 times that the
transmitter package and GPS overlay have flown. (Nine times in
Wildfire and three times in Vulcan.) It seems to be holding up
pretty well considering how it gets tossed around in the sky and bounced
on the ground at the end of each flight. |
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"Pad cam" video from a
ground based video camera fixed in a position up close to the launch pad.
This is a 10 second video of the launch as seen from the "pad cam".
View details about Wildfire construction.
This was the ninth flight of Wildfire.
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"Pad cam" video from a
ground based video camera fixed in a position up close to the launch pad.
This is a 10 second video of the launch as seen from the "pad cam".
View details about Wildfire construction.
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Wildfire was launched on an
M1315 motor at the
OROC launch site
near Brothers Oregon on June 21, 2003. It reached 7566 feet.
There was some cloud cover that day, but Wildfire was launched into a
clear spot and then captured pictures of the clouds below. It was a
very successful flight although the video is a bit marginal.
View still
photos of this flight. |
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Ground based video of the
4th flight of Wildfire. This time on an L850 at the Tripoli Idaho Swan
Falls launch site on
May 31, 2003. It was another successful flight and reached 4215 feet. |
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This is the on-board video
that was transmitted back to the ground in real time during the launch and
parachute recovery. Information about the video transmitter system is
right here. |
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The
second flight of Wildfire was on an M1315 motor at the Tripoli Idaho
launch site near Swan Falls on Nov. 2, 2003. It reached a peak
altitude of 8,306 feet.
This view is looking down
on the rocket from above and behind the launch pad.
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During launch the on-board
video from this flight is a view down the side of the rocket. After
ejection the camera and transmitter are put out on a parachute and can
view the ground below. The airframe comes down separately on it's
own parachute.
This on-board video
captured a quick look at the Snake river canyon and the Swan Falls dam.
The canyon is over two miles away from the launch site. |
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Ground video
by Frank Ross
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Wildfire was first flown on Sept. 28, 2002 at
the XPRS-1 launch at Black Rock desert in Nevada. This first flight
was on an M1315 motor and included the
on-board video camera and transmitter system. The liftoff was awesome!
The peak altitude reached was 8,862 feet.
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On this flight, the on-board camera was
setup to look straight-out the side of the airframe. At apogee the
camera is deployed on a parachute and is suspended so that it can look
down at the ground.
At motor burnout the camera shifted forward
slightly due to the negative G's during deceleration. The camera
could no longer see out the side of the rocket so the picture went black
until the camera was finally ejected at apogee. |
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