When you wanna fly big rockets, a group is the way to go

From the Maryland/Delaware Rocketry Association Newsletter (html conversion of .pdf file):

There was also going to be the Kimberly Harms / John Lyndal full scale Honest John powered by four 4-grain full O motors. Dave Triano, Mike Hobbs had teamed up with Frank Kosdon on an 8" minimum diameter full Q motor attempt scheduled to go over 88,000 feet. Then there were all those 35,000 foot fun flights.

Of course, it helps to fly in the desert too. Black Rock, Nevada to be precise. The same chunk of desert where Burning Man takes place. Rocketeers in the Western U.S. have room that we east of the Mississippi only dream about.

Back to the story:

Not much comes back alive at Black Rock and this held true for the mighty Honest John. This was a full scale model of the real thing. It was built by Kimberly Harms and the Community Space Program out of Washington State. The motors were built by John Lyndal out of Oregon. John and Kim have combined their talents successfully on many other projects in the past. But this was the biggest one yet and this was Balls 13 at Black Rock. As with many other projects at the event there would be a secret conspiracy with the 700 pound, 24" diameter, 4 full O powered rocket. Earlier in the event I was talking with Kim and mentioned to her that she should put some "Cow Spots" on her military green painted rocket. She slowly shook her head and said she thought the project might go the way of the Cow . I wonder what she knew, that the rest of the world didn't. I had discussed with both Kim and John how the big projects get logarithmically more difficult. That was one thing we were all in agreement with.

[The photo below shows an actual Honest John being launched. The black, white and orange colors indicate that this is a test round, and the plumes emerging from the nose end are small rockets mounted at an angle to induce spin which increased stability and hence accuracy. The full-scale Honest John discussed in the article had no spin rockets and was launched vertically, as are all our rockets for safety reasons. -- RJ]

The Honest John was man handled onto the tower fully assembled. We were not out at their pad, which was over a mile away, yet we could see the progress as they finally got the big rocket vertical on the tower. The time had finally come and the button was pushed.

The Honest John climbed right up and off the tower. It started to take a slight arch to the right and then about 1,000 feet all hell broke loose. One of the O motors had catoed and that tore the rocket apart. The motor section continued to sail past the flailing payload and nose cone section. As the booster cruised by the nose cone it clipped it smashing the nuclear warhead to tiny bits [the Honest John was a nuclear-capable rocket used by the US Army, this was a full scale model - RJ]. The booster must have continued on to about 3,000 feet while the rest of the rocket fell helplessly back to earth from a much lower altitude. On Sunday I approached Kim to offer my condolences on the demise of her project and she told that "You can't cry over spilled milk."

When Mookie was a wee rocketeer, she took to design like a fish to water. One of her very first rockets was a beautiful flyer painted red, white & blue, and we watched it drift away under chute over an adjoining patch of woods. Despite our best efforts, we never did find it. She impressed me with her attitude because you could tell it hurt her to lose her rocket, but she accepted that sometimes you don't get them back.

Here's a nifty panoramic view of the playa at Black Rock.

Posted by Ted at January 22, 2005 08:07 AM | TrackBack