The Rocket Cam tested fine on the workbench. I hooked the camera up to my laptop with a USB cable and in "web cam" mode adjusted the mirror over the lens so I got two fins and a bit of the rocket body in the frame. It looked so cool, moving the rocket around in the garage.
The first launch took place at a construction site by my house. We had just launched six other rockets (five very successfully!) at a local Middle School, but I didn't want to launch the Rocket Cam there because of the size of the field.
The first flight of the Rocket Cam was with a D-12 5 engine. I readied the camera, started counting down, and just before launch heard a "beep"--the camera went into power save mode and shut itself off. So I re-set the camera, counted down REALLY FAST, and launched it.
It tore off the pad, kind of surprised me; I took a step back and fell into a small ditch at the construction site! But was able to quickly get up and see the flight. It fishtailed ever so slightly at the beginning, then straightened. A very good first flight. That thing went HIGH!!! I'm really bad at estimating these things, but at least 600 to 700 feet, maybe more, The ejection charge popped out the chutes, and you could just barely make out the two pieces coming down.
My son and his friend were standing about 150 feet away at the base of a steep hill. There was absolutely no wind, and the two pieces came down about a second apart, about 15 feet from each other, and would have been caught by the two boys except they were having trouble scrambling up the side of the steep hill. The addition of the larger parachute for the payload section was a good idea, and the fact the two pieces landed so close together tells me the sizing is perfect.
I immediately checked the camera, and it didn't look good. It was set for low resolution, high compression, continuous, which means as soon as the switch was tripped at launch it should have taken 150+ tiny photos in rapid succession until running out of memory. But the display showed no pictures in the camera, and set to single shot, high resolution, low compression...only a few hours later when I was thinking clearly did I realize what had happened; the camera had re-set to default settings, which only happens when the batteries die or are disconnected, so my theory is that the g-force of the launch caused a power interruption.
Anyway, the flight itself was AWESOME, for such a big (almost three feet long), heavy (TOP HEAVY) rocket with some funk (mirror and switch) sticking out its sides, it went HIGH!
Not a scratch on the thing, and it will fly again! And I've been told that the reset problem was most likely caused by the batteries shifting during launch and losing contact for a brief moment. That's something I can try to fix. So back to the garage...
Coming soon (hopefully): a report on the second flight of the Rocket Cam.
[ photograph above: Little Lakes, 2004 ]
