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The
2009
"Fire in the Sky" (FITS) launch was held Memorial Day weekend
May 22-25 near the small town of
Mansfield Washington. It was hosted by the
Washington Aerospace Club (WAC). Friday was a research
launch day while Saturday, Sunday and Monday were commercial motor
launch days. The weather was excellent during all four days and the
launch was very well attended with flyers coming from all over the
pacific northwest. There were a total of 481 flights at
FITS with 171 of them on H-N high power motors. |
This was definitely another
great FITS launch. It was well organized, safely run, had many
awesome flights and lots of great people to meet. A special thanks
goes out to the launch directors for their tireless efforts to make this
launch such a huge success. Kent Newman was LD for the research
launch and Mike Wyvel and Denny Smith were co-launch directors for the
commercial motor days. Also a big thank you to all the
Washington Aerospace club members that volunteered and helped run the
event. It really was exceptional!
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Panorama view
of the FITS launch site |
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Photo by Vern Knowles
This view is looking east
from the top of a small hill next to the FITS camping area. It was
taken on Saturday morning. The launch pads are just out of sight
inside the oval dirt race track seen on the left hand edge of this photo.
Click on the photo for a better view.
Click here to see a large ultra high resolution version of this image. (7.1
MB)
Most web browsers will automatically scale
these panorama images to fit the width of your computer window. If
yours does that, then be sure to expand the image to full size. You
should be able to pan across the high resolution image and get a good look
at the whole area. Just as if you are standing there on that small
hill. |
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Aerial view
of the FITS launch site |
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Photo by Vern Knowles
This is an aerial view of the FITS launch site as seen from a camera onboard Wildfire
on Sunday afternoon. More aerial photos as well as an HD video from
onboard this flight are presented further down on this page. |
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I flew three
rockets at FITS.
Angelfire, Wildfire and
Coldfire. Photos, videos and
even some audio recordings from these flights are presented below.
Angelfire and Wildfire
launched on Aerotech M1297 motors. Coldfire flew on an Aerotech J415. I
selected these smaller M1297 motors for Angelfire and Wildfire in order
keep them below 8,000 feet so that they could be launched from the main
launch site. This avoids having to setup and launch from the away
cell. I find that launching from the main site is definitely more
fun and a lot more convenient. All three flights went very well and
all three were safely recovered with no damage. Angelfire reached 6,562
feet, Wildfire reached 6,255 feet and Coldfire 3,740 feet.
All three of these rockets
also had my new "Kate" system onboard. Kate is a computer
synthesized female voice from an automated flight data reporting system.
Kate announces GPS downlink information in real time during the flight. I
connected the audio output from Kate into the main PA system so that
everyone could listen to it. It was a big hit! I received a
lot of compliments and enthusiastic responses after the flights.
Kate adds a whole new dimension that I think makes launches even more
enjoyable to watch. It was fun seeing the flight in progress while
being told exactly how high, how fast, or how far away the rocket is at
any given moment. You will be able to listen to the audio recording
of Kate's announcements made during these flights. The recordings
are presented further down on this page.
Kate worked perfectly on
the Angelfire and Coldfire flights. However, due to an error on my
part, Wildfire was launched before the GPS system had acquired enough
satellites to get good flight data. Consequently, Kate was more than
a little confused during that flight. I will be modifying Kate's
software so that it will warn me and prevent that from happening again.
Kate is still a fairly new system. I built it in the summer of 2008
and it has only flown a few times so far. Each flight provides new
ideas for changes and improvements.
All the details for each of
my flights are presented below, starting with Angelfire.
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Angelfire
is 11 feet long, 5.15 inches in diameter and weighed 46
pounds with the motor
installed. It carried the usual assortment of electronics gear on
this flight. The drogue and main parachutes were deployed by a
Missile Works RRC2 altimeter and an
ARTS
recording altimeter. The ARTS altimeter records the entire flight profile using
both a barometric sensor and an accelerometer. In the nosecone, a
high speed Garmin
GPS unit was transmitting GPS fixes to the ground at the rate of five
readings per second using a MaxStream 9XTend 1W spread spectrum frequency hopping 902-928 MHz
radio link. The GPS data was received on the ground and
processed in a laptop computer running custom software that
generated a synthesized female voice (named Kate) to narrate the
flight. Kate announced altitude, speed, direction, distance
and other parameters in real time during the flight. |
Angelfire was launched on Saturday
afternoon using an Aerotech M1297 motor. The GPS system reported a max altitude
of 6,267 feet and a maximum velocity of 434 miles per hour.
The onboard altimeters reported an average of 6,562 feet as the max
altitude. (4.7% higher than the GPS altitude.)
The boost went fine and Angelfire
climbed into the sky on a nice vertical trajectory. The drogue
deployment at apogee looked to be just about right. Main
parachute deployment also occurred with 2,000 feet to go, just as
planned. Angelfire ended up landing only 372 feet from the
launch pad! This was the 19th flight of
Angelfire.
Kate's Angelfire flight report
Kate is a computer synthesized female
voice that narrates the flight in real time by making call outs of
altitude, speed, direction, distance, descent rate and so on.
The data for these call outs is supplied by a GPS unit onboard
Angelfire. The information it transmits to the ground is
processed in a laptop computer. Once the software program on
the laptop is started it automatically detects liftoff and then
makes as many announcements as it can on the way up and on the way
down. It is triggered by key events such as passing through an
even thousand foot altitude, reaching max speed, reaching max
altitude, and so on. Kate first does a short introduction, a
prelaunch announcement and then waits for liftoff. After the
flight she also does a summary report. A recording of the
actual audio delivered at FITS is available at the link below.
However, the recording has been edited to shorten the silent gaps
between announcements. This makes it easier to listen to when
you can't actually see the rocket. |
| Click on any photo on
this page to see a larger version of it. |
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Photo by Bryan Whitemarsh |
Photo by Vern Knowles |
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Photo by William Carpenter
Angelfire climbs into the sky on an M1297. |
Photos by Vern Knowles
Click on the animated photo sequence above to see it in a larger size. |
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Angelfire Flight
Trajectory |
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6,267 feet max
altitude
434 mph max velocity
Boost
phase
Coast
phase
Drogue
parachute
Main
parachute
The town of Mansfield is in
the lower left corner of this image. The red dot is one mile from
the launch pad. |
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The image above shows the
Angelfire flight trajectory when looking northeast from behind the flight line.
It was created by entering the Angelfire GPS flight data into Google
Earth. The red segment shows the duration of the motor burn.
The blue segment is the coast to apogee. The yellow segment is the
descent phase on drogue chute and the green segment is the
descent on the main parachute. The white vertical scale shows intervals of
1000 feet above the ground. Click on the image to get a better view.
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If you already have Google
Earth installed on your computer then you should be able to view the
flight trajectory by clicking on the link above. You can then use the pan, tilt and zoom
controls in Google
Earth to see it from any angle. If that doesn't work then try right clicking on the link
above, save the file to a convenient place and then open the file from
inside the Google Earth
program. Google Earth is a FREE program
available here. |
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Wildfire was launched on Sunday
afternoon. This was its 28th flight!
Wildfire is 9 feet long and 5.5 inches in diameter. It carried a
Canon TX1 HD video camcorder. It also carried a GPS system in the nose cone that transmitted real
time data to the ground so that Kate could narrate the entire
flight.
View Wildfire
Camera/GPS payload design
This flight was on a
"Baby M", the
Aerotech
M1297 white lightning motor. The climb to apogee was
completely nominal with Wildfire reaching 6,255 feet. At
apogee it deployed two parachutes. One for the rocket itself
and a separate one for the camera/GPS payload module. |
This was a very successful
flight from the standpoint that Wildfire was safely recovered without any
damage. The onboard video also turned out very nice. However,
due to an error on my part, Wildfire was launched before the GPS system
had acquired enough satellites to get good flight data. Consequently, Kate
was very confused during the flight and the information being reported was
definitely not correct. I will be modifying Kate's software so that it
will warn me and prevent this from happening again.
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Photo by Rick Clapp |
In the photo to the left I
am enabling the onboard video camera just before launch. There are
three small holes in the airframe that allow a tool to be inserted to
turn-on the camcorder, set the zoom and start it recording. A video
connector also allows a small handheld LCD monitor to be used to
display the camcorder image. This makes it easy to verify the
camcorder is setup correctly and has the proper zoom setting. Once
the camcorder is good to go, the video cable is disconnected and Wildfire
is ready for launch. The metal hood just below the nosecone is a
mirror mount that allows the camcorder to look down the side of Wildfire
during launch. |
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Photo by Tsolo T. Tsolo |
The camcorder will only
capture 15 minutes of HD video. I quickly run back to the launch table
after starting the camera so that Wildfire can be immediately launched. |
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On this particular flight,
I forgot to turn-on the GPS until after I had already enabled the
camcorder and run back to the launch table. Therefore, to preserve
as much video record time as possible, I had to run back out to the launch
pad, enable the GPS and then run back to the launch table. Unfortunately,
the GPS did not have sufficient time to lock onto enough satellites to get
a good position fix before launch. The resulting GPS flight data was
pretty much worthless. I plan to prevent that next time by having Kate
automatically double check the GPS status for me. |
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Photo by Rick Clapp |
Photo by Rick Clapp
Click on the animated photo sequence at the
left to see it in a larger size. |
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Photo by Vern Knowles |
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Photo by Rick Clapp |
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Photos by Vern Knowles |
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The photos below are single
frame images taken from the camcorder onboard Wildfire. Click on any
image to get a better look at it. Wildfire
peaked out at 6,255 feet. |
Photo by Vern Knowles |
The photo above shows the
Wildfire airframe on parachute (from above) as it descends back to the
ground. The camcorder comes down on its own parachute and it drops
much more slowly than the air frame. |
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Wildfire landed in a field not far from the
farm buildings.
Photo by Vern Knowles |
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Coldfire was specifically
designed to fly on
HyperTEK hybrid
motors. However, I elected
not to do so at FITS. I didn't want to bother with all the Nitrous and
ground support equipment needed for such a flight. It was much
easier to just fly it on a solid motor.
Coldfire was launched on an
Aerotech
J415 late Friday afternoon at FITS. The onboard GPS reported a peak
altitude of 3,515 feet. The onboard altimeters reported 3,740 feet, which
is 6.4% higher. Coldfire touched down 1,596 feet from the pad.
This was the seventh flight of Coldfire. It was safely recovered
with no damage.
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Play audio
recording of Kate's Coldfire flight report.
This is a recording of the audio report that
Kate delivered at FITS during the flight of Coldfire. This is a non
real time playback in that some of the silent gaps between announcements
have been reduced or eliminated. |
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Coldfire Flight
Trajectory |
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3,515 feet max altitude
300 mph max velocity
Boost
phase
Coast
phase
Main
parachute
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The image above shows the
Coldfire flight trajectory when looking due north from behind the flight line.
It was created by entering the Coldfire GPS flight data into Google
Earth. The red segment shows the duration of the motor burn.
The blue segment is the coast to apogee. The green segment is the
descent on parachute. The white vertical scale shows intervals of
1000 feet above the ground. Click on the image to get a better view.
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If you already have Google
Earth installed on your computer then you should be able to view the
flight trajectory by clicking on the link above. You can then use the pan, tilt and zoom
controls in Google
Earth to see it from any angle. If that doesn't work then try right clicking on the link
above, save the file to a convenient place and then open the file from
inside the Google Earth
program. Google Earth is a FREE program
available here. |
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Just for fun, the two
trajectories for Coldfire and Angelfire can be viewed on the same image.
Each starts in a different
location from a different launch pad.
Coldfire does not use a
dual deployment system like Angelfire so it does not have the yellow
drogue chute segment.
Click on the photo for a
closer look. |
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Photo by Vern Knowles
Perfect weather for flying rockets! |
Photo by Vern Knowles
Fliers waiting in line to be assigned a launch
pad. |
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Photo by Vern Knowles |
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Photo by Tsolo T.
Tsolo from RocketShots! © 2009 |
A very large dust devil wandered through the
camp area on Sunday afternoon. It did some serious damage to some of
the easy-up canopies that were in its path. Other than that,
the weather Sunday was great for flying rockets all day long. |
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