Rockets galore

Well I'm back from blowing things up in the desert and had lots of fun making pyro and lighting it out in the desert, we also went
and watched the Tripoli rocket club launch about 300 very large rockets out in the Black Rock Desert and that was fun until I almost
got killed by a rocket that it's parachute failed to open and it came down about 12 steps away from my camper pictures at 11:00.

Tripoli> Tripoli Rocketry Association > Home

Here is a shell I built it's a 5" with purple stares.


An other 5" shell almost finished.


A shell with 12 serpents and orange stars.


this is a 8" shell with 96 yellow go-getter stars.


Here are the shells I was able to make in 4 days time.


This one went up to 83,000 feet.


This one went up to 71,000 feet.


This one was over 100,000 feet up about 30 min before I took this picture.


Some of the rockets that were close by our camp.






And here is the one that almost got us :wtf:
the lawn dart of death I like to call it.


We had to dig over 3 foot down to get it all out.


Yep that's my trailer in the background only 12 paces away :tsk:


There were many rocket flights and these are only a couple of them.

Have a good one :beer:

That looks like so much fun and good times. It was nice to see the BRC so quite compared to Burningman.
What is the limiting factor as far as altitude reached in this hobby? Can they enter perpetual free fall? Orbit?

How much damage occurred to the "lawn dart?" I'm surprised it penetrated that much hard dirt. High powered model rocketry is something on my to do list.

Tripoli had a variance from the FAA to 150,000 feet and a 17 mile radius, I suppose if one of the guys wanted to they could build a rocket that could reach orbit but then they would also have to spend lots of money trying.

olympus mons said:

That looks like so much fun and good times. It was nice to see the BRC so quite compared to Burningman.
What is the limiting factor as far as altitude reached in this hobby? Can they enter perpetual free fall? Orbit?

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it was about 5 feet tall when it launched but looked like it was less than 3 feet long after we dug it out, when something is traveling faster than 761.2 MPH it can bury it's self any where it wants to I guess.

Dr_Evil said:

How much damage occurred to the "lawn dart?" I'm surprised it penetrated that much hard dirt. High powered model rocketry is something on my to do list.

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Here is what it looked like after we got it out of the ground.

Wow, great pictures and videos. I am glad that nobody was hurt by the "lawn dart" rocket!! Did a lot of model rockets as a young teenager. These are a bit bigger
My favorite one had 3 "fins" that hugged the body on the way up and had hinges at the base. The leading tips were tucked under the nose cone. The deployment charge pushed the nose cone forwards, the 3 fins sprung out and the rocket slowly spun back to earth like a fan. Thanks for bringing back memories Flaminpyro

150,000 feet is a lot. You don't have to worry about much past the 50,000 mark. How far off the launch site did they land? I'd think the wind/jet stream would carry them away quite a bit.

That's way cool.
I guess you don't have any air traffic in that area, lol.

RedCowboy said:

That's way cool.
I guess you don't have any air traffic in that area, lol.

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17 mile no fly zone. I wonder if that is a permanent or temp zone.

Most of the ones that went very high had a delay deployment of the recovery parachute it would seem as they would fall back down to approx 1000 feet before the chute deployed.

Dr_Evil said:

150,000 feet is a lot. You don't have to worry about much past the 50,000 mark. How far off the launch site did they land? I'd think the wind/jet stream would carry them away quite a bit.

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There is lots of military planes that dog fight in the area and there are commercial jets that fly over this is why they got a waver from the FAA so the air space above was closed to air traffic.

RedCowboy said:

That's way cool.
I guess you don't have any air traffic in that area, lol.

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it's a temp zone not in effect when no rockets are flying.

Dr_Evil said:

17 mile no fly zone. I wonder if that is a permanent or temp zone.

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holy awesome! Thanks for sharing pyro

Flaminpyro...Really enjoyed all your pictures and the videos. I would really love watching you build your shots. I guess whoever built the corkscrew must have felt like NASA guys after a mishap!

As for building our own vehicles to reach orbital velocity. That is quite a challenge lol.

If it were only so simple as packing enough thrust into a tube and firing it.
The vehicle has to make the "gravity" turn at just the right time and final engine cut off must be at just the right time to achieve just the correct velocity for orbital insertion.
So, now to that tube must be added navigation and the system to deflect the exhaust gases to make the gravity turn.
Oh, and I almost forgot...gyros might help with attitude stabilization.
I am sure I forgot a few crucial things...for more details, check this out before your trip to home depot for rocket parts.

Some kids got an FAA variance and sent up a large helium balloon and got some great pictures. I think I will start with that.....a little more sophisticated than my Estes rockets from childhood! Some lessons from a Shuttle guy.