I spent most of the day at the Kloudbuster’s August Fun Fly today! It was a much smaller turnout than last month, with only 1 university team in attendance; usually there are 3 or more doing certifications, test flights, or launching payloads. 

I was testing out more of my Eggtimer altimeters: the third flight of my Quark and first flight of my new Quantum. It all came together really smoothly in the days prior to launch, so that all I had to do today was pack up the car and put in shear pins at the launch site. I even folded parachutes in advance, keeping them wrapped with rubber bands until I got to the field. After 5 years of HPR, assembling motors is still probably my favorite part of high-power flight prep. 

It took about 4 attempts, 3 igniters, and switching motors to get Easy on the Wallet Too to launch. I realized after the 4th attempt that using the supplied rubber band to hold the igniter wire to the motor probably did the trick. With such a narrow slotted grain (unlike most HPR BATES grains), the igniter was getting spit out before the propellant could light. Nevertheless, it took off to 2146ft (654m) on a G78G using the Quark for dual deployment. With 3 flights, 2 of which were solo, I’m confident in saying that the Quark is fully functional! 

After recovery (I discovered I also now have cell reception at the Rocket Pasture since Boost Mobile upgraded their network/my access to the network, so that’s a first!), I got Miss Kenzie ready for her 3rd-ever flight. No igniter troubles this time, and she took off nice and straight to 2833ft (863m), despite the heavy winds. A TeleMetrum was my tracker and backup altimeter, and I think the Quantum did its job. I know it deployed main correctly, but I’ll have to check the data for if apogee deployed correctly. I’m sure it did, since the charge fired, so it doesn’t matter if it was slightly after apogee or not.