Adrian

I’m taking another shot at the F record, using the Parrot for apogee deployment. This time, I did the Twirl-on-a-string test for stability. (passed) Last night the wind forecast for Saturday was 13. 🙁 Now it’s 3-6 🙂

Are you using Rocksim to test out the design before you build them? Like I said in my first post, I used Rocksim to verify the stability using both the Rocksim algorithm and the Barrowman equations. The Rocksim stability margin…   Read more»

Hopefully I can get by with about 3 hours of sleep tonight and I’ll be able to tell Warren at 7:30 myself. 😀

Hubble is cool, but for my money the most impressive space achievement since Apollo was Viking. Nobody knew almost anything about the environments the landers had to fly through and land in, yet they worked beautifully. To me, the coolest…   Read more»

See you at Oktoberfest.I work for a little subcontractor to Lockheed Martin. Out of college I got a job working directly for LM, and then I went to a little commerical space company in California, followed by the Jet Propulsion…   Read more»

I’ve worked directly on 6 Mars robotic exploration missions, on a private commercial lunar entertainment/advertising mission, and now I’m working on Orion, so I’m kind of biased .I totally agree that human spaceflight has contributed basically nothing to science since…   Read more»

Actually, the no tracking rule was designed to ADD participation. It was an attempt to level the playing field and bring more folks in. There are a lot of flyers w/o tracking and they wouldn’t / couldn’t play, because someone…   Read more»

I’d love to do the SSS, but I’m stymied by the no-tracker requirement. Today I just lost a 38mm rocket (Blue Ninja) on an F, in almost zero wind, despite a day-glow pink parachute, because I didn’t fly it with…   Read more»

I’d love to find long-burning, full-impulse, G, H, and I motors. I didn’t see anything like that on Loki’s website, though.

Adrian, I totally understand your issues. … It is tricky indeed.Thanks, John. I’m still keeping my eye out for your G.And thanks for Fudd ignitor, Ken.I think I have enough data now to pull the trigger tonight on the first…   Read more»

You can borrow my tracking setup if you want. It’s an Arrow 5-element yagi and a scanner.I’m still shooting for having the first batch of Parrot altimeters done and certified, along with record attempt rockets in A through F. Today…   Read more»

Does anyone know what is the range used in the commercially available units? The chips can range from 1.xg to well over 50g per axis.I’m tempted to settle on the +/-18G per axis, knowing that a small amount of data…   Read more»

A lot of Orion is getting designed right here in some buildings at Wadsworth and Hampden, and there is at least one NCR member working on it. The rest is spread out between Houston, Arizona, Cleveland, Chicago, Louisiana, and probably…   Read more»

An early look at the Parrots:I’m still more or less on track to get these done for Oktoberfest. Once I’ve tested and verified my calibration procedures, I’ll send another email to Mr. Rouse regarding certification.

Attached is a 1:1 scale drawing of the board

What can we do to cross paths so I can either borrow it or get explicit measurements so I can make a size mockup to fit it in place?Sometime today I’ll post a dimensioned drawing. I also have a a…   Read more»

My altitude watch changes *dramatically* with the change in baro pressure. It constantly needs re-calibration. Curious if you have tried tossing in other brands of altimeters into the same chamber at the same time with the Parrot?I’m sure it does;…   Read more»

What I’ve been using so far is a shop vac hooked up to an airtight container. The Shop Vac pulls the equivalent of 3000 feet of altitude. I have a well-calibrated altitude watch that I put in the same chamber…   Read more»

A week ago, he asked for me to give him all the data I could about the altimeter, and I replied with a bunch of information, data and graphs. I haven’t heard back since, so I’ll ping him again today.

Thanks, John.I sent Tom an email asking about what I would need to do to get the Parrot certified for official Tripoli records. In the meantime, I’ll have fun seeing how high I can go unofficially. I’m looking forward to…   Read more»