High Powered Rocketry
Exactly one week before I had deploy to Iraq in 2005, which was the first of four tours, with the help of the Tripoli San Diego club members, the reality of getting this rocket off the ground was accomplished. Val Derkach helped fix the alignment to the rocket. I had started building the base of it in my garage, It had settled at a cant. Val noticed that and helped with fixing the discrepancy. I had the parts for the twelve inch diameter by 23 foot tall rocket in my garage for a while. It was moved to Val's garage for completion. We had a painting party at his residence which allowed the young kids to spray paint it however they liked. When I returned back after my 9 month deployment it was repainted and launched one more time before i donated the parts to a high school science class.
The rocket was lofted off on one Aerotech 98 mm reload motor. There was a timer set for the outboard motors which consisted of two K-700 reloads and four J-570 W reloads. They would ignite four seconds after the rocket cleared the pad from the main motor. It was also equipped with a Black Sky Altacc and a Pratt Hobbies dual remote controlled deployment system in case there was a problem with recovery. We had an FAA waiver for 16,000 feet. The rocket achieved an altitude of 12, 357 feet.