Kryptonite Awarded 3rd Place in the Sport Scale Competition at NSL2001

The NSL launch provided a national level Sport Scale Competition for Level One and Level Two designs.  Entries were judged on the design relative to scale information, construction, and flight.  Amazingly, the top winners were all UROC members. Michael Funke placed 1st, Lupknick 2nd, and myself 3rd. 

My entry was based on a Russian air to surface missille, AS-17, and later known as Xh-31. i also based the rocket on an upscale version of the Launch-Pad model rocket kit AS-17 Krypton. I call my creation Kryptonite.  The finished rocket was left with the contest dirctor, Fred Williams, over night Saturday for examination and scoring.  Along with the rocket I submitted a copy of the web pages here in detailing the history, design and construction of Kryptonite.  The final element of the competition was to launch and recover the rocket on Sunday or Monday.

Several worthy rockets were entered making for a fun competition.

To make sure that Kyrptonite would fly well, I had to first build the model in RocSim. I have measured all parts of the Launch pad kit and using the supplied kit instruction sheet, upscaled the placement dimensions of parts. The problem with RocSim 3.0 is designing tubular fins. I simply tried to add more parallel fins to replicate the four tube surface area. In a later step I will weigh the rocket to balance the real weight of the rocket in design simulation. After construction I weighed individual sections of the rocket to re-assess the simulation.  Unfortuneately, the model came in two pounds heaver than I wanted. Total weight was now over 10 pounds or 170 oz. loaded. This meant quite a bit of shuffling round on the simulation for accurate weight distribution. This also changed the need for the motors I had hoped to fly with.  Originally I designed and planned to fly around an I-284w-10 good for about 2,400'.   The best simulation was now an I-435t-10 for 1,900'.. The higher altitude would better accommodate the use of an altimeter.  Instead I will opt to recover with a single chute.  I am not certified to fly a level two motor - but yes should have gone to a 54mm motor mount for later flying fun. 

THE FIRST FLIGHT of the Kryptonite on Sunday was a bit of trouble from the start.  In order to gain final points in the competition the rocket needed to fly and be recovered.  The motor chosen, I-435t-10 would add to the realism of my modeling effort.  The I-435 is a fast burn motor and would accelerate  the rocket fast replicating the supersonic flight of the real unit.. The real rocket is designed for supersonic flight of between Mach two and Mach three. 

I packed the motor and chute and headed out to the RSO table.  As luck would have it the RSO was concerned that the model was not only NOT flight proven, but questionable in the delay. A possible result was that the flight might be errant or worse yet crash prior to recovery depolyment.  Running to get the Sim information and propellant impluse info - I was allowed to launch - if I went out to the far pads or the "M" pad launch area.  Frustration hits again as I found no way to accommodate the needed 1/2" rod on either the rail pads.  OK, so back I go to the away pads, and on a 1/2" rod. BUT angle it away for the crowd.

Wired up - count down - and off Kryptonite goes. Due to the angle of launch, the prevailing wind, and the large surface area of the rocket, the rocket cocked off northeast with the wind. Up it went and the crowd counted aloud the delay.  What a gut feeling as the crowd counts aloud your demise.  The rocket made a smooth low arc and began a high speed descent - aloud the crowd echos 7...8...9...10... chute. There it was safe under chute. Gently floating home.

I healthy walk later I returned with the craft for final judgement from our Contest Director. Full Points. Barely a scratch and ready to fly again. I was elated!  Not only did it fly after almost 120 hours of assembly labor - but I loved the way it performs, missile like rather than rocket like.

THE SECOND FLIGHT of the Kryptonite on Monday was again on an I-435t. Same results. Fast burn launch and smooth arc over the top.  The unit appears to glide through the sky awaiting deployment.  The big 84" orange chute adds alot to the recovery appearance. This time the prevailing wind was from the East. The rocket launched westward and arced northwest over the Pony Express Test Range.  Recovery again was smooth and the rocket was only tatooed from the launch rod. 

  Look for Kryptonite at Hellfire 7 in September 2001. Thinking a J420R or J350 will kick the salt.