„Thunda 2019“ with an Arrow X from Fusion Rockets / SBR

Next big project is planned for April 2019. „Thunda down under“ in Australia will be held in April this year. I am going to catch up with Mathias Gärtner in Sydney then driving all the way up North to the launch site. Around 1000km are lying ahead of us. Also I still have to build my model for this launch. More information about the launch: https://thunda2.com.au/

Rocket for this launch will be a Fusion Arrow X. I am planning to build this model during the next weeks in January 2019. Pictures will be posted here. Here some information from the fusion website: http://www.fusionrocket.biz/

Scott send me the kit in really good shape and all parts are laser cut and look pretty neat. All parts were wrapped in paper separately so I unwrapped them before.

13.01.2019 – just coming back from Halberstadt visiting Rolf Stabroth. In his rocket booth we accomplished some milestones this weekend and nearly completed the kit.

The kit was easy to built. All parts fitted nearly perfect together. Only a few parts needed a bit sanding before. The manual was some kind of confusing with the e-bay assembling part. But in the end we did that in some way. I used a Altimax Simply for dual deployment. Pilot chute will use a conventional blackpowder charge for deployment at the apogee and 150 meters above ground the main will (hopefully) pop out with a CD3 from Rousetech using a CO2-capsule.

16.2.2019: Using the good weather and get some paint on my ArrowX today.

SBR ArrowX nearly ready. I´ll put on the decals beginning of March.

Four days of insane high power rocketry flying. I had no probems at all to carry the rocket to Sydney. No Problems with the Airline and no problems at customs.

The way to Funny farm was exciting and challenging as I had to learn to drive on the left side with a Right handed car and not a small one.

We had to bring everything with us, starting by water and ending by the rockets of course. We arrived at Funny Farm on April 18th, 2019.

On April 19th, 2019 the first launch of the ArrowX was on a Aerotech J350W with dual deployment using an Altimax Simply. We had to wait for the igniters from Blake so the prepping could start at least on Friday. But then all went well and the ArrowX had a beautiful first flight.

Second flight was planned on an CTI-K 54mm motor but unfortunately the motor did not fit into the motor mount. So after a lot of sanding I was trying to switch to another motor but the Aerotech Single Use K did not fit, either. Eventually I had to buy another J motor that fits in my 38/720 casing as the rocket was already prepped and I wanted to fly it by any means instead of unprepping it again. I got an AT J500 Green Mojave from Blake and that motor is a beauty when lifting off.

Unfortunately the Main chute was ejecting at apogee and the rocket drifted over two kilometers away. I had a bearing but could not find it due the passing daylight. On the next day we searched for it with four people and were able to recover it. The rocket suffered major damage due to the nightly humidity and the wind dragged it over the sandy field so it was scratched all over.