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Autor: Oli4

„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.
Simulation w/ J500G in Open Rocket

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.

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Binder Design Excel

The Binder Design Excel is a little beauty midpower-rocket. I built it together with my daughter to have something to fly F und G-motors. First flight was at RJD 2017 and also at RJD 2018 the Excel flew succesfully. Firstly on RJD 2018 a little usb-camera-stick was onboard the rocket. Additionally an action-cam filmed at close proximity.

Bild von Holger Trusch

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BSD Diablo 5.5

Another big project was a BSD Diablo 5.5. I purchased the kit directly from BSD High Power Rocketry 2006 in the US. The kit was easy to built and was already complete with decals. BSD manufactured the best rockets kits on the market that time and for resonable price. I was planning to fly this kit with dual deplayment but in the end I had not enough space for two chutes and a big motor. Also it was not easy (and short big rockets are never easy to fly) to make it stable. I needed to put a 1.3kg mixture of resin and sand in the nosecone to push the center of pressure a bit more away from the center of gravity to have safe and stable flight with a big 54mm motor.

Here are some Pictures from the Assembling:

I decided to fly it on a Aerotech J275-W at RJD 2006. A great 54mm motor with 3.3s burntime and over 700Ns of thrust. Predicted altitude of the flight was about 1500 meters. The rocket weighted about 5,7kg fully loaded.

As you can see on the pictures (Thanks to Tom Stach for these awesome picture series!) it was a beautiful flight but I wanted to safe some bucks on the shroudlines and took cheaper ones. So due to bad (or not appropriate) quality of the shroud lines the motor ejection burned through it. The nosecone separated and the chute went away at about 1000 meters by the thermic air and was not seen again. The rest of the rocket was coming in ballistically. Fortunately the nosecone was separated from the rocket body, so I could recover the body nearly undamaged. The nosecone needed to be digged out ouf 50cm deep soil, but was (besides the paint) also in good shape as it was nearly solid filled with resin and sand.

The Diablo 5.5 may fly again in 2019.

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Level 2 Project: Rebel Buccaneer 4.0

One of my largest project so far was a kit from Rebel Rocketry established by Frank De Brouwer in the Netherlands: The Buccaneer 4.0. Built and glassed in nearly one week with the major help from Rolf Stabroth from Halberstadt,the rocket got flight ready on September 2nd, 2003.

Logo from Rebel Rocketry – company has been closed a couple of years ago.

After the successful first flight at ALRS IV in Switzerland in 2003 I got my Tripoli Level 2 certification to buy motors up to category L.

Since that time the Buccaneer had a lot of succesful flights. The motor size was limited due to the motor-mount size of 38mm. But two years later the Buccaneer went off on the biggest available motor for 38mm motor-mounts, an Aerotech J570 White Lightning motor. Beautiful flight to about 1800 Meters and came back with dual deployment at Feilenmoos/Manching xperimental launch.

Last flight before her retirement was at RJD 2017 on an Aerotech J350-W with media coverage by N24. Roared up to about 1200 meters and came back with two chutes and dual deployment. Unfortunately it hits the near lake digged for extracting sand from soil. The built in electronic got damaged due to the humidity but the model could be recovered safely.

The link to N24 mediathek:

https://www.welt.de/mediathek/reportage/gesellschaft/video171267753/High-Tech-aus-dem-Hobbykeller-Modellbauer-der-Meisterklasse.html

Then Rolf „Rolli“ Stabroth convinced and helped me to renew the Buccaneer again for a last flight on RJD 2018 on a J350-W again. The flight was perfect but the model hit the near lake again. Due to major luck the model did not sink and hit the sand shore in shallow water so I could recover it without using a boat. After disassembling the model it turned out that the electronic has been damaged by the water. Time to retire the Buccaneer finally after 15 years on duty.

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