Saturday, September 13, 2008

First Tether Flight

We had our first tether flight today. Not perfect, but ok. it was stable for the first two seconds or so, but then we had some throttle osscilation shutting off thrust completly and hitting the tilt abort limit. I'm still reviewing data to learn the order of events. The Tether system worked as designed with only a very minor damage to some vent plumbing on the top of the rocket. (Caught on tether rope, the PCV tether covers ALA armadillo were not long enough.) Plan to review data and video this evening and try again on Sunday. Posting from the Mojave Best Western so no video or pictures yet. It flew, and its still flyable.

Paul

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Your progress made for resources expended is inspirational.

William said...

Kudos on the first flight, and I'm sure the data collected will be extremely useful. Best wishes for flight 2 and beyond.

Anonymous said...

Congrats- Keep it going, you will get there soon!
-James Bauer