For JPC this year:

Red Glare is becoming a tradition every fall and spring; it’s really convenient, as away launches go, and it’s a well run event with lots of cool rockets and, more importantly, lots of cool people. I managed to ship two rockets back to Todd before the launch, and put up both on Todd’s propellant. Ryan also got into the action this time with his Infinity. And we had Darren in such good spirits that he almost flew a rocket, too. (Almost being the key word here.) Once again, special thanks to the Wrights for their great hospitality, and to Todd for picking me up from the airport (even if he was just a hair over 2 hours late) and taking me back (and shipping my stuff back!).

Gallery below, after the jump. Read on »

Balls 2010 was a great time — nice weather all weekend, great crowd, and lots of cool flights with a fairly high success ratio. It was great to meet tons of new people and see all the creative projects out there. USC flew a terrific minimum diameter O motor flight with a carbon fiber casing, TSM had a spectacular P to P two stage flight, James Grover totally bent up one of AHPRA’s rails (sorry bout that man!), Jerry McKinlay put up a 4″ airframe to 55kft+ with full recovery, and Al Goncalves burned the paint off of Ed Enyart’s rocket.

Click through below for the full gallery. Read on »

(Click for larger.) Both of these scrap piles are aluminized — one with nano (80 nm), and one with micron (30 µm). The reasons we want to use nanometric metals should be readily apparent. The nano scraps are from a new mix that I tried with a modified binder system, and instead of the stuff being like dry sand, it was like clay, making it viable for casting and firing in a motor. Maybe one day, when the price comes down a bit!

More testing on thermite. I knew it wasn’t going to light, but I needed some photos to prove it. So, bust out the compound, a sample tray, a blowtorch, and a camcorder…

Quite boring, really. But that’s a good thing. Working in energetics, I’d much rather have a “boring” day than an “overly exciting” one.