Hello YORF'ers,

I am writing to try and help Darrell on a project he is working on. I read a few months back that someone here had photos and possibly other materials from the "R" (OuR) rocket launch from the min 1990's.

Here is a a responce e-mail that I made to Darrell and I hope its enjoyed (Earl Cagle, do you still have my original tape and can provide a copy to Darrell? If not, I have one of your videos somewhere...):

Darrell,

I will look for it this weekend. I am surprised, Earl Cagle doesn't have a copy ... OH NO ... so much from professional/amateur/model rocketry gets lost over the years I know in storage I have a copy of Earl's tape made from the original master. Where the original master is a mystery. I think either Earl or the British T.V. producer has it. I still have copyrights on it, but I don't care how its used as long as it brings more people into the hobby and science; I make my money other ways

Jim Rosson is a member of the same Arizona HPR group that flies out at Rainbow Valley, AZ. I haven't seen him in over 13 years ... I will post to the sssrocketry news group asking for him to surface and answer your e-mails.

I read over at oldrocketforum (that someone had a dozen or so photos they had taken launch day). I will post over there and ask that they get in touch with you.

In the end, I would like to get schematics of the rocket, as it is now SCALE ... and I could use it at NARAM-53 for B Scale Altitude... and I have a color photo of it from the High Powered Rocketry magazines of old.

I am surprised Ken hasn't gotten back to you as he made the aluminum fin can. We all signed one of the fins before it went up ... I have an interesting story in that the night before I checked out the payload, telemetry and GPS ... all go. I told Jim NOT to take the system apart as it could cause a loose wire, GPS issues, ect.. Well he took it apart to charge the NiCad batteries, and sure enough the next morning when the system was turned on with only minutes before the launch window was set to expire, the GPS couldn't lock ... I think the signal was being blocked by all the other stuff that was added to the payload area in the final hours before launch. I had achieved a lock while the electronics were outside of the payload bay (the fiberglass cone was transparent to GPS RF).

So I was asleep in my car, only having a couple of hours of sleep in the last 48 hours when I am awoke with a knock at the car door telling me to get the telemetry and recording gear ready. Well after cleaning the drool from my chin, and sleet from my eyes, I get everything ready and NO GPS lock! I was angry because without it, I know there would be no real way of determining altitude. They and myself were going to fly regardless. Oh, I had a feeling the recovery wasn't to go as planned because of the history of such flights up to that time. I was very happy with the loss of the payload, as long as all the data was recorded; which is wasn't - no GPS.

Everything was go, and Paul and Jim took over the 1/4 mi long launch unit and from behind my Ford Escort wagon, I watched my screens and listened to the count down. At zero the button was pushed and the base of the rocket filled with dense TAN smoke (the soil had kicked up as the steel plat blast deflector had burned through and the motor was now burning into soil. The rocket leaped into the air straight and true. Even though there was a 5 degree tilt in the launcher to send it away from the spectators and 'down range' it corrected itself and went straight to zenith. Once the propellant burned out (6 - 8 sec burn IIRC), it disappeared as Frank Kosdon didn't have tracking cake in his motor. I then scanned over my monitor to see if video signal was still present and when I did I saw that the curvature of the Earth was now present. I yelled over to Paul, 'Curvature of the Earth!', and Paul radioed over his walkie-talkie back to range safety, 'We have curvature of the Earth'. I could hear the low roar of applause and cheers from the spectators a good mile away.

I continued to monitor the video down-link and watched as the rocket reached apogee and the start its descent back down. I realized very quickly that the rocket was coming down too fast if it were under drogue. Then at about 60,000 feet I lost signal and I think it was due to over heating and antennas being ripped off (the vehicle reached Mach 2.3 ascending, and I am sure it did at least Mach 1+ falling back in from near-space. At that speed the loads and temperatures would have started tearing the vehicle apart.

The video signal was dead and I was hoping for a puff of smoke indicating that SOME recovery device had triggered... about 60 or so seconds later, I felt the ground under my feet shuddered as if a cannon had gone off close bye; it was the vehicle core sampling about 4 miles way from us in the lake bed floor. Many tens of thousands of joules had been released with that impact.

Back then we were careless ... as we would have never known where to look for the vehicle but by chance there was a wind sailor on the lake bed and the rocket had crashed about 100 yards from him with the sonic boom following it.

Paul and Jim rented a back hoe from Gerlach and started digging. We found bits and pieces of the aluminum airframe/casing and small inch square fragments of the nomex chute protector and chute in the diggings. We know at lease one recovery event triggered because the nomex was singed.

All in all, it was fun and I was VERY lucky to have been part of something that at the time hadn't been done in the world of amateur/hobby rocketry although others had flown to higher altitudes, they had no photographic or video proof to say they were that high.

I am getting back into HPR/Amateur and want to orbit ANYTHING before I take my eternal dirt knap I am working with Guy Smith who as myself, loves Hybrids and what they have to offer the rocket community.

If we do orbit, it will be a Tiny-Tim to Hybrid Wac Corporal arrangement.

So there you have it, my recollections as best I can remember. Hope this helps your article and feel free to use any part of this e-mail in your article, and I will look and find SOMETHING for you to use in your article. Make sure, Dr. Kosdon, Paul and Ken get the most coverage as they did the majority of the work, funding and made it all happen. I came into the project late in the game and IIRC, my telemetry package was a substitute for the water ballast and mechanical camera they had originally planned to fly

Jonathan

P.s. spell check this sucker because I really can't spell all that great ... no REALLY!

Johnathan-

Geez, hard to believe that project has now been nearly 15 years ago. That was a fun 2-3 days on the desert at Black Rock! Then again, Black Rock was always a fun and interesting rocket place to go during my 4-5 trips there in the 90s. I loved covering those big projects and miss doing the videos....family comes first though, and I have my hands full with two disabled family members. Between working full time (my 'regular' job I always had during my Point 39 days) and care duties here, there is just no other time left. I'll see what I can do to supply Darrell some materials. I've got a bunch of stills and hours of video of the project.....just getting to them and getting some stuff scanned and digitized to send to him, which will take some time to do for the aforementioned reasons.

I'll have to say that one of the most excited rocketeers I ever saw on the range was YOU yelling and screaming while watching the real-time video signal coming back from the OuR Project at over 90,000 feet! Then again, we ALL did some yelling and screaming after watching that footage in someone's motor home there on the playa after the flight. Wow.....that was something. That R motor liftoff weren't no slouch either. Was kinda 'hairy' standing there waiting and wondering where this all-metal 600 pound rocket was gonna impact! Fun times!!!

Here's my post (this morning) back to Darrell:



Darrell-

Good to hear from you....been a long time.

I would of course have tons of footage of the project
from the two days of set up and then the actual flight.
Lots of stills, too (I think one of my stills was the cover
of HPR for the issue that covered the project....not sure).

Anyway, since I've had to put the Point 39 Productions
business on the backburner now for 5-6 years due to
family health issues (it's all I can do to work full time
and take care of care duties here each day...and night),
much of the media materials and stills related to all those
productions are stored away here at home and are not
the easiest thing to dig out. I could probably get to them
in an hour or two, but then going through footage and
selecting some shots would take some time, which I have
little of these days.

How much footage were you looking to get and what format
can you work with (looking to 'stream' some stuff I guess?).
Also, how many still images? I don't have any stills of liftoff,
but lots of construction stuff and 'on the pad' shots. Might
could get to those more quickly and scan a few of those
in the next few days. How many shots and what size/
resolution would you be looking for?

Just let me know your needs and I'll see what I can do
for you. It may take 4-5 days for me to be able to get
to stuff and prepare it to send to you though.


Best Regards,

Earl

__________________
Earl L. Cagle, Jr.
NAR# 29523
TRA# 962
SAM# 73
Owner/Producer
Point 39 Productions

Rocket-Brained Since 1970

I've finally started supplying some scanned photos to Darrell on the OuR Project from 1996.

Just for info (and for those who came into the hobby since then) the 'OuR Project' was an R powered rocket flown out of Black Rock Desert, NV in August, 1996 to just under 100,000 feet. Our own YORF member, Johnathan Dunbar prepared the electronics package for the project. I was the project video journalist, covering the setup and launch at Black Rock that August (the project was covered in the BALLS-006 video I released later that fall).

Upon liftoff, the OuR Project lifted off and went out of visible sight with the motor still burning.

Part of the electronics package payload was on-board video. The transmitted on-board signal, which Johnathan was monitoring in 'real time' while the rest of us were following the flight upward during its 14 second motor burn, literally showed the blackness of near space and the blue curvature of the earth below as the rocket reached apogee and began to roll over (the live signal was recorded for later playback).

The vehicle featured an R21,000 motor with 292 pounds of propellant. Total liftoff weight (I think) was around 600 pounds (only about half the weight of the Sackett-Ward "Project 463" flown at Black Rock the previous summer, but that was a 'fun' rocket not intended for high altitude at all....still the most impressive liftoff I've ever witnessed of a rocket ever.....something about seeing 1300 pounds of rocket leap of the lakebed was just darned incredible).

The OuR Project was teamed (as best I can recall) by Jim Rosson, Paul Robinson, Phil Prior, Ken Mizou, and Johnathan (could have been various other ancillary members, but those were the ones I recall) along with a lot of set up help from Ross Dunton of Magnum (he hauled a great deal of the launcher appratus in his truck as I recall) and myself recording the event on video and stills.

Miss those days for sure.

Couple of images are attached.

Earl

Attached Thumbnails

   

__________________
Earl L. Cagle, Jr.
NAR# 29523
TRA# 962
SAM# 73
Owner/Producer
Point 39 Productions

Rocket-Brained Since 1970

Hi Earl,

Darrell sent me this link from Charles Roger's site:

http://rasaero.com/dl_technical_reports.htm


And no, I can't use the vehicle for NARAM/NAR events OH well, guess I will have to mimic everyone else and fly a Black Brant * or something like that...

Jonathan