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  #1  
Old 04-22-2020, 09:47 PM
CarlosMc CarlosMc is offline
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Question integrating Google maps, ThrustCurve and OpenRocket maybe..

Has anybody ever used Google Earth to locate a missing item?

On Feb 29th, I launched my rocket, on a relatively windy day, winds were just below the 20/mph upper limit. I am new to hpr. The motor, wasn't suited for the rocket.

My motor retention system was a jury rigged bent coat hanger. Because of the gusting, I was afraid that the igniter would drop out of the motor, so I laced it thru the "hanger". At ignition, the rocket seemed to lift up and pause for an instant and then resume its ascent. As soon as it cleared the end of the rail, which eas pointed straight up, or nearly straight up, the rocket tilted over to somewhere between a 45 degree to a 60 degree angle of ascent. I am a older codger, so my eyes aren;t as sharp as they used to be, I lost sight of the rocket. I am reliant on better eyes of my colleagues. Arms out stretched, they pointed the direction they last saw my rocket go.

It's pretty flat here on the east coast of Florida. We launch in an area about 3 miles square, interlaced with a number of paved roads but devoid of human habitation or edifices. We are appreciative of our RC bretheren, who, over the years have kept the wild and wooly ever growing tropical jungle to somewhat tamed savannah -- or what I imagine pampas might look like. One can see acres and acres of grass occasionally interrupted with lines of trees. The grass is anywhere from 6" high to 4 feet high. More often it is the latter we have to reckon with.

Some of us print Google Maps of the area, and when one of our errant missiles fall from our view in a direction, someone will whip out a compass, get a bearing and plot the whereabouts with a protractor and straight edge.

It took a couple of hours, but I found my rocket, or what was left of it. It crashed about 3000 feet from the pad, almost due north. It flew over 5 cross streets, two dried up ditches that are lined and full of trees, and more acres upon acres grass 10" high with deep thatch to boot. And don't forget, patches of 4 foot high grass.

The reason the rocket crashed is, the hanger, instead of being perpendicular to the motor mount, was turned tangent to it, and the motor ejected itself, rather than the parachute. I lost an brand new altimeter and my trusty Chute Release in the transaction.

I have walked the flight path, and wide of it to either side, a number of times to no avail, looking for the missing motor casing. I found someome else's lost Rocket. Near that one, I also located the skull of some mammalian critter. And a golf ball. A half inch wide band about 1/8" thick and more than 20 feet long that loops in the air 4 feet up, anchored to who knows what is underground at both ends? I tried to dislodge it, but when I failed the first time, I decided it wasn't my problem.

I took my metal rake out there dragging it about hoping to encounter the motor casing, but that is a lot of area to cover for one person. I have turned over a lot of thatch. Would I be better using a metal detector?

I looked at the simulations in ThrustCurve and OpenRocket. The motor burned propellant for 7.5 seconds, and the delay lasted for 9 seconds. One of the apps predicted the flght to last last 36 seconds. 16 or 17 seconds into th flight, I can safely assume my motor ejected. That would be no where near the crash sight, but some where near the middle? How much forward momentum does a rocket motor lose when it ejects? Do I divide my flight path into 36 equal parts and start at number 16 to begin my search? And can I say for certain that is how long the flight actually did last? Coulllld it have been more? or less? Does the entire flight time really matter? Should I start aat the halfway mark and work my way back to the pad, or go the other way toward the crash site? How wide of the flight path should I search? 25 feet? 50 feet? 100feet?

Any advice or insight, would be appreciated.
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  #2  
Old 04-24-2020, 07:03 AM
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blackshire blackshire is offline
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Maybe--if there is enough room to install one--an RFID chip (of the type that is affixed to the packaging of some items in stores) could be affixed to the motor case. Going back and forth across the field with an RFID transmitter (on a stick, so that you could walk comfortably upright) could trigger the "beeper," when the transmitter passes over--or close to--the chip-equipped motor case. The RFID chip requires no external power, its circuits being powered by the transmitter's signal when it's close to the chip (rather like how crystal [diode rectifier] radio sets work).
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  #3  
Old 04-24-2020, 08:17 AM
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jadebox jadebox is offline
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What you really need is a way to combine real-world wind data from the time of the launch with a simulation. You could look for wind data for the time of launch and the simulated altitude to help guess in which direction and how far the rocket may have drifted. Be aware that winds at different altitudes can be very different.

I once lost a rocket when the main deployed at apogee (at about 5500 feet). A friend did some wind analysis using data from the internet and sent me a marked-up Google map showing an ellipse where he thought the rocket might be. We spent almost of a day looking in that area but didn't find the rocket.

The area we searched was something like 3/4 of a mile to 1 1/4 mile from the launch pad. The rocket was found about a month later by a couple celebrating their honeymoon by hunting for hogs. It was found a little over two miles from the launch pad location. I think the actual decent rate of my rocket under the parachute was slower than what my friend used in his calculations.
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Old 04-24-2020, 08:50 AM
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5x7 5x7 is offline
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The motor would have ejected parallel to the flight path so you have probably passed near it each time you walked the route. How valuable is your time? Can you buy another casing and chauk it up to lessons learned:
1) Good motor retention, two bolts with fender washers or mirror clips are a good alternative.
2) the igniter doesn’t get attached to the rocket. Loop it on something under the motor or around the rail to keep it in the motor, or simply pinch the igniter between the end of the motor case and the stand-off.

Good luck
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  #5  
Old 04-24-2020, 10:08 AM
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ghrocketman ghrocketman is offline
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Chalk it up to a "Lost Casing" and move on.
Most all of us have been there. Cost of the hobby.
Don't waste your time.
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Old 04-24-2020, 11:24 AM
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Find a buddy with a drone and some spare time.
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  #7  
Old 04-25-2020, 07:58 AM
CarlosMc CarlosMc is offline
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Once we return to the field to launch, there is an outside chance I will encounter it again, after my future rockets ever traverse the same territory. Or one of my colleagues'. And then there are the dirt bikers and ATVrs who scramble the range when we are not there, who occasionally turn up with "found" rockets. The one person who turns up the most, is the guy who mows the grass. We recently (a year or two ago) relocated our launch site because of him. He is a passionate "free flyer glider" enthusiast, He likes to keep the grass low around his favorite launch perch. We used to be a mile north and to the west. Now we are about 500 yards from his launch area, and now we have acres upon acres of mowed grass when we only used to have a few. We have always paid him to mow the grass, but it was annually, Now I think we have him on a schedule, and he mows for us 25 to 30 acres. But he is turning in found rockets every time he mows the grass. Sometimes its before, sometimes its after the mower encounters them. We all want before, but not the after. We all like happy conclusions, not sad ones. And I have lost rockets from both our new and old launch sites scattered around all points of the compass. In search of recent flights, I occasionally come across mine or somebody else's lost rocket. Someday, sooner or later, I will let go.
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  #8  
Old 04-25-2020, 10:01 AM
CarlosMc CarlosMc is offline
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I bought myself a drone this past Christmas and I was learning how to fly it. It did not go well. I was getting better with the controller. Then I switched to the controller app on my phone. There was more learning to do there.

One of the instructions I missed said, "don't try flying it on windy days."

On the Monday after Christmas, it was windy around here, I took it out to the back yard to practice some. I gave it the up command on my phone and up it went. I tried to give it the down command but it did not respond, and the wind pushed it to the front of the house where I lost sight of it momentarily. I ran around to the front to watch it disappear behind the neighbor's house across the street. There is a "safe land" button on the phone app, so i pushed thaat and it came down in my neighbor's neighbor's fenced in backyard. I had to go around the block to see it in the back corner of his yard. I gave it the up command, up it went and again the wind pushed it around the back side of the house, across the street and heading for some tall trees. Tough choice here, let it get lodged in a tree 50 feet up or try and land it on the canal bank 50 yards farther north.

I opted for the canal bank, so I pushed the "safe land" button but it wound up in the canal. I thought it wasn't going to be a problem. I thought the canal was only a few feet deep. I can attest it is much deeper than the 3 feet I thought it was. It is more than 8, possibly 10, some speculate - even more like 20. It it is full of critters. Turtles are one thing and alligtors are another. At 68, it is hard for me to be climbing in and out of a 17' canoe. I was out in a canoe looking for it with a 4" diameter PVC Tube, about 10" long, with a lexan lens for viewing the bottom. The silicon adhesive I used is good, but it didn't completely seal the water out, and then there was a reflection problem. Looking down the tube was like looking into a mirror 10" down in the water. So I went and bought a mask and snorkel, thought about the possibility of gators and haven't been back. The water is turbid, full of water grasses. There is a dam about 500 yrds east of where the drone went down, and one is not allowed within 30 yards of the dam. There may be a gentle flow toward the dam. They periodically open the dam, from what I understand.

I got the drone with the intention of using it to search for lost rockets from a bird's eye view of things. that was short lived.
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  #9  
Old 04-25-2020, 04:07 PM
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jadebox jadebox is offline
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My quadcopter has a good camera and FPV system. But, it isn't very good for finding rockets.

If you fly high enough to cover a wide area, a rocket is too small to see in the field of view and if you fly low enough to be able to spot a rocket, the field of view is too small for it to be efficient.

Trying to find a motor casing would be like trying to find a needle in a haystack (from a few hundred feet away).
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