As I mentioned in my last post, I ordered a kit to get started with building my first high power rocket. The first thing that I realized is that this kit has a lot of parts. You can see most of it in the picture above, but let me be clear: I have no idea what I’m doing. I didn’t even realize there were multiple tubes inside other tubes until much later. Why so many tubes? And those little bags are just full of more tiny pieces of hardware.

As if to make the situation even more confusing, some of the parts that came with the rocket kit are not actually necessary to build the rocket, and in fact cannot be used at all in this rocket build. (One such example is the appropriately named “baffle” that came in this package.) And yet, other parts that are critical to completing the rocket do not come in this kit, and they need to be purchased separately. Instructions are mercifully included, but they’re more like an overview for someone who is familiar with all the parts. They’re also entirely composed of text – no pictures or diagrams. The lack of clarity rivals IKEA product assembly instructions.

It is starting to dawn on me that building a high power rocket is not as easy as I assumed it would be.

But it is fun. The major parts that come in the kit, and what you can see in this picture, are basically the rocket airframe/ body tube, nose cone, wooden fins and centering rings, wooden electronics bay, and two parachute recovery systems, with shock cords. All the basic parts needed, more or less, to build and fly a large rocket.

Except for brains and ability, which I currently lack. But I can figure that out later, right..?

You might be asking yourself: HyperLOC 835? What the hell is the title of this post referring to?

I will tell you. But first, you should know that ending a sentence with a preposition is technically grammatically incorrect.

As I’ve mentioned previously, I am getting started with high power rocketry (“HPR”). As you might suspect, I have no idea what I’m doing and no clue where to get started, so I did a lot of googling. I discovered that LOC Precision is a pretty well known company that sells large rocket kits, and so I bought a kit for the HyperLOC 835. It’s just the name of this particular rocket design.

This is a hefty rocket. Once built, it will be 74 inches tall, and it’ll weigh 60 oz (or just under 4 lbs). The body tube or airframe has a 4 inch diameter. It should fly to over 4,300 feet, although this depends entirely on the motor used. It also has a 54mm motor mount tube, which is on the larger side. From what I understand, 29, 38, and 54mm are all very common diameters for the motor, although other sizes exist as well.

Aside from the fact that it looks cool, this particular rocket has the advantage that it can be used for both level 1 and level 2 certifications. The main difference between L1 and L2 is just using a bigger motor (although I’m glossing over some other important details, but right now, it doesn’t matter). Rocketry is a fun hobby, but it’s not exactly cheap – so while my L2 certification is still a ways down the road, it’ll be nice to be able to use the same rocket again for that.

Kits don’t come with motors, so I also bought a high power “I” motor, manufactured by Aerotech. These motors are basically just explosive devices and so it’s considered a hazardous material (HAZMAT) for transportation and shipping purposes. More on this motor in a future post.

One thing I’m quickly learning is that a kit is a great starting point, but it definitely does not provide you with all the parts you need. There are several things I’ll still have to buy separately, in addition to the motor. These include:

• Forged eyebolt. This is just like a regular eyebolt, but someone has fraudulently copied it.
• Fire blanket. This is the blanket that emergency responders will use to delicately wrap and then quickly remove my body after it’s been scorched during an ill-fated fiery liftoff.
• Motor retainer. A motor’s underrated alternative to wearing braces. Prevents the motor from moving over time and from being scolded by its dentist.

But enough of these additional parts. Time to unbox everything and begin assembling this mother!

To recap my whole journey so far: as of just a few months ago, I had never built or launched a model rocket of any size. I’m not sure I’d even ever seen one in person (I actually don’t know how I managed that). I started out by googling whether it’s even legal to launch a rocket at all. (For the record, it is.) But I bought one small simple kit, put it together and launched it. And then another, and another.

I’m still at the very beginning of all this, but I’ve now built and launched four separate low and mid power rockets. Some were physically small and others were large. Some required more assembly and construction than others, like sanding and painting. But I now have a decent understanding of the basic parts of a rocket, how they all go together, and how the launch process works. I can’t say I’ve mastered all the basics, but I’m much more comfortable now than I was when I started.

I’ve also just begun to scratch the surface of what can go wrong.

I’m ready to dive into high power rocketry (“HPR”), which is both more exciting and more challenging. In some ways, a high power rocket is just a bigger version of a low power rocket. You have the same basic parts – cardboard body tube or airframe, wooden fins, plastic nose cone, motor mount inside to hold the motor in place, recovery system (parachute and shock cord), and a few other things – whether the rocket is small or large.

But at the same time, HPR is in other ways fundamentally different. The key distinction for HPR is the power of the motor; an H class motor or higher generally qualifies as HPR. This is more dangerous and requires certification, as I referenced in a previous post. Organizations like the National Association of Rocketry (“NAR”) certify individuals at level 1, 2, or 3 for purposes of HPR. Even the most basic certification (level 1) requires building a high power rocket with an H or I motor, and launching it successfully (including the recovery) without any catastrophic failure or damage.

HPR starts to involve more durable parts, including a lot of things I’d never heard of: fire blankets, forged eyebolts or u-bolts, electronic bays (“e-bays”), and more.

It’s time to build a high power rocket!

So last weekend, I went out to 60 Acres Field (see pic below) as I mentioned in my last post, and I launched two rockets. One was small, and the other was quite big. This post is about the bigger rocket.

The appropriately named Mean Machine is a full 79 inches in height. I myself am only about 72 inches tall (okay, 71 and a half, I’m rounding up), so this rocket towers over me, and that’s even before it gains a few more inches on the launch pad. This is by far the largest rocket I’ve built, and it uses the most powerful motors I’ve tested, so far: it requires either a D or E motor. I did a couple launches with the D first, and then the E. This is just physically a heavier rocket than the other low power models, and it makes sense that it needs a more powerful motor to carry it into the air.

Nobody could be more surprised than me that these were all textbook successful launches. I was a bit concerned that despite the gigantic empty field, a six-foot rocket might come down and do some serious damage, especially if the parachute didn’t deploy or something else went wrong. But things went smoothly. No fatalities; nobody was even impaled.

Again, the absence of any wind was extremely helpful as the rocket went nearly straight up and didn’t drift too far away. The parachute deployed perfectly each time. In one of the launches, the rocket landed almost exactly where it was launched, despite being shot about a thousand feet into the air.

Basically, this whole event was really fun, and luckily it turned out to be a successful launch and recovery on a day with ideal conditions. This will no doubt inflate my ego and give me a false sense of invincibility going forward.

They say trees love to eat rockets. It’s true. I learned my lesson as soon as I got into the rocket-launching game, with my first two models – the Crossfire and the Amazon. I figured the rockets were very small, and they couldn’t possibly go that high or land far away. Boy, was I wrong.

What I wasn’t counting on during that first launch was the wind, and the intensity with which that wind would catch a successfully deployed parachute. And carry it very far away, very quickly.

Mother Nature is a cruel mistress.

Anyway, that just meant finding a bigger field for my next launch. Luckily, I’d heard about a place called 60 Acres Park in Redmond, WA, roughly a 30 minute drive from where I live. I decided to check it out last weekend, and it was the perfect spot to launch a rocket. It was also the perfect weather – a beautiful sunny, crisp, clear day. And it was extremely calm, with no winds, which was ideal.

The field was totally empty except for one or two others flying small drones at the opposite end of the field. For a brief moment, I wondered whether they might hover their drones directly over my rocket, to call my bluff in a battle of wills. But they moved on.

The field was huge, leaving me plenty of margin for error. Given my experience last time, I needed as much room for error as I could get. More than a room; a whole duplex.

I did a couple successful launches with the very small “Athena,” and then a couple with the much larger “Mean Machine.” Below I’ll just mention the smaller rocket and then follow up shortly with another post for the bigger one.

After every launch, the parachute inside the Athena popped out but never fully deployed or opened up. This was a consistent problem, although not a big one. The rocket is so small and lightweight that it can fall back to the ground without sustaining any damage.

The only time I was in danger of losing it was when it veered slightly toward the sun, and I totally lost sight of where it was as I was momentarily blinded by the light. It’s surprisingly easy to lose these things. But I revved up like a deuce and eventually recovered it.

More than anything else, I think the biggest thing I learned from this was how big of a difference a change in weather conditions and launch location can make. And these have all been relatively small rockets, so the difference will only be multiplied many times over once the rockets get more powerful.

Speaking of which, next up: the Mean Machine.

This is where things get really fun.

I went into detail in a previous post about rocket motors and their power. In short, each letter (representing a motor class) is twice as powerful as the one before it, so a B motor is twice as powerful as an A, and a C is twice as powerful as a B, or four times as powerful as an A. The basic categories are:

Low power: A, B, C, D, E

Mid power: F, G

High power: H or higher

If you’re doing the math, an H motor is approximately 128 times as powerful as an A motor. These are averages, as performance among motors in the same class can vary according to a range, but it’s in that ballpark.

To purchase a high power rocket motor and fly these types of rockets, you have to be certified by the National Association of Rocketry (“NAR”). The NAR offers a three-tier certification program for high power rockets: level 1, level 2, and level 3. You can buy a single high power motor specifically for purposes of obtaining your certification.

To be certified at level 1 (L1), you need to basically build your own high power rocket and fly it successfully, with one or more other NAR members present (who are also certified) to witness the launch and recovery. If all goes well, they can then officially certify you. You have to be certified as an L1 before you can move on to attempt L2 certification, and so on.

So far, I’ve been building and launching small, low power rockets, and it’s been good practice. But my longer term goal is to build and launch high power rockets. I just ordered my first high power rocket kit. More on that in my next post.

Here goes nothing!

I put together the two new rockets I bought – the Athena and the Mean Machine, both kits from Estes. The Athena is small (about 12 inches high) and uses A, B, or C motors; it should go about 1100 feet using a C motor. The Mean Machine is significantly larger and heavier. At 79 inches in height, it’s taller than I am.

I primarily bought the Athena just to have a small model rocket for fun, replacing the two that I built and promptly lost. I took a few pictures of it, but there wasn’t much to assemble. It’s as straightforward as a model rocket can be, with plastic fins and nose cone, and a cardboard tube body.

The Mean Machine wasn’t complicated to assemble, either, but it had a few more steps. Its body tube is extremely long, and it was designed to be able to come apart at the middle for easy transport. To reconnect the two halves, you just push them together and twist. The fins are balsa wood, and the whole rocket required painting. Below are a few pictures during the assembly.

I’m definitely looking forward to flying both of these. As I mentioned above, the largest motor that the Athena can handle is a C. The Mean Machine, however, takes a D or E motor, and so I bought a few of each. It won’t reach quite the same maximum height as the smaller rocket because it weighs so much more – but it should look awesome and mildly terrifying when it blasts off!