TOMACH - EIGHT FLIGHT - LOST / FOUND

Selected a motor for this rocket, was thinking of a higher powerful flight but decided to keep it lower for now. Around 5 K will do and not 7 K what I was thinking of earlier. Will be prepping this rocket this week for the launch and hoping the weather is just fine.

Update 10/14/2021 - Loaded the motor K449 BS and the streamer (85 Feet) dog barf on bottom - bottom charge is present 2.0 grams chute protector and Z-ties, also loaded the main chute (65") with chute protector and two Z-ties bottom and 1 Z-tie top. Charges are all installed also and 3 shear pins on nose cone with baby powder. Charging camera's / RTX devices / video camera's.

Update 10/15/2021 - I switched the sled, I feel more comfortable with this one, the other one was a bit tight. All checked and tested. Evening: checking iPhone, doesn't look that it is charging properly !! Oh well.

Update 10/16/2021 - LAUNCH DAY - Smooth drive, left a bit later and arrived at around 10:30 AM, the first rack just launched, a few clouds and a little wind, but a hell of a lot of people, all college kids, plenty !!! Alex was there and was showing the recovered pieces from his Black Rock flight, very interesting gentleman. Prepping the rocket was smooth got everything in there, but than I decided to put the RTX tracker in the front bay that gave more room to get a GoPro camera in the booster All switched on, RTX antenna was dangling from the upper bay, got nice signal and went to the pad, E pad #1. Florence took a bunch of pictures as usual... Thanks sweetheart! Needed the ladder to switch on the stratologgers, igniter installed and back to the RSO. But rocket did not launch immediately igniter burned out, just a bit of smoke was visible, so went to Bernie to get a real good dipped igniter and yes that worked fine !! Rocket took almost straight up, disappeared in a cloud and we all heard a pop/event but nothing cam out or down !!Strange ! After a while Tim noticed the main chute drifting west !!! My guess is that the rocket came down ballistic and that the main deployed under high speed and got ripped off ! The RTX showed a very weird combination of coordinates. Si I started driving in the direction where the main was drifting, and almost at that point I restarted my RTX and acquired a signal that led me to a place near the road. It showed that the rocket (?) should be there !! But almost walking in circles for about one hour I could find nothing, not even a tracker that probably came off... Just took a lot of pictures of the location to come back for next month !!! Really strange ! If the rocket was buried in the ground I guess there would be no signal ! So my opinion is that there must be the tracker only... I hope the rocket shows up one day, it hurts losing a nice rocket and losing all those parts !!!

Update 11/23/2021 - Carlos McCauley did some searching in the area for a few hours but so far nothing showed up. Hoping for a great December launch to do also more searching there in the lines/area projected by Jason Cook.

Update 11/25/2021 - THANKSGIVING DAY - Rocket found by Carlos, Upper part really bad damaged, Most part are still there, hoping that electronics still work, streamer still there and casing still usable !!

Update 11/28/2021 - Carlos comment: My initial guess, was about 50 yards west of your mark. But I went out the other day to check, and actually, it was probably closer than that but to the northwest. I found the hole I had to dig the rocket out of, which was beside a well-traveled�path.

Update 12/16/2021 - Asked Carlos today not to forget to bring the pieces of my Rocket. Hopefully I get most of the parts back.

Update 12/18/2021 - Got the rocket back from Carlos, Thanks Carlos, Went home and did already an early inspection. The 3 grain motor casing was recovered with no damage ! And also the 85' streamer, it was moist but clearly no damage whatsoever !! I really had to hammer the streamer out of the booster !! It also seemed that all the charges went off ! including the motor charge ! So my guess is that it was all packet way to tight, had never a problem with packing tight but will be more carefully next time. Trying to read the camera flash card, might not work, also the stratologgers are rusty, trying to get some data out one of them also. It seems that I can reuse the sled and trying to fix the AvBay... but there will be some parts to be replaced. Will work on the whole project in the next few months for sure to get 'r flying again !!

Update 12/19/2021 - Recovered already some parts, like shock cords, nose cone (to be fixed), streamer in great condition, 3G casing and closure in great conditions (needs to be cleaned), rail buttons, swivels and Quick links, Cut the rocket already down to above the motor mouth were the sleeve will go to connect to a 3" fiberglass tube. Got one stratologger working but could not get data from it, have to clean up those data terminal pins and see what's happening.. so far no luck.

Update 12/26/2021 - So far no luck on getting data out the beeping Stratologger. Don't wanna try no more, I can sent it back to Perfectflite but eh.. no nop... don't want to bug him right now, maybe when I order two more stratologgers, maybe.. maybe... maybe.. Also no video or recording on the GoPro flash card, death completely death !

LOST !

- Rocket / new fin can / new nose cone ( found and re useable )

- RTX

- Shock cords (in good conditions)

- chute 65 "

- Streamer 85" (In great condition)

- Chute protectors 12" and 18" (In great condition)

- Swivels (All in good condition)

- Stratologgers CL100 (2)

- AvBay and components

- Casing 3 grain with closure (In great condition)

- sled and batteries

THE END....................To be continued..

Update 10/12/2022 - Some nice remarks from Carlos: Freddy, at least you knew where it was, sort of kind of ... and I looked awhile for it where you said it was, and I gave up and looked elsewhere, and didn't find it. So I went back to where you said it was, and found it about 50-75 yards northwest of where you last looked. It was in a clump of trees, and since you painted it green, it blended in well with the vegetation. I tried to gather up as much as I could, as much as I could find. i may have over looked some small pieces, you would know what I missed. But you say you have ten altimeters? Why not switch one or two to another rocket. I am learning what a time consuming pain it is prepping a rocket to launch. When I was doing low power, I was flying 5 or 6 rockets a month. Now that I am flying HP, I am lucky to get 2 off, and maybe a low power or 2. Does the altimeter have to be a Stratologger CF? I just got an RRC3 from Missile works. And I have 2 Raven 4s. I have a few others but they are not Dual Deploy capable. I am trying to figure out how to make altimeters modular - where one can swap them out of rockets quickly. Different diameters make it challenging.

Update 10/30/2022 - I might go back in November launch 11/17/2022 - to try to find that 1 year old missing RTX and casing. You never know.

Update 11/20/2022 - Went back with Carlos his metal detector. No luck grass was way to thick an to high. Gave maps to Carlos, he said he might try it and cut the grass. I think a weedwhacker can not even handle that grass there. Good luck.

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