This was my 6th flight of the Tarantula, and it's 4th M-class flight (the other 2 were L-class motors). This was the first flight using an Animal Motor Works motor, with their M1850 Green Gorilla. Thanks to David Seer and Greg Grabacki, I have two excellent video clips of the flight. David also got a clip of the main 'chute opening, which I looked at frame by frame and came to the conclusion I need to modify my recovery harness to prevent a possible tangle in the future.

The AMW motor casing (6000 ns) came with an external thrust ring. This had to be ground down to fit within my 3 inch Dynacom motor mount adapter (adapts a 3 inch motor to the 4 inch). The motor stuck out too far to use my retaining ring, so I fabricated a hook-type retainer and bound the hook to the motor mount with a band clamp. Worked great.

I had 2 Adept ALTS25-type dual-deployment electronics on board each going to separate 6 gram pyrowells (total of 4 wells). The adept devices were actually the non-recording versions of the ALTS25's (DDSC?).

I had a Rocketman R9 for drogue (it still falls really fast with this large "drogue,") and a Rocketman R14 for the main, set to fire at 1200 feet.

The rocket took off like a rock out of a slingshot with the M1850, climbed about as straight as I'd ever seen the Tarantula climb, and went to (simulated) 7,500 feet. It was a beautiful boost and the full diameter tracking smoke made tracking very easy. The smoke keeps burning well past drogue deployment. This motor is an exellent choice for me since it is "only" 6000 ns (actually a little less), but it has a really high average thrust. Gets the T-1 going quick and straight, but not above the Bong waiver.

The drogue came out at apogee and the main at 1200 feet. The winds were from the west, very light, and the rocket landed practically exactly due east of the launch point, about 300 yards east or so. The main 'chute was actually draped across the access road and I had to quickly grab it since a minivan was coming.

All the charges had fired (almost) as usual. In the 6 flights, only once has a charge failed to fire, but it was no problem, since the system is redundant.

I didn't get an altitude since I had 2 of the non-recording devices in there. I thought I had 1 recording device and 1 deployment-only. I didn't even know I had 2 of the non-recorders! I will have to pay more attention next time when I'm testing the devices.

The Tarantula had a few scrapes since it landed in that hard-packed rock surface near the access road.

Greg Grabacki was anxious for me to remove my 3 inch adapter so he could use it to fly an M1315 in his Dyancom Estimated Prophet. But, the metal had expanded under the heat and I couldn't get the motor out of the adapter. We finally poured cold water on the aft end of the whole assembly and it then slipped out.

According to the simulation (Roger's Aeroscience), the rocket reached 540 mph in 3 seconds.

The next flight will probably be on an AMW M3000, which should have the Tarantula reach 650 mph in 2 seconds.

I also want to fly it on an AMW N4000 and asked the Zoo keepers (AMW) about the availability of them. They're available, but the hardware isn't. They've been having trouble getting good "spec" stock and it is also really expensive for the small amount of N's they sell. They are working with Cesaroni to have them provide the casing.

Haven't run a sim yet on the N4000 since I can't get a time-thrust curve.