The Return of the Honest John
May?s High Power Rocketry highlighted my N2000 Honest John Flight at LDRS 22. The Honest John was designed for dual deployment flights, but was flown with single deployment at LDRS. This rocket has a unique parachute bay located within the large nose cone situated in an embedded (six inch diameter) center airframe. It is fitted with a piston altimeter bay that is vented with 5/8 inch tubing to a port 25 inches below the top of the rocket air frame. This is necessary due to the unique characteristics of the widened Honest John nose cone. This design isolates the nosecone piston altimeter bay, allowing venting away from the larger diameter HJ nosecone. Although I have used this design in other performance rocketry scale models (my V2) I had yet to fly this configuration with the Honest John.

As the prior HPR article recalled, my HJ airframe was damaged due to a ?lawn dart? booster recovery. The motor mount and fin can survived intact. I have since replaced the airframe with a Performance Hobby carbon fiber airframe.

Rockets for Schools Launch The repair was perfect and the rocket was set to go for the annual Rockets for School Launch in Sheboygan, Wisconsin. High Power Rocketry has reported previously on this extremely professional and educational rocket launch that involves grade school, high school and college student teams from across the country. This year?s Rockets for School had 50 student teams presenting along with several notable special projects flights, of which my Honest John was one. Rockets for schools is always an awesome event. This year?s version was no different. Numerous NASA dignitaries were present. Astronaut Winston E. Scott gave an entertaining and inspiring glimpse into his Columbia mission. Numerous Tripoli Wisconsin Association (TWA) volunteers: Frank Nobile, Dave Zupan, Mike Dybul, and Bill Bertoli did a fine job inspecting each and every student rocket. In the motor room, we had Al Casper, Dan Byra, Tim Lehr and myself prepped all the motors. TRA President Frank Nobile and TRA Prefect Bob Justus are involved with all aspects of this outstanding program. Rockets for Schools is High Power Rockety in its most educational form. One only needs to attend this incredible program to realize the educational value of hobby rocketry. The look on each student team?s faces as their project takes to the skies is priceless. Frank, Bob and Dan from TWA make this event happen! It is truly a pleasure to be associated with these fine people.

The N2000 Flight Now as for my flight...The weather was perfect on this Wisconsin day in May with absolutely clear skies as you can see by Bill Bertoli?s accompanying flight photos. The rocket was flown again on an N2000 to an altitude of just under 10,000 feet. The unique dual deployment design worked perfectly with the twin drogues deploying at apogee - fired by the two adept ALTS-25 altimeters. What a site drogue to drogue separated by 50 foot of (Giant Leap) nylon seat belt strapping! The nosecone piston was ejected with main (Rocketman) parachute deployment at approximately 1200 feet. The rocket, after this awesome flight, was recovered in perfect condition by the Coast Guard, our traditional mode of rocket recovery at Rockets for Schools. The airframe below the parachute compartment and the fin can were foam filled. This worked effectively to keep nose cone and booster section above water in anticipation of recovery. The unique design of the Honest John can be seen in the accompanying Rocksim Diagram. My Baby N project flight 2 was a wonderful climax to a terrific launch weekend for Rockets for Schools.
More flight photos and a flight video (Thanks Scott) are available at the Wisconsin Tripoli Association Website.

www.rockets4schools.org
www.performancerocketry.com
www.giantleaprocketry.com
www.adept-rocketry.com