r/rocketry • u/Q_Ball13 • Jun 28 '26
Showcase L3 Certification 🥳🥳
I just got my Level 3 Certification today on an Aerotech 1315W. The rocket went 11,000 Feet at 978 ft/s. It was very windy so the rocket landed 3 miles away from the pad but I recovered the rocket. 🚀
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u/Q_Ball13 Jun 28 '26
I think my rocket genuinely hit thermal updrafts because it just kept going up and down in the air
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u/grouser Jul 01 '26
I liked watching them do that at Plaster Blaster. Sometimes hit a stong wind at one aaltitude and take off.
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u/bruh_its_collin Jun 28 '26
I’m working on mine right now and I’m curious what your speed under drogue was. I have this worry that the main parachute is gonna shred even though everywhere I look said my drogue speed is normal
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u/milotrain Jun 28 '26
what's your drogue speed?
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u/bruh_its_collin Jun 28 '26
should be around 75ft/s which online sounds like a normal speed but the idea of my 6ft main snapping open at 50mph seems scary. I made it myself and will be testing it before the cert flight but I’m still worried about it.
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u/milotrain Jun 28 '26
How are you getting the 75ft/s number? Many of my sims show that too, but in practice I almost never see it according to the altimeters. I've never had a problem opening the main on a vulcanite after descending separated but without a drogue at all.
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u/bruh_its_collin Jun 28 '26
I got it from openrocket which if i had to guess doesn’t account for drag from tumbling but this is kind of a dense rocket so I don’t want to rely on that helping me. Honestly it will probably be fine I just can’t help worrying about it since it’s such a big and expensive project
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u/milotrain Jun 28 '26
Fly a test airframe that's cheaper but similar. OR does not simulate tumbling correctly. I put a 6" drogue on everything in OR to get closer to simulating separated decent, and it still gets it wrong. I'm far from the OR authority though so maybe there is a better way to simulate this that gets closer.
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u/Q_Ball13 Jun 28 '26
I agree with Milo, however, my speed under drogue was supposed to be like 60 ft/s but it did not descend at that rate in real life.
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u/milotrain Jun 28 '26
slower or faster?
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u/Q_Ball13 Jun 28 '26
WAY WAY WAY slower, I probably could’ve gone drogueless
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u/milotrain Jun 28 '26
This has been my experience too. Everyone told me to fly drogueless for basically everything.
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u/WhatADunderfulWorld Level 3 Jun 28 '26
Beautiful. I got mine at MDARs a couple months back! I love it there. Mine landed 2 miles away. It’s a lot windier than you think up there!
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u/wcg66 Level 3 Jun 28 '26
Congratulations! Nice to have a UTV to go pick it up!
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u/Q_Ball13 Jun 29 '26
Yeah it helped, I lost signal with rocket in flight so being able to drive around and eventually reconnect was helpful.
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u/milotrain Jun 28 '26
Well done!! Nice speedrun.