Flight

First flight came on a windy, raw day at the TORC field in South Charleston, Ohio.  I had the D11-P motors with me, but at the time I had yet to acquire a clip whip, so I just flew it as a single stager.  Performance was as expected, with the slow burn of the E9 making for a long, high flight.  Also as expected was the windcocking, which took the rocket downrange to the east at a steep angle.  Ejection occurred as the rocket was almost horizontal, but slowing enough that it was fairly gentle.  I'd used a smaller parachute to cut down on the drift and this worked well as the Intrepid recovered about 200' out in the cornfield, but directly in front of the pads.

I had planned to fly it as a cluster at a Tri-City Skybusters launch in the spring with my brother in law, but I ran out of gas before I could work my way to the Intrepid.  It never occurred to me that it would be six months before I got the chance to do the cluster, but that was exactly what happened.  I finally got to fly it in cluster form at the inaugural OAMC (Ohio Aerospace Modeling Consortium, formerly TORC,) launch back at the South Charleston field.  It was another windy day, and the Intrepid was the last flight I made before starting my range duty.  The two D11-Ps were a tight fit in the side pods, and in fact needed some rather forceful suggestion to slide to a workable depth.  (No masking tape for these motors, and I'm not really sure they'll come out without damaging the rocket.)  Another E9-4 filled the main engine mount, but I gave serious thought to an E9-6 because of the extra thrust from the D11s.  I angled the rod slightly into the wind, then attached the clip whip to the igniters, making sure to curl the leads to give maximum space for the clips to touch.  When I was satisfied I returned to the LCO table and manned my camera, making sure that it was in burst mode.  I was hoping to catch the Intrepid both igniting and leaving the rod, but once it got moving, it moved QUICK.  I got ignition and the slightest trace of motion up the rod, but just smoke after that.  It was hauling!  The rocket windcocked somewhat, but nowhere near what I had expected.  Ejection occurred slightly early, which may have had a hand in what happened next.  As the Intrepid floated back over the flightline toward the cornfield behind us, something detached from the rocket.  I couldn't tell what it was, but the fact that it looked to be mostly white made me think payload section, which was correct.  The payload section landed hard behind the parking area, cone first, which caused quite a gash in the balsa.  After retrieving the payload section, I started out toward the spot where the rest of the rocket had landed, only to find it being returned by another hospitable flyer.  Good thing.  My feet were killing me.