The MIRV was not scheduled to fly today, I had plenty of other important test flights to do, but for some reason I just wanted to see the MIRV up there again, so after completing my camera flights, I sent the MIRV up in this “a-bit-windy-but-I-don’t-care” weather.

As usual, prep time was considerable:  Friction fitting three little motors, stuffing shock cords into those tiny BT-5 tubes, and friction fitting the three stages into the booster manifold.

The first test flight used a B-powered booster, this flight was to use a C – loaded with twice the black powder. I thought maybe it would really, really go up there.  While the booster didn’t go as high as I imagined, the sustainers certainly did nearly disappear.

Of course there is no room on the MIRV stages for an altimeter (a shame), so I only have visual impressions to recall.

The boost seemed slow, but powerful.  Almost before I was ready, the staging occurred and the three upper motors all lit up.  It appeared to be about 250-300 feet up. The acceleration of the upper stages again took me by surprise and I completely lost track of them with the camera, but I distinctly heard the three “pop” sounds of the ejection charges.  “Whew!”

At that point I turned my attention to the booster, which was tumbling back to earth and heading in my direction.  Luckily it landed just a short distance from me and would be easy to find later.  At least it didn’t land on the launch tent and snap in two.

It didn’t take too long to re-acquire the uppers, and they were quite high up, perhaps 400 to 500 feet.  I watched the blue and yellow stages return, but lost sight of the red stage.  If I didn’t think so before, I now think I should put a bright streamer on each nose cone.

Again I noticed and video confirmed that the uppers continue to fly together as a cluster and not separate under thrust. Maybe it was because I tape the nose cones together a bit.

At ejection they finally separated, but returned to earth in a relatively small cluster.  They fortunately did not wander off to all parts of the sky.

I was a bit bummed that the #2 motor casing (in the red upper) was missing.  It must have blown itself out the rear, and fortunately after the nose cone separated.  The upper stages all landed about 350 feet upwind, but very near each other.

I was quite over-joyed that there appeared to be no burn damage on any of the rocket parts.  It appears the new taping method and the hi-temp paint did its job.  Still, the booster stage was again very sooty. I would continue to recommend painting it with a high-gloss black finish, to make it a bit harder to see the soot and easier to clean it off after flight.

Maybe this MIRV concept can work well.  The next flight I will attempt a flight while not tack-taping the three nose cones together.  I will likely prefer using the B6-0 booster though, to keep the staging low enough to experience and photograph it well.