Bert Koerts' NLD17 report

Bert Koerts

ASK 't Harde, 4 April, 2003 - The NAVRO experimental rocket flew on a K1100-T, with a big roar it went straight up, riding a violet flame without smoke. It touched the clouds, but unfortunately came in ballistic. The speed of the rocket was amazing: normally when rockets fly through the sky you don't have a point of reference. When the rocket hit the ground, you could actually grasp the speed. The rocket was reduced to rubble.

Jan-Hein demonstrated that his Nessus kit was ready to fly two stage; The rocket went up, separated and than both chutes came out on apogee of both parts. Now that the principle is proven, JH will fly next time with two motors.

Mark and Leon launched their Vortex XL, again a perfect flight with an experimental motor constructed with garden variety PVC and chemicals. The cost of the motor is low, although the time spend by this team on preparation and development of the rocket is huge.
I flew my Paas-ei (Easter-egg) on a 98mm K458-W. The motor burned for 6 seconds, making it a spectacular flight. Recovery was performed by an R-DAS with a backup Dekker Timer. Although the Dekker Team was actually more nervous than me, their timer worked perfectly, beating the R-DAS to ejecting the drogue chute. On 150 metres the main chute ejected.

Bert Koerts' Payloader and Paas-ei just before launch.

In another rocket, I had added 1 kilogram of confetti, in the hope that this would be clearly visible from the ground. The rocket (Payloader) was launched on a Blackjack H112-J, but the confetti was not visible from the ground. Next time the payload will be larger!

Gerben-Jan had built his first level 1 HPR rocket. The Alfa was nicely constructed, and flew perfectly. Clearly visible on apogee was the chute, perfectly timed! The HPR members of NAVRO are expecting a lot from GJ in the future!

Thiemo launched his Quick & Bright, and the rocket was true to its name! A Blue Thunder reload accelerated the PaDS experiment quickly to the sky. The new version of PaDS worked perfectly, recovering the rocket in a two stage fashion. Why a third version of PaDS is made is unclear: I have never seen one crash... Perhaps Thiemo likes developing electronics more than producing them!

All in all we had a very nice launch. Thanks to Chiel Klijn with his portable theatre (including drinks) we had entertainment on the Thursday night. We all had a chance to catch up and prepare mentally for the launch next day. The cooperation with the military was again perfect, these guys are as knowledgeable about HPR rockets as we are... We should invite them into the club!