2 On Saturday, I joined [The Albuquerque Rocket Society](http://arsabq.org/)
3 monthly launch in Rio Rancho, NM. A friend, Mike, who lives in the area
4 joined me for the launch. While the morning started off clear and
5 calm, if a bit cold... the wind came up hard and we had to call it quits
6 before lunch. But before the wind "blew us away", I managed to get one
7 flight in. And it was an absolutely perfect test of one of my brand-new
8 [TeleMetrum](http://altusmetrum.org/TeleMetrum) v0.2 boards!
10 My cut-down [Hawk Mountain](http://hawkmountain.ws/)
11 "Raptor" kit, renamed "G-Spot" last October during my quest to
12 [exceed 50 g](http://www.gag.com/bdale/blog/posts/TeleMetrum_Progress.html)
13 acceleration, was loaded with [TeleMetrum](http://altusmetrum.org/TeleMetrum)
14 serial number 51... and launched on a [Cesaroni](http://pro38.com/)
17 The ascent was beautiful! I've put a few photos of the rocket leaving
18 the launch rail up [on flickr](http://www.flickr.com/photos/bdale/4357476723/in/set-72157618450890674/).
19 ![image](http://www.flickr.com/photos/bdale/4357477737/in/set-72157618450890674/)
20 However, despite a clear sky, we quickly lost sight of it! I managed to spot
21 a bit of the smoke trail from the delay grain as the rocket approached
22 apogee, but that was it! None of us at the launch saw anything after apogee!
24 After losing sight of the rocket, I turned my attention to my computer,
25 where we were receiving a solid telemetry stream. It quickly
26 became apparent that the rocket was descending normally under chute. As it
27 got closer to the ground, I started calling out elevation, azimuth, and
28 distance numbers, but still nobody could spot the rocket. As expected, we
29 lost the RF link once the rocket reached the ground.
31 As various folks on the flight line wished me luck finding my rocket,
32 I put the last reported GPS position into my hand-held receiver. Staring at
33 the map display, Mike and I realized the rocket was far down range, near one
34 of the roads into the site. We jumped into my vehicle and drove down the
35 road to the point closest to the rocket's reported position. We then walked
36 to where the GPS receiver said the rocket should be...
38 And found the rocket within about 20 feet! That was well within the window of
39 position uncertainty my hand-held GPS was reporting at the time. Things just
40 don't get much better than that! We picked up the rocket, and returned to the
41 flight line only a few minutes after leaving it. After dumping the data from
42 the board's on-board memory, I quickly generated the usual plots.
43 [[!img /bdale/blog/images/gspot-ars.png]]
45 The rocket reached 1881 meters apogee, or around 6173 feet, and the maximum
46 acceleration was 19.5 g. It touched down nearly 1.3 miles down range from
47 the launch rail, in sage-brush desert. I honestly don't think I would
48 have found the rocket without at least the
49 radio beacon. It was hugely gratifying that the GPS worked and let me walk
50 right up to the rocket! I could not have asked for a better test of the
53 Later in the day, Keith flew
54 [a successful test](http://keithp.com/blogs/TeleMetrum_v0.2_testing/)
55 of serial number 52 at a launch in
56 [Wilsonville, Oregon](http://www.oregonrocketry.com/?page_id=208).
58 We're very happy with these results! Weather permitting, I hope to get more
59 test flights in next weekend at
60 [Hudson Ranch](http://www.scronline.net/html/flying_site.html). Stay tuned!