I guess the options are few.

• Quit the hobby.
• Scrap the rocket.
• Repair the damage.

I’ve said that we rocketeers are at least slightly lunatic. After all, we spend a lot of time and money creating something that we intend then to fling rather violently into the sky—and we expect the creation to return intact! That’s the nature of the hobby.

I don’t build just to build. I build to fly. So, I’ll repair the damage

I’m not completely certain of the cause; I have some theories. Only one of the parachutes, the one for the upper portion, deployed during yesterday’s flight. The lower portion came in ballistic, damaging the forwad section of that portion. It was an interesting launch: just off the rail, the rocket cocked hard, probably about 20° from the vertical. The winds were very light at the time—though just beginning to come up. I wonder if there was some sort of transient thermal gust or wind shear that hit at just the wrong moment. The cocking, though, certainly led to a more horizontal flight, including apogee, and perhaps the pressure of the relative wind at ejection prevented that parachute from deploying.

I have an extra decal set already; I ordered another S-II forward wrap, and I’m working on getting a replacement section of body tube. Yes, it’s a bit disappointing, but it will be a new and interesting challenge, and I already have a pretty good idea of how I’ll accomplish the repairs. The good news: so far, it looks like almost all of the damage is forward of the Interstage/S-II aft wrap, the one with all the horrific LH2 feed line, recirculation, and vent fairings. That means I can cut the old tube just forward of those fairing, rather than having to separate them from the tube.

There’s also a little damage to the forward motor mount centering ring. That will take more assessment. It looks to be repairable, and the small kinks in the top of the motor mount tube shouldn’t matter much, but I want to check further. If I have to cut below that centering ring, the job will be harder, but still certainly feasible.

The day was not all bad, though. King Tut’s pyramid had its first flight, on a G38FJ. Wow, what a great propellant for that rocket: lots and lots of dense black smoke. A thoroughly enjoyable flight! The rocket uses an interesting variant of rear ejection: the entire motor mount (tube, centering rings, and motor) are spat out the back of the rocket. The parachute is stowed around the MMT, between the centering rings, and Kevlar^® shock cords connect the motor mount and the main body of the rocket to the parachute harness. The motor mount kept sliding out while I was trying to get the rocket prepared. I might try to roughen the surface of the aft centering ring a little, but I don’t want it getting stuck!