Pixel, the rocket in this 31MB video, flown by remote control by John Carmack doesn't go to space or, for that matter, go very far at all. It "simply" takes off, flies to a nearby landing pad, gets refilled, takes off and flies back to its starting point. The time-lapse portion in the middle of the crew refuelling it for the return trip is interesting and fun. My wife found it all boring and thought that I should turn the (very very loud) sound down as it wasn't doing anything except make (very very loud) noise. I couldn't alas match the 130 dB odd actual noise level that the cameraman reported. A must see for all rocketry enthusiasts !!!! FWIW - this is a privately funded "NASA Lunar Lander Challenge" development vehicle and has a flight profile capability unmatched by the Lunar Lander design itself or any other vehicle ever built. > Subject: [AR] Armadillo LLC1 demo video > http://media.armadilloaerospace.com/2007_06_03/LLC1demo.mpg > > John Carmack _______________________________ Needless to say, the Russell in the following notes is not me :-): _____________ One of the coolest feats of amateur rocketry ever seen would have been garbage if it weren't for the GENIUS editing skills of Matt Ross!!!!! I must say, This was a cool video to watch. I was the unfortunate soul left to pushing buttons and sorting wires of whose functions I didn't entirely grasp in the training process. There were 5 cameras. 3 on board, one on the ground and a hand held. 3 wireless systems with signal conditioners and a video mixer... What the heck am I a rocket scientist?! Oh yeah, I guess I am... :) Thought to self: Find a way to make something work and get back to the pad ops! When the flights were done, I know there was some descent video on the stationary video camera at pad 2, but after running from the pad ops to pick up Matt's personal and very expensive camera, I was breathing heavy and forgot to put on my hearing protection, Both times! Yeah you would think I was a slow learner... (I managed to get them on one handed during the second flight with Russell's help though.) The hand held video was going fine until John lit the engine! I could only cover one ear after I discovered I was not able to wrestle the headphones up and over the tangle of goggles and had to suffer through the 130+Db noise on the right side for a full 90 seconds. I am certain I yelled at this discovery, but it was no where near the sound energy coming from the rocket, so that will never be heard. It was lost in the noise as if it were no scream at all! Thus the question, "If a man screams during an engine firing, and no one can hear it, did he make a sound?" After that, it was "try and hold the camera still". Of course that didn't work very well, but again, Matt managed to pick all of the better parts of it for a very nice cut. I especially liked what he did with the footage from the stationary camera... I forgot to go shut it off between flights, but in a way that turned out to be a good thing. All of you other entrants got to see just how fast Armadillo Pad ops REALLY are now that we have practiced up a bit! ;~) Since I couldn't get any of the on board video to work, you can imagine my surprise when all of the sudden I was seeing a downward shot! I had automatically hit record on the one last camera hooked to the wireless system by Matt's training, and somewhere after takeoff the signal must have cleared for a few moments although it was probably very intermittent. The battery was getting very low in the truck running the video equipment, so unfortunately there was no video for the return trip. Bummer too, you would have seen the camera target painted on the ground as we landed within a foot from the original takeoff point at pad 1. All of this done by the cooperative efforts of John's piloting skills and Russell pointing and yelling "Go That way more!!!" Murphy had plenty of opportunities to shut us down yesterday. 1) A bad driver channel for the main fuel valve, We moved to our spare. 2) A huge helium leak that would have threatened the vehicle balance potentially, Russ and I did a quick fix on that. 3) A minor fuel leak issue that was handled smoothly by Joseph, Tommy, and James, by reducing load pressures and snugging down a connection that was improvised for unloading only minutes before. 4) And then most of all, with downward video missing and flying blind on instruments only, John maintained his cool under pressure and put Pixel down dead center on the pad! Murphy, after being beaten into submission, was held merely to an advisory role rather than part of the pad crew, and amused himself by playing with Neil's checklist for the rest of the afternoon until he was even removed from that position by Neil's proficiency and knowledge of our flight ops. Murphy works much better as an advisor than as a participant, and he is always present! In a way, I firmly believe he has trained us to a certain extent. As much as we would like to it was easy, this was certainly not the first attempt to do what we did yesterday. Some of you saw him with us at the cup last year, and he will no doubt be there again this year. He will want to help the rest of you as much as possible I am sure... Be ready! Every one of our team is vital to operations as well as construction. When one is not there, it is tough to operate as smoothly as we would if we were all there, and the video you saw was an excellent resurrection of bland footage that kept me on the edge of my seat watching it for the first time. It was also nice to watch while not screaming and holding one ear! In the end, All 8 of us still did everything we could, and some of the best work was done after the fact! Thanks again Matt! Oh yeah... The "Cough". That was a pretty intense change in sound standing there watching to the point it almost seemed as if the engine shut down. I'm sure that is one of the "Improvements" John has in mind for the future! I think perhaps I am turning into the "Drama guy" for Armadillo. I am as excited as anyone when it all works right, but I am compelled to share some small part of the journey behind the scenes. Perhaps the non-eventful problem free video of a perfect flight shown to the world, won't seem like it came quite so blase' or without a price paid in human emotion. Besides, if it weren't for the stirring of human emotion, who of us would really be doing this? Who of "Them" would want to go "Up There"? I will reiterate what John said, I am also extremely proud of the accomplishments of our team. Everyone did their part in a most excellent fashion! Phil Eaton Armadillo Aerospace If there's alcohol in my blood, it's only because I haven't loaded the LOX yet! -- http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist