LINCOLNSHIRE, England UK — On Sunday, April 4, 1999, Hugh Gemmell of the Sheffield Rocketry Association flew a PML Thunder and Lightning in it's two stage configuration with an AeroTech J570W in the booster and a J350 in the sustainer.

This 2.6" rocket reached a recorded apogee of 10,010 foot from "Pete's farm" in Lincolnshire in the North of England, breaking the record for the highest verified altitude achieved by a non-professional rocket in the UK, previously held by Kenneth Lau at approximately 4800 feet.

Left to right: Pete Davy, Ben Jarvis, Richard Osborne and Ken Lau Photos by: Charles Simpson

On the 5th of April, Ben Jarvis had a conversation with Richard Osborne, something to the effect of "Let's break both the record for the highest altitude achieved by a UK built rocket (held by Jarvis at 14,006 feet from Black Rock last year) and the record for the highest altitude achieved IN the UK of 10,010 feet with a single launch." Richard thought this would be cool. Jarvis then added, "Lets do it next weekend!" Thus, Project Phobos-1 was born.

Later on the same day the two UK rocketeers met at Ben's house to pool their resources and thrash out a design. They wanted to break 14,000 feet by a large margin, so running simulations on AltiCalc, they came up with a design slated to fly to 17,000 feet or more.

After much discussion, it was decided that the best use of the motors and components at hand would be a 2" diameter vehicle using an AeroTech 54mm K550-powered booster and an AeroTech 38mm J570-powered sustainer, to ease the construction of the interstage coupler. AltiCalc simulated this combination to 18,500 feet in a best case scenario and 16,400 feet in a worst case scenario with the highest weight possible and a bad coefficient of drag.

Ben contacted Jim MacFarlane of the UK's Aspire Space, who had the only K motors in the country, and asked if they could purchase a K550. After Jim agreed, another call was made to Pete Davy, of 'Pete's farm' and 'Pete's rockets,' to ask him to book a NOTAM flight notification for the following weekend to 20,000 feet.

With a week to go, Ben started to work on the rocket. The rocket was made using PML 54mm phenolic tubing wrapped with several layers of fiberglass cloth. The booster used a 54mm ACME fin canister mounted on it's outside that was provided by Iain Colledge of MARS, and the sustainer had a 38mm ACME fin canister mounted to the sustainer motor mount tube with the fins extending through the wall of the sustainer's 54mm airframe.

The rocket used a Black Sky "Timer 2B" for staging control and a Black Sky "ALTACC" for sustainer deployment and altitude logging. The group was a little concerned when the found that the ALTACC is only rated to 25G and simulated maximum acceleration was 76G. It was determined that at least the barometric altitude should be accurate. Finishing out the recovery system were 10 foot PML streamers for recovery of each stage.

On April the 9th, Richard Osborne and Ken Lau pitched in to help in the final construction of the rocket. When their original transportation arrangements fell through, they asked Jim MacFarlane to take the group to Pete's Farm. Meanwhile, Ben and Ken stayed up until 3:00AM finishing the rocket.

Saturday, April 10th arrives, and it's early morning. The rocket is painted with a day-glow orange and silver paint scheme, with British flags applied to the booster and sustainer, along with the traditional MARS skull and cross bones. Richard heads to South London by train to borrow a Walston Retrieval System from Mark Bishop to track the sustainer.

After deciding that a launch rod will not hold up to the weight and thrust of the rocket, the group proceeds to design a launch rail. A curtain rail is procured and will be attached to a large piece of timber at the launch site.

Saturday afternoon arrives, and finally, so does Jim. The group packs what seems like tons of rocket equipment in to his car, then head out to pick up Richard Osborne from his home in central London. Around 7:45, they finally arrive at Pete's Farm. The group had wanted to flight test their home-made hybrid engine that evening before it got dark, but as the sun set and darkness closed in, they decided they'd never get it ready in time, so the rocket was left prepped for the following morning.

At 3:00AM, Jim and Richard head off to bed while Ken and Ben are left finishing the preparations of the altitude attempt. They realized that their best chance for a launch window was early in the morning when the wind is relatively low. This site is geographically famous for its high winds, and given the predicted altitudem they didn't want to launch in high winds.

Work proceeds again by 7:30AM on Sunday, the 11th, to get get the rocket ready before Pete arrives. At 9:15AM, the rocket was finally ready. Rich, Pete and Ben go out to set up the launch pad and launcher leads. When they arriveat the site, they started getting really worried. The light breeze had slowly increased to a howling wind, estimated gusting to over 20 MPH, with a thick cloud front rolling in. A short discussion ensued about wasted effort and taking risks, followed by a decision to scrub the launch. No one is happy.

Around 1:30PM, they start prepping the hybrid again to try for a launch of that rocket. The tank is filled but the plumbing has a leak. They dump the tank and tighten the joints, re-fill, only to find out there is still a very slight leak. They decide to fly it anyway and hope it doesn't loose too much nitrous.

Ben climbs the ladder to arm the recovery electronics, an IAX-96 accelerometer. The status light decides to fall out of its mount in the side of the rocket and is inside the payload bay. They can't tell if the system is armed or not. After two episodes of taking it apart and re-installing the light, only to have it fall out again, they decide to tape it in.

By 3:05PM, they finally start a countdown. 3...2...1. Ken hits the fire button, smoke emerges from the nozzle. Ben pulls the line and the nitrous valve opens. A flame emerges from the nozzle, the rocket doesn't move. The flame flickers for about three seconds, smoke pours out of the rear of the rocket, then it goes out. The tank had emptied itself, the leak obviously worse than originally thought. As Ben climbs the ladder to disarm the IAX-96, the wind dies and the cloud front is breaking above them.

Ben turns to Rich and says, "I don't want to have come all this way and not fly anything." He looked up at the sky and then looked back at Rich.

"What do you think?"

"I think it's up to you"

"Lets do it."

Everyone piles back in to the workshop, grabbing the altitude attempt rocket, which is still prepped, loaded and ready to go. The rocket and equipment is placed in Pete's van, while everyone piles into cars and vans, heading off to the away site. Since the NOTAM was to expire at 4:00PM, it was now a race against time.

The launch pad is set up and the makeshift rail atached to it. The igniter is installed in the booster motor. Everyone is allocated a job either recording the launch with video or still cameras, or acting as visual trackers. Jim turns on the Walston reciever and verifies the signal from the tracker on the rocket. Rich walks out to a spot a few hundred yards downrange to video the launch from a distance.

At 3:45PM, all systems are go. Ben arms the onboard electronics and walks back to the launch controller as they wait for a cloud to move from overhead. Suddenly, a huge blue patch opens up in the sky and the wind drops. "Ok people, lets do it. Is everyone ready? OK....5...4...3...2...1...launch!"

	Lift off of Phobos 1 on a K550 staging to a J350 Photos by: Charles Simpson

Ben presses the button. A trickle of smoke, then WHAM! The rocket screams off the launch rail with an awesome roar and streaks as straight as a arrow into the clear blue sky. There is a pause as the K550 shuts down while the white trail of the tracking smoke continues in a vertical line across the sky. Suddenly, there is a burst of white and the J570 kicks in. The ground crew screams with delight as the sustainer continues on a vertical ascent. A second later the distant roar of the sustainer reaches the crowd, followed by a distinct low pop, a sonic boom.

The sustainer burns out and all is quiet, except for the group jumping up and down and screaming with delight. On the booster, a puff of smoke and an orange line appears -- it has deployed its streamer. No one could see the sustainer. Then again, you'd need pretty good eyes to see a 5 foot rocket three miles up. Jim confirms that he has tracking on the transmitter -- it's still in the air.

Ken and Rich walk to where the booster landed in a field of tall crops to try and find it, the rest get into Jim's car to go after the sustainer. They drive a couple of miles down the road and get out next to a high ridge in a field. Jim checks the direction of the signal and determines they've gone too far. Back into the car and off again, headed back in the opposite direction.

Jim checked the direction again, and decided it must be close -- it must be somewhere in the field behind a nearby house. Pete rang the door bell and a guy came to the door. "We think our rocket has landed round the back of your house. Can we have a look for it, please?" The guy is happy to let us look as he is a model aircraft flier and is interested in what the group was up to. He apparently had seen the trail of the rocket go up and had heard something come down in the fields.

They walk across the field with Jim pointing the way. Within less than a minute, Charles Simpson shouted, "It's there!" Charging after him, the group finds the sustainer laying in the middle of the grass.

The sustainer is taken back to the car and driven back to the farm. Richard and Ken were still looking for the booster. Everyone joins in the hunt but after half an hour, it still hasn't been located. The group goes back to watch it come down on the video footage, to see where it landed and to download the altitude data from the ALTACC.

As Pete downloaded the data, everyone was disapointed. The acceleration derived altitude, 14,067 feet, is far lower than expected but still a record, having beaten the 14,006 feet Ben had made at Black ROck. The barometric altitude was just over 13,800 feet. Pete told the flyers that they needed to "alter the settings" and proceeded to play around with the pressure settings, based on barometric readings taken from Richard's altimeter watch.

In summary, after an outlay of almost 1000 pounds and many hours of effort and a perfect flight, they still don't know exactly how high it went. Whatever the eventual figures are, they definitely broke the 10,010 foot UK record. The rocket stayed together, the staging worked perfectly, the recovery worked perfectly, the retrieval worked perfectly and at worst they made the most awesome sport flight ever made in the UK. The group wishes to thank everyone who helped on this project, especially Pete Davy and his family.

NOTE: 24 rocketmail sheets were flown on the Phobos 1 rocket, these are individually numbered and signed by the flight crew. Upon final verification of the altitude that will be added on the reverse of them.

They will be for sale along with a copy of a photo of the lift-off of Phobos 1 and of the team standing with the rocket for 10 pounds sterling. Any money raised from the sale of these historic items will go toward flying Phobos 2 later in the year to over 20,000 feet. The sale of these items is offered on a first-come first-served basis with first right of refusal going to members of MARS, then to UK rocketeers, then to international rocketeers. At the time of writing there are 19 of these that have not been allocated to buyers.

A full report on the rocket, additional photos and hopefully video footage will soon be on the MARS website at http://www.mars.org.uk/.