I flew my Wildman Vindicator Jr, this past Saturday with MMMSC in Berwick Maine with an Aerotech I357T-M. I was using a Perfectflight altimeter for dual deploy - drogue parachute at apogee and main parachute at 400 ft. The flight was great, everything worked well and I recovered the rocket on the field with no damage; it reached a max height of 2331 ft. Last night, I took apart the motor casing to clean everything and noticed that the motor ejection charge did not ignite. The delay burned through but the black powder was untouched. This is a first for me.
The opening in the forward closure that allows the delay to ignite the black powder was clear both before and after the launch. This motor comes with the red plastic cap that seals the forward closure and I used the cap. I did do one thing differently this time. In all of my previous high power flights with Aerotech motors, I have inserted a small piece of Estes wadding above the black powder as a way of packing it down. I did not do that this time. It seemed that there was sufficient black powder that it would pack down once I placed the red cap on, and so I did not use any wadding to pack the black powder.
My normal protocol is to prep the motor the night before and keep in it the house in an upright position. It is kept that way in route to the launch and is only horizontal while inserting it into the rocket, and laying on the ground as I lower the launch rail.
I did contact Aerotech to see what suggestions they have, but have not heard back yet (I'm not asking for a refund since the flight worked well and there was no damage to anything). If I get a response form Aerotech, I'll post it here.
Any ideas?
Thanks.
Claude