description
No ejection charge on 18 of 108 Estes A8-3 engines flying in Quest Astra III rockets at Westchester Elementary School 4th Grade rocket launch. All 18 failures resulted in lawn darts that pushed the nose cone into and crushed the top of the body tube.
Weak ejection charge on 3 additional Estes A8-3 engines. Nose cone came out but parachute remained inside rocket body tube. These landed safely.
Comments
I will ask the students if I can get any of the failed engines.
These were from of 6 bulk packs of Estes A8-3 engines purchased from Belleville Hobby on 2/20/2023. the remaining engines have what could be a date code of
I21 1221.
I have another school launch scheduled for June 9 that will use more of the same engines.
