Der Red Mix mark II... For The Win!

Last weekend I flew DRM mark II for the first time on a central L730 Classic and 2 x I345 White Thunder air-starts 1 second after the L burned out. I couldn't be more pleased with the outcome. First off there was pretty much zero wind all day at Plaster City though that came at the cost of a persistent cloud ceiling at roughly 6-7k feet. I had prepped a bit the night before and mounted the Flip MinoHD video camera and altimeters/battery holders on the board and also assembled the recovery system. On the drive out I decided I didn't want to char the innards of DRM II with black powder and so committed to investing in the Rouse Tech CD3 Jupiter ejection kit with 28 and 35g CO2 cartridges. This added about 45 minutes to the prep once purchased and built so I flew at noon. Thanks KO for shooting some prep shots:

[Note to self: stop talking whilst being photographed.] I got out to the pad and realized it's pretty difficult to get that 6+ foot long, 26 pound thing on the rail myself. Luckily a few folks helped. Here's my buddy Frank reminding us where ALL of his flights land:

I was confident that I'd fixed all the problems from last time with this build and prep so all that remained was to push that button. The liftoff was much faster than I'd anticipated and I'd estimate that flame to be 6 feet long:

The ascent was beautifully straight and essentially rotation-free. It appeared to me that the 2 x I345 White Thunder air-starts kicked in before the L730 Classic had burned out. The video and altimeter data would prove me wrong, however:

Note the single rotation over the mile of ascent! I'm very pleased indeed. Watch full-screen on YouTube in 720p HD for best effect. Here also is the unabridged version of the video from liftoff to shut-off (~5.5 mins). Here's a recovery shot and altimeter data from both the Parrot2 and Raven:

The average barometric peak of the two altimeters was 5,550'. Also note the clear velocity decrease after the L730 burned out and then the spike as the I345s kicked in. Yay, data. Next time I plan to fly 5 motors (1 on the ground then 2 in the air then 2 more in the air). I'll shoot for Lucerne on January 8th to get some different video scenery. Great success!! Oh and here are some other shots from that day as well.