Since the rocketreviews site seems to not believe this motor exists: It was an Apogee D21-7 (made by Aerotech)

Since this rocket flew well with less nose weight, I wanted to try it on the most powerful impulse motor I ever launched.  This has flown with a D10 and I expected a similar flight with the D21. It was not the same at all!  The first two attempts at ignition was met with failure.  As it turned out, the supplied Quest G2 ignitor had continuity but was shorted out internally and didn’t fire.  Even when tried without the motor, there was no spark or flame, just dead.

Eventually we got this motor to light, and without delay it tore off the pad at an unbelievable rate. It burned for only 8/10 seconds, and in that time the rocket disappeared from sight, having accelerated at a peak of 23 Gs. The average acceleration was an incredibly high 16.9 Gs, I’ve never seen an average so high on any rocket or motor.  Though I could see it was very fast, I was amazed to find out after the flight it flew to a top speed of 282 mph – an all-time, any-rocket record for me.  At that amazing speed, it didn’t turn into the wind at all.

It took almost the full 7 second delay to coast to an apogee of 1048 feet (a bit less than the D10 flight), turned over and dropped 5 feet before the ejection fired only 1/10 second late.  It was at 1043 feet when the parachute met the air.  The reliable but small Nylon chute opened, sized specifically for 1000+ flights like these.  It descended at 13 mph, but still took 61.7 seconds before it reached the ground.

I did not see it at all and relied on others to spot it for me. I went towards the landing spot they indicated way on the edge of the field, probably about 600 feet or more downwind.  As I got closer to it a truck drove by on the roadway and blew the parachute into the air a bit and I caught my first sight of it since on the pad. It turns out it was not near the road but on the road! At that point my hurried walk changed to a full sprint.  Another car was coming from the south and it was lying directly in the middle of the road, with the payload in one lane and the booster in the other lane, connected by the long rubber shock cord. I modified my path to get onto the road as soon as possible in hopes to get the car to slow down. If they were going to run over my rocket, they’d have to run over me too. (Kids, DON’T try this yourself!  I am a large, heavy target, I lived a long, full life and I have plenty of insurance, you don’t!)

Still alert, I saw another car approaching from the north in the other lane. My adrenalin level just doubled. I ran down the center line waving my arms until I reached the rocket, scooped it up and hurried off the road. Post-flight inspection showed a heavily dinged nose cone and a fin edge, another fin scraped pretty good from the wind dragging it along the road.  But that’s normal in the life of a rocket, they get uglier as they get old and have more flights logged.  I’d call this a very successful flight, and I have a new number to brag about: 282 mph.  It will probably be a long time before I better that speed.