Eat Cheese or Fly!

1998 Annual High-Power Sport Launch

Eat cheese or fly...hmmm, eat cheese.....fly...

A tough choice to make, but if you fly in Wisconsin, you can do both! Once again this year rocketeers arrived at Bong State Recreational Area to fly rockets both large and small! Eat Cheese or Fly '98 is now history, but plans are already underway for Eat Cheese or Fly '99! It was a great day for flying, no rain like last year, and over 200 flights were made!

Photos from this years ECOF as well as a brief history of the ECOF buttons is on this page.
(Click on the thumbnails to load a full-size version of the photo)

For photos from ECOF-97, turn to the Eat Cheese or Fly '97 Pictures Page

For photos from ECOF-96, turn to the Eat Cheese or Fly '96 Pictures Page

Photo	Caption	Photographer
	Kurt's Estes Saturn V leaves the pad on a D12! A weak ejection charge resulted in no parachute and a little damage.	Mike VandeBunt
	Carl Van Camp's Really Big Mirage	Steve Olson
	Norm Heyen returning from the prairie grass with his and Carl Van Camp's rockets. Norm won one of the rocket kit door ("range"?) prizes!	Mike VandeBunt
	The low power pads with Aaron and Mike Howard setting up the Whatever, and a great view of the prairie grass and flowers.	Mike VandeBunt
	Dave Lyle and Mike Howard waiting for liftoff of a Broadsword.	Aaron Lyle
	Aaron Lyle and Mike Howard with the Orange Thing.	Dave Lyle
	Scott Hansen volunteered for Launch Control Officer duty.	Mike VandeBunt
	A few of the WOOSH members prepare rockets for flight.	Mike VandeBunt
	Mark Smeiska's Terrier-Sandhawk.	Mike VandeBunt
	Mike VandeBunt's fleet.	Mike VandeBunt
	Carl Van Camp next to David Miller's Saturn V which launched on a I284 and made an unexpected right-hand turn at a couple hundred feet altitude, but was recovered with minor damage. Problem: 3 pounds of parachutes shifted aft during boost, changing the CG/CP relationship. This problem was fixed for a successful later flight.	Steve Olson
	Dave Miller and his scratch built Saturn V.	Mike VandeBunt
	Dave Miller prepping the Saturn V for flight.	Mike VandeBunt
	Dave Miller's Saturn V leaves the launch pad on an I284!	Mike VandeBunt

ECOF 1998 Stats

Registered Participants	43
L1 Certified Participants	12
L2 Certified Participants	8
Total Flights	210
NAR Level 1 Certifications	0
NAR Level 2 Certifications	1

Motor Size	No. Flights	No. Motors
1/4A	3	3
1/2A	4	7
A	25	25
B	34	35
C	41	45
D	38	47
E	19	19
F	13	13
G	20	20
H	3	3
I	7	7
J	3	3

Thanks to Dean Roth for supplying the above photos and stats!

A Brief ECOF Button History...

Starting with the second ECOF, Steve Koszuta had the idea of using a cool button to mark the registered flyers. He asked David J. Miller if he could do the artwork, and Steve then laminated and made the buttons themselves. The regular flyers have come to like these buttons, and you can tell the veteran ECOF flyers, because they are wearing all the buttons! Here are Dave's designs from the past four years...

Airstarting Cheese!

An image from ECOF 96 of a beautiful airstart became part of the button for ECOF 98.
Looking for signs of cheese on Mars...

The Eat Cheese or Fly '97 button, yes that's an authentic original Estes Mars Lander superimposed over an authentic actual Viking picture of Mars.

Illinois honorary cheeseheads!

For the first three years, before WOOSH was formed, ECOF was hosted by the Northern Illinois Rocketry Association (NIRA), who still helps out with ECOF to this day. This button was rendered entirely in a 3-D rendering program.
Cheeze Piercing!

This was the artwork that became part of the button for ECOF 95 (the full button art has been lost forever somewhere...). It was staged with an Estes Little Joe II kit and a wedge-shaped piece of foam padding. A little work in an image processing program and voila!, a LJ II buried in Wisconsin's Finest!