Discovery World Launch at Bong – Hosted by WOOSH
Paul Smith:
Lots of fun, flights,
sun and heat at the Discovery World launch today. I thought that it was extremely well run from
their side, with all of the kids getting in their two flights (one 1/2A PD, one
A SD) well within the time they had.
Brian timed all of the flights, I believe (wow - what a guy), and under
Pavel's tutorage, they had what seemed like a lot of competitive times. I'm pretty sure that Pavel's real purpose was
to find a new teammate to replace Tom...
(Just kidding).
They'd set things up so well that there really wasn't anything for the
rest of us to do to help the kids, except for when they enlisted Fred to find
the shoe a kid lost out in the high grass...
We got in some demo flights, from the usual Sidewinders, small clusters,
gliders, etc., to I and J powered flights.
I flew my Estes HoJo re-release on an E28-4, my Ranger on 3 A8-3s, and
my QCR EasySlider rocket glider twice on 1/2A3-2Ts. Those were my first ever rocket glider
flights, and they were fabulous - the second was particularly impressive.
Probably the most spectacular flight of the day came when Pavel put up
that up-scaled ARV Condor (Papa Condor?) on 2 D12s, for a perfect flight. He also flew a D powered "hell of a
copter" that hung in the thermals for over three minutes. Conditions were amazing. Kevin Kline flew a couple of nice HPR
flights, and lost an Estes Black Brant on an Apogee E6-10. Scott G. flew some oddrocs and other fun
stuff, and Brent flew several larger rockets as well. Dean did a great job of setting stuff up, and
flew his overpowered Snitch a couple of times as well.
Kevin Cieslak:
Pavel and I will
(right Pavel?) put together an article for Sport Rocketry. Pavel was our inside guy in the classroom and
was the driving force behind those awesome rockets the kids showed up
with. The three champions of the mini
contest was - Lou (A streamer recovery with a
Brent L and Scott G donated a couple of Door Prizes, so to speak, and
their method of determining who won was quite unique, like launching a rocket
and letting the first kid to recover it keep it. Both were recovered in record time.
As Paul mentioned the Demo Flights were most impressive...Love those red
line engines Dean. Kevin K, Brent L and
Dean R kept the HP demos going between the kids flights. Scott’s Exotic Rockets were fun to watch,
especially the death star drag race. The
ooh and ahhs were always followed up by some pretty tough questions...These
kids knew what they wanted to learn and weren't afraid to ask us.
With the Clear skies and absent breeze the heat was a bit much. The row of sun shelters and screen tents
offered some relief. I had picked up 5
gallons of water and some Gatorade on the way to the launch. All but one gallon of the water was gone so
some of the kids were smart of to grab a cup of water. Make a note to take advantage of McDonald's
travelling orange aid cooler next time.
The bees were a new dimension though, never experienced that before.
Other than being a connection between WOOSH and DW for the event, everything
else was expertly handled by the volunteers.
Dean took charge of the launch facility operations. Pavel gave up a week of summer vacation to
help out in the classroom at DW. Fred
& Darlene, Paul, Kevin, Brent and Scott were excellent (and patient)
Mentors at the Launch. Kudos to you
guys and gals, you helped make lots of memories and made WOOSH and rocketry
shine in the eyes of the educational community.
This just goes to show you that if you let the experts do what they do
best even an armchair rocketeer can co-ordinate a launch. So don't be afraid to step up, you don't have
to do it alone.
There was nice social discussion after the kids left while Dean, Brent,
and my wife and I flew some rockets and watched the deer.
The only disappointment was that Channel 4 thought opening day of
Summerfest was more important news than we were and canceled out last
minute. We got lots of our own pictures
though so stay tuned.
This note was a little hodge-podge so watch for the article and if we can
get it together maybe a short presentation at a future Meeting.