Mike Henke's ECOF-2002 Report

The day started out nice, got a little hot in the afternoon but the winds were low all day. There was a good turnout of fliers and lots of nice rockets. I believe we averaged a launch every 2.06 minutes. This is not considering the time it took to raffle quite a few nice prizes. My son won a Fat Boy with a ticket his Grandpa bought him. He was pretty happy about that, the Fat Boy is one of his favorites.

My son and I completed a rocket project together for ECOF. The rocket is pretty similar to an LOC Expediter but is made from plastic tube and uses piston ejection with fiberglass fins. We built in three (4") body diameters of stability (with the heaviest motor it will see) as has become my rule for scratch builds. The straighter they fly the shorter the walk. Unfortunately by the time it was ready to paint it was way to hot and humid to get a decent paint job, but it is not too bad looking from a distance. I decided we would make the first flight on a I300T-M. The flight was near perfect, ejection right at apogee, nice chute deployment and a short walk. No damage to the rocket.

For our next flight we launched a rocket that was rebuilt from a spectacular pranger at the last launch. Buried six feet of the rocket in the ground, but left the fin can intact. The ejection charge failed to ignite and seemed to be clumpy and moist. But it was rebuildable and is now called Frankenstein and is 3/4" short of ten feet tall. We launched on a J350W-M which did not explode on ignition for a nice flight with another short walk. It did hit a half dead pine tree on the way down which scratched the paint pretty badly, but doesn't bother me. You can't keep a decent paint job on a rocket that sees a lot of flying time anyway.

Since my wife could not make it to launch her Minnie Magg on the I211W-M that I packed for it, we used it in our father son rocket for another nice flight and short walk. There was slight damage to one fin fillet. About 1/4" of the fillet chipped off. So minor I don't think it really needs repair, but we will. My daughter Jensen made a cranberry red Mean Machine to fly at ECOF, but her softball tournament was the reason she and my wife could not attend.

A couple of launches ago I told my son Jeff that he could have my Mini BBX if he could pack the chute and cord well enough to get it back in one piece. He did a fine job and got himself a rocket. Of course we had to launch it. I had been wanting to try it on an H180W. The day seemed right for a long delay, very little wind, hot, but not terrible humid. Also over the course of many flights it has lost the canards. We loaded up and went to the pad, after a raised eyebrow from the RSO on the fourteen second delay. I hoped the plastic tube would prevent disaster if it were way too long. I lost sight of the rocket before deployment, but it was still going up and came back without damage. The walk wasn't bad either.

Four nice flights with easy recovery. Can't ask for much more than that...and usually get less. Did I mention watching better than 250 other rockets launched? WOW!

Congrats to the new level one fliers, and welcome to the new members. I just thought of something more to ask for; two days of ECOF fun next year.

Jeff and Mike Henke