Paul
Smith's 04-06-02 Launch Report
Jump to pictures at the end of the report.
An absolutely gorgeous day down at the sod
farm, with low winds that made it possible to fly high and still recover on the
field.
I had a hard luck day, though. My first flight was my Farside-X clone, using a
C11-0 first stage booster. It got the rocket going nicely - but the second stage
engine never lit. A nice boosted dart that arched over and crashed through a
tree. The upper two stages were destroyed, though the payload section is in fine
shape.
I also flew my Hercules on a C6-0/C6-7, not really expecting to get it back.
Again, the upper stage didn't light, this time because I hadn't secured the
booster engine tightly enough, and it ejected itself rather than lighting the
upper stage. Another
lawn dart,
burying the nose cone and payload section too deeply to dig up, and destroying
the rest of the upper stage as well. I've got a lot of spare boosters now...
The rest of my flights were better. I flew a new
Fat Boy
(Michael's discount purchase...) seven times, on A8-3, B6-4, C6-3, C6-5, and
D21-7 motors. A new scratchbuilt BT-60 sized Astrobee D flew three times, on
C11-5, D12-3, and E9-6 motors. The E9 flight was VERY high, but with the light
winds and a nice streamer, recovered safely on the field.
My Orbital Transport clone had a nice flight on a B6-4 (though the delay should
be -2 instead...). Finally, my Estes V-2 re-release flew nicely if not too high
on a C11-3.
Mark Stehlik flew a couple of new
plastic egg
rockets, on D21 and E30 power. Dramatic. One of his saucers on an E9-8
ejected on the ground and started a small fire. David Seer and I stomped it out
quickly without too much trouble: low wind really helps.
A WOOSH member who I hadn't seen there before ("JB"?) flew several interesting
rockets. One was a nice little
Orbital Transport Lab, a 1971 Model Rocket News plan that he built from the
plans on JimZ's site. I'd never seen one before, so it was a treat to see one
fly. A photo of one graces the cover of the 1972 catalog, immediately above the
"3" in the "3, 2, 1...".
That reminds me... our illustrious president apparently needs more practice
flying rockets. At one point after placing a rocket on the launch rod, he picked
up the controller, checked the skies, and began loudly counting "5...6....er,
4...".
JB also flew a beautiful
Estes Mercury
Redstone (the newly released plastic one, I believe), and a rear-ejection
Sizzler. He flew the Sizzler a second time on a 18mm D13 reload which almost
cost him his 18mm RMS casing. The recovery system blew out the back end and the
parachute didn't unfurl - no one saw where it went, as we were all focused on
the lawndarting upper part. After much searching, we gave up, but Brent found it
later while searching for one of his own upper stages.
Fred Jarosch, David Seer, Mark Smeiska, Brent Lillesand and Scott Goebel all
flew a variety of rockets as well. I think we probably had upwards of 80 flights
on a beautiful day.
Paul Smith
Click on the thumbnail for the full-size pics. All pics taken by Dr. Paul C. Smith.