August 29, 2004

Rocket Jones on television

... and other rocket flying news from yesterday's launch.

It was a beautiful day for rockets yesterday, with the only real problem being the extreme heat. But the sun was out, the winds were light, the clouds were high, and we had a whole heap o' people flying their rockets.

My son TJ (home from the Navy) and I loaded up the truck and headed out to the field. I'd pre-prepped a bunch of rockets the evening before, so we were ready to fly.

The Civil Air Patrol was there, twenty five kids and rockets, each needing to make three flights. Needless to say, the launch crew was busy for awhile. By the time I did my 2-hour shift as launch control they were mostly done, but we stayed nicely busy with folks flying just for fun. That's also where my TV moment happened, as a local channel had a couple of people out there filming and I gave an explanation of how our launch control system worked and the procedures we used for safety. I heard that Doug Pratt was headed over to their studio later that day for an interview as well. Yay! Any positive exposure is a good thing in today's paranoid and fear-ridden climate.

So TJ and I flew almost everything we'd brought, except for my largest of the day. When I opened the motor reload kit, it was missing some pieces. I'm mildly annoyed about that, but I'll make it good next time I see Ken Allen at one of the launches.

The Hot Jets rocket made a flawless maiden flight, and there were many compliments on both the flight and how good it looked. How could it not look great, being decorated with the lovely ladies' names. Things went so well that I built another motor, this time an E18 White Lightning and flew it a second time later in the day.

Time for some gratuitous linkage (Yay!). The Hot Jets cheerleaders are:
Helen, of Everyday Stranger!
Gir, of Your Moosey Fate!
Tink, of Flitting Here and There!
Sarah, of Trying To Grok!
Blogoline, of Blogoline's Journal!
Wegglywoo, who's On the Beach at the End of the World!
Big Hair, of Left & Right!
Stevie, of Caught In The XFire!
Emma, of Miss Apropos!
Lynn S., of Reflections in d minor!
Heather, of Angelweave!
Kat, of Mostly Fluff!
Nic, of Shoes, Ships, and Sealing Wax!
Susie, of Practical Penumbra!
Mookie, of MookieRiffic!
LeeAnn, of The Cheese Stands Alone!
Denita, of Who Tends The Fires!
Jennifer, of Jennifer's History and Stuff! (nice custom banner, by the way)
Cindy, of Squipper!
Lemur Girl, of... uh, Lemur Girl!
Dawn of Caterwauling! (gone underground, am awaiting her reappearance elsewhere).

Posted by Ted at August 29, 2004 01:04 PM | TrackBack
Comments

Hey! How's come I didn't get to see the Hot Jets rocket??

Posted by: Rich Aldridge at August 29, 2004 06:01 PM

Yaaaaaay! I'm now a member of the Mile-High Club!

...Sorta. ;-)

--TwoDragons

Posted by: Denita TwoDragons at August 29, 2004 07:35 PM

Those two producers were shooting for a program called Around Space, which is sponsored by the National Space Society. They produce it at the Fairfax public access cable facility, and it gets picked up by cable stations around the country. I did a guest spot on the show three years ago and I'm still getting emails from it; you never know where these things will pop up. In any case, I helped them review the field footage, made sure they knew how to spell Phipps, and gave them the url of your blog. Don't know if they'll use it or how much they'll use, but they seemed very interested in it. If they send me a tape I'll make a copy for you.

Great to meet your kid! I'm sorry mine was feeling under the weather; I'm sure Brian would have enjoyed meeting him.

Posted by: Doug Pratt at August 30, 2004 10:35 AM
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