Launch Report

All right, this is way late, but since I use Rocket Jones as my online flight log, you get to read it or skip it.

This launch was one of our monthly club launches, sponsored by NOVAAR. Held at Great Meadow Equestrian Center on 9/11/2005, the weather was beautiful and the wind ranged from near calm to quite brisk. The biggest problem was that it was blowing diagonally across the field, directly towards the biggest patch of woods bordering the field.

I pulled a shift as Launch Controller, and also made several flights of my own.

1. Angel - D12-5 - This ring-fin hadn't flown for a couple of years, but she made an excellent comeback flight.

2. Snitch - D12-0 / C6-0 - I chad-staged this plastic flying saucer from Estes. Great flight, and it always gets a lot of attention with the big motor hanging out from underneath.

3. Pacifyer - D12-5 - Arrow-straight boost and good recovery for my flying blood-dripping battleaxe.

4. YJ-218 - C6-7x2 - Perfect ignition of both engines. Great flight.

5. Phoenix - H180 White Lightning, medium delay - Loud and smokey, and after the motor burnout you could hear her fins whistling as she coasted to apogee. She suffered the only damage of the day, when she landed on one lower fin and the body tube partially delaminated. Easy fix, and the fin is still rock solid.

6. Barenaked Lady - F24-7 - This flight was just plain stupid. I put a big honkin' motor in a large but very lightweight rocket. She screamed off the pad, arced ever so slightly into the wind, and landed less than 50 yards away. Only on low-wind days. Sweet!

7. Odin's Spear - B6-6 - Another excellent flight from Vertical Force's first kit offering. Rich was kind enough to give me one of the new kits in the package for helping to test the prototype. It's numbered too. Cool!

So that was it for my flights. Another excellent rocket flying day that are far too far apart.

Posted by Ted at October 7, 2005 04:58 AM | TrackBack
Category: Rocketry