Launch Report for Whitakers, February 23 and 24, 2002

                After the perfect weather in January, we knew that the conditions for future launches could only get worse.  They certainly did!  Saturday morning was cloudy, very windy, and so cold that we could only work with our gloves off for 3 or 4 minutes before the feeling went away.  It didn't get any better all day!  Even so, there were 15 to 18 flyers and a lot of low-power flights.  The effects of the Aerotech fire are really hitting us hard.  High-power flights are fading away to nothing on Saturday, while the big ground-shaking flights are only happening on Sunday, when the home-made motors are flown.

                The big highlight of Saturday's flight was the successful NAR level 2 certification flight by Randy Ejma.  All in attendance in January remember Randy's deployment problems and the damage to his beautiful rocket named HARV.  This month, Randy was back with HARV II, reconstructed and painted with new decals.  HARV II made a perfect flight on a J350W!  Congratulations, Randy.

                Sunday was just as cold and just as windy, but the sun was shining and it felt much warmer than Saturday.  Only a few flights went up on Sunday, but there was a lot of excitement.  The big excitement was 4 M motor flights!  We started the day with Jim Livingston's Viper which flew on a 115mm M motor made by Alan Whitmore.  The 92 lb Viper was jacked up to 5000 feet on the biggest Ferric Fudge motor that has ever been made.  [If you liked that flight, be sure to make it to Spring WELD.]  Stephen Krall was prepping and flying like a man possessed, 1 6-grain J and 2 M's!  Both M's were made from his flashy red propellant, one in the Kosdon 6000 N.s case and the other in the 7600 N.s hardware.  They were flown in a new rocket that doesn't have a name yet.  Elaine Miller put up her veteran "Cloud Kiss" on a very potent M2300,  the formula was not recorded, but it landed in a tree, as usual.       

The schedule for Aerotech's resumption of motor manufacture has been published, and as expected, they plan to start shipping 24 and 29mm single use and reloads in March, 38mm RMS reloads in April, and 54, 75, and 98mm reloads in May.  This is the sort of wildly unrealistic pipe-dream that we all expected.  Aerotech is out of the picture until the Fall or early 2003, Pro-38 can't meet the demand, and Ellis Mountain is fading into the background as fast as they can.   High Power may be the exclusive realm of those people who make their own motors for the foreseeable future.

Alan Whitmore