Launch Report for Whitakers, July 26&27, 2003

            The heat and humidity at Whitakers this weekend was quite extraordinary, even by Eastern North Carolina standards.  I had a dull headache by the time I brought the trailer back to Kelly’s house in Apex that I know to be the result of the kind of fatigue that comes from pumping too many gallons of sweat out the pores in two long, hot days.  Even so, this was one of the finest weekends for rocketry in North Carolina in many months.

Here is the regular flight summary:

            Ken Parker and Mark Brown worked all day on getting the details right on the Hypertek system.  The principles of hybrid rocket motors are simple but the details of application are not.   We will all be in debt to Ken and Mark when they get it all figured out, hybrids will add an important non-ATF-regulatable facet to the hobby.

            Certifications are the most exciting part of any weekend and on Saturday we had three!  Mike McBurnett performed a very impressive TRA level 1 cert flight with his Stars and Stripes saucer from Art Applewhite using the H143SS from Cesaroni.   David Draper used a very interesting kit from PML, the Lil’ Lunar Express (very retro and very cute) and an I205 for a successful NAR level 1 certification.   Paul Hoetjes scored a perfect 50 on his written and followed it up with a fine TRA level 2 flight with his Horizon 54 on a J285.  Congratulations to all 3 of those flyers on a job well done!

            Other Saturday highlights:  Mike Harris’ test flight for his RDF TX radio-locator system in a rocket appropriately named Don’t Get Lost.   Dave Morey flew his 35mm camera rocket again, this time on a J420R, so look for some higher altitude photos on his photo site soon.

            Sunday had a lot of flights for an EX Sunday, testament to the long time since our last Experimental weekend.  All of the rainouts this spring and winter, especially the rain-out of Spring WELD, resulted in a big back-log of experimental flights, and most of the hard-core were there.  Mark Brown had a whole bunch of small single-use 38mm and 29mm red-flame motors that flew very effectively in a small orange saucer.  Randy Ejma showed us some very fine smaller motors with red flame propellant and with Tiger-Tail style fast-burn stuff.  He also static-tested a 98mm Amarillo Blue L motor that was very stout. 

            Dave Muesing had two very successful flights using potassium nitrate oxidizer:  In one I motor (I think) the KNO3 was bound in a dextrose melt, the other included some magnesium and an epoxy binder that appeared to be a very stout J, in my estimation.  Both of Dave’s flights were in his ProtoVII.  The second flight, with the Mg/Epoxy formula was especially hilarious because Dave had just announced to that crowd that he expected less than 1000 feet out of the flight the motor shocked everybody, producing at least 2800 feet in the little Proto.

            David Cox had a fabulous flight with his Magnum loaded with a 4-grain 54mm K motor using my CP1/200 recipe, airstarting 2 H218R outboard motors.  The airstart was perfect and the rocket attained some serious altitude, resulting in some serious walking for David.

            Alan Whitmore rolled out his level 3 rocket, the Spork, for his first homemade M motor, this one using the hematite-catalyzed recipe called “ghetto blaster”.  The flight was perfect, the boost was loud and strong, the flight-path was straight up, and apogee and main deployment came right on schedule.  5400 feet reported by the Transolve P6 (Altac data not yet downloaded, I’ll let you know).

            Mark Lloyd and Ed Rowe both brought sparky, black smoky propellants to demonstrate and both were very impressive.  Ed Rowe flew a K-sized motor in his Black Brant and Mark had 2 flights:  A K motor in his Magnum that barely crawled off the launch rail and an M motor in a larger, unnamed rocket that just thundered off the pad and seemed to burn forever.  Both Ed and Mark can make some very exciting sparks and I am very glad that the field was lush, green and DAMP, or we would have had some serious fire-control problems.  Nice work, guys!

            Alan Whitmore             7/28/03