Launch Report – January 27 - 28, 2007

This was the weekend of the big Astronomy Days exhibit at the Museum of Natural Sciences in Raleigh, and a lot of the regular fliers were there on one (or both) days this weekend, and attendance at Battleboro was down slightly. Paul did prefect duties on Saturday while I was at the museum, and we switched up on Sunday. I shall reconstruct Saturday’s launch from the launch cards and from Paul’s report. The museum exhibit was huge fun, by the way. If you have never visited the museum that weekend and spent some time talking to the visitors, you should volunteer some time, you’ll have a ball! Sterling Edmunds was on hand this year with his big red Phoenix that made a huge impression.

First, of course, the motor use summary:

Saturday was a little too windy, and the wind was in the wrong direction, there was a report of a rocket lost in the swamps. Even so, Mark Yeager made 6 flights, the Harrell family and their TARC associates were back with 3 flights, John and Nicholas Hobson made 5 flights, and Jimmy Blackley joined us again to make an F motor flight on his Cherokee G. Seems like a wise choice, when the wind is up, put in a motor that is one size smaller.

Mark Yeager gets this month’s best rocket name award, with Looks Good on Paper. A rocket called Cluster F, with the same motor combinations and the same overall dimensions appears in the same stack of cards, so this rocket may have been using an alias for one or both of its flights!

On Sunday, it rained on me almost all of the way from Chapel Hill and stopped when I drove into Battleboro. I was the first one at the field, and I drove into the midst of hundreds of thousands of seagulls, starlings, and hundreds of vultures, sitting on the hay-bales and perched in the trees. I have never seen so many birds at the same place in my whole life, it was a fantastic sight. The sun came out briefly and the winds calmed.

I visited with Ken Allen and John Hobson for a while and then people started showing up.

The TARC 5023 team had several false starts with exiguous rail buttons but finally got their Angel Egg Carton off for a successful flight with an F52. An excellent flight that produced some good data for later fine-tuning. Heather and Virginia flew the No Breaker 5000 with another egg that survived the flight, but one of the shock cords burned through and the egg hung up for a long time, because the rest of the rocket fell without chute. As I look back through the cards, I realize that I may have that backwards, the Angel Egg Carton may have suffered the burn-through. Please correct me if you have the data.

Mike Harris was there with his sons Alex and Christopher. They made 12 flights total, on everything from A to G power, and recovered everything! Most people approach the LCO table carrying rockets in one, or perhaps 2, hands, but Mike showed up with bags of rockets.

Stewart and Linda Whiteman also came to fly on Sunday, and Linda brought sandwich fixings. Thank you!!! I was getting a little hungry by mid-afternoon. Stewart has a fine new spool that he calls Dumb Bell, that flew perfectly on a G64W.

The clouds built up all day, the wind picked up, and by 4:00 PM it had begun to rain again, a light, windy rain coming in sideways with little bits of ice in it. I packed the trailer and took it back to Paul’s house.

Alan Whitmore
Prefect, Tripoli East NC