March 15, 2008

March is an iffy month – you can have snow and sleet and ice-storms, or you can have the kind of weather we had on Saturday: Sunny, calm, dry, high, scattered clouds, and about 60 degrees in the middle of the day. The wind picked up around 4 PM and shifted around to the East, which tended to bring the rockets down in a lush field of wheat that was about 6" high. No problem for this crowd, everything was recovered.

Let me show you the motor use summary and you will see a real oddity.

One oddity is that all of the A and D motors were flown by people with TRA or NAR certifications of level 2 or 3! The other is the huge number of G motors flown.

The obvious reason for the G motor emphasis was the big push by our TARC teams to get the final adjustments made to their rockets and attempt a qualifying flight for this years’ national contest. To recap, the goal this year is to lift 2 raw eggs to exactly 750 feet, keep the package in the air for exactly 45 seconds, and to break exactly 0 eggs upon landing. Our teams were going at it hammer and tongs all day long: I have 6 flight cards for the TARC Prototype I by the team of David Hash, Ben Izatt and Greg Izatt. They were using the G71W for most of their flights, trying out the G80 for one of the six. As I recall, they were coming in a little low for most of their flights. TARC team 6167, headed up by the Harrell sisters, have settled on the G64W for their motive power, and although the details are not recorded on the flight cards for their four flights, I heard some fairly close altitude figures for one flight and some extremely close duration figures on another flight. I have no data in front of me on the post-flight condition of the eggs borne aloft by their entry, named Egg-splosive.

It is with great pleasure that I report two successful certification flights! Bradley Bowen flew his Eagle I on the very popular H97 for a successful NAR level 1 certification. Also, Jason Boushard had a fine flight of his BSD kit, the 38 Special, on a J528 (Loki?) for a successful NAR level 2 certification. Congratulations to both of you and welcome to the next level!

Tommy Harrell brought out a beautiful Upscale Trident and gave it it’s first flight on the F40 motor. The rocket was beautifully constructed and flew and recovered perfectly. Dave Morey delivered another virtuoso performance with his Sinister 29. Two G80T’s got the package off the pad, a G77R kicked in at 1 second into the flight, at 2 seconds 2 E9’s fired up, and at 4 seconds 2 more E9s were ignited. From the ground it looked like one long burn! Just beautiful.

Jim Livingston brought out a new, minimum diameter, 29mm speed demon called Red Ruby, and gave it a shake-down flight on an F40. The rocket was stable and well-behaved, but the altimeter shut off sometime during flight or recovery, and I can’t tell you how high it went. The rocket is clearly ready for a G motor flight on the next calm day.

It is best to draw the veil of forgetfulness over Sunday, cold and very, VERY windy. We packed up the trailer and went home.

Alan Whitmore

Prefect, Tripoli East NC