Bayboro 12/09 Report

Bayboro Launch Report, December 5-6, 2009

This weekend was an extra, inserted in the calender to provide a little more opportunity for flyers who missed out on the close-to-the-holidays weekends and to switch up the usual order by flying TRA research on Saturday and an open sport launch on Sunday.

The less said about Saturday, the better. I spent a little time exploring the low country and then went back to the motel to write a pair of articles for Rockets.

Sunday started early with a potentially serious kerfuffle with the Air Traffic Controller at Cherry Point MCAS, who couldn’t find the NOTAM I filed on Thursday. I had to make a few calls to the FAA to get that little problem worked out, but soon we were on track with a starting time of 11:00 AM, but nobody noticed. The wind was terrific when I arrived at the field but the sun was bright and the fields had drained enough to walk through. The winds calmed all day long as the temperature slowly rose, and by 2:00 PM we were enjoying some absolutely wonderful rocket weather! About 53 degrees, almost dead calm, and a clear blue sky.

Here is the motor use summary:

Size	No.
A	1
B
C	4
D	3
E
F
G	3
H	1
I	4
J	1
K
Total	17

Attendance was not especially good, but I’m tired of complaining about it. I had a bunch of fun, those that came out enjoyed the weather (as it warmed up), and we all had a great time.

The big events, as always, are the certification flights, and this Sunday we had two, one successful and one not. Reed Goodwin-Johansson flew his X-calibur on a Loki H144 for a beautiful flight that worked perfectly. This rocket was also carrying a live video downlink and I hope that the whole package worked. Perhaps Reed can post links to the video on this site.

Kevin Murray had a fine "up" part of his cert flight, using an Aerotech I161W in his extremely stout Lemon-Lime. However, the nose cone and the parachute came down in one piece and the body came down by itself. Examination soon showed that the kevlar shock cord had snapped, not near a knot, and not at the edge of the body tube. I’ve never seen that before. Ejection occurred very near apogee, so it is hard to imagine where that kind of force came from.

Dave Morey had a fine flight with his Sinister 29 using 1 H210R, 2 G76G’s, 2 G53s and 2 D5’s. Each separate smoke and flame color could be distinguished easily. Dave also flew his 2-stage Arreaux, but the sustainer motor did not light, and Dave collected the closest-recovery-to-the-launch-pad award, when part of the whole, slightly tangled recovery package actually hit the pad it left from.

Both David Hash’s were there and flying, Tommy and Natalie Harrell were on-site, and John Hobson also showed up. I had a couple of D-motor flights with my Jaguar. That’s about it, I’ll see you all in 2 weeks.

Alan Whitmore, Prefect, Tripoli East NC

Photo's by Reed Goodwin-Johansson

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