| Yesterday's launch was small but fairly prolific. There
were about a dozen registered flyers and we put up 51 flights. The weather was
absoutely calm and the sky was mostly overcasy with a high ceiling. I can't remember
haveing so many rockets landing around the LCO table. Flying volume was hindered by
the late arrival of Ken Allen who lost his transmission in Whitakers and showed up at the
field on foot. Bob Schoner flew his L3 on an M but his chute tangled and broke a fin on
landing. Jim Scarpine flew a rocket with 60 commemorative envelopes in the payload
as a Rocket Research Institute Rocketpost. It was to celebrate the 30th anniversary
of the Apollo 11 moon landing and to honor the memory of Friedrich Schmiedl
(1902-1994), an Austrian engineer who, in 1931, was among the first to advocate the
peaceful ues of rockets to transport high priority cargo by his pioneering rocket mail
experiments. I flew my Ten Forward on a J145 Hypertech Hybrid motor to 3115'.
There were at least 3 J350 flights to my recollection. BTW - the Hypertech
launch equipment is now stored on the trailer. Gerald Robbins showed up with the
Walston Transmitter and he and Jeff Taylor performed some ground tests. It works!
Bill Shamblin and Bob Buchholz had quite a few flights and as usual, managed to
have a lot of fun in doing so. We had several groups of first time visitors
show up just to spectate. They were all very interested. All in all it was a
fine day, small crowd but plenty of action. BTW - Does anyone know who
NAR member #75405 is? We have recovered 2 of his/her rockets - an orange, Estes
Twister and an Estes Bandit. If anyone has access to an NAR membership listing, I
would appreciate it if you would have him contact me to make arrangements to get his
rockets back. |