Launch Report July 23-24, 2005

The heat and humidity were exactly what you would expect for Whitakers in July, and this kept attendance down, but the big meteorological factor for the weekend was the haze. The sky appeared to be clear and blue, but almost all rockets flying higher than about 2500 to 3000 feet disappeared completely after motor burnout. The murky sky resulted in a record number of lost rockets: They went up, we heard the pop at apogee, and they were never seen again. Many were recovered later in the day or on Sunday, but many were not, it was a very frustrating day.

I’ll put in a motor use summary here so you can see the relative lack of low-power flights on Saturday, indicating the average parent’s concern over heat-stroke and the desirability of traveling with overheated, fractious children.

A quick glance through the flight cards recalls a few highlights. Emily Beard accounted for a lot of the low-power flights on Saturday, making 3 flights with her Mini-Meanie on A10 power, and one C motor flight. Dave Morey made 2 flights with his Arcie II, a small radio-controlled glider which uses a D12 motor. One flight was great, but something hung up on the antenna on the second flight, which made it very hard to control.

One of the rockets lost on Saturday was a previous winner of the best rocket name of the month contest, Mike McBurnett’s Barbequed Weasel. Keep your eyes open for a small, scorched mustelid, it’s a great little rocket and Mike would like to have the G64 casing back again.

Two brand-new high-drag rockets made their first flight on Saturday. Dave Morey brought out the Funnel Rocket, which had a fin section made of (as you might expect) a funnel. The recorded altitude was 700 feet on an H50. Alan Whitmore debuted a ring-tailed rocket carrying a plastic bucket for the ring. This rocket, called Children Can Fall into Bucket and Drown, suffered an early delay grain malfunction that was completely the fault of flyer error, and was badly damaged.

Let’s get to the really good stuff, the certification flights!! Matt Backman made a perfect Tripoli Level 1 flight with his Red Baron on an Aerotech H242T.

Brian Orndorff then made a fine Tripoli Level 1 certification flight with an Art Applewhite flying saucer loaded up with the long-burning Ellis Mountain H48.

We also had a NAR level 2 cert flight: Doug Beard flew his Star-Spangled Nimbus on the very fine Aerotech J315R for a perfect flight and recovery.

Dave Morey had another spectacular air-start flight with his Sinister 38, which he flew on a central AMW J480 ‘Blue Baboon’, and air-starting 2 Aerotech I218R ‘Red Lines’ after the burnout of the blue-flame motor. Very pretty, and a reported altitude of 4900 feet.

Here is my choice for the best new rocket name of the month, Mark Yeager’s Lilly-White ASP which he flew on the Loki I600. I’m not going to explain that one; if you have to ask, you probably wouldn’t understand.

Sunday was just as hot and humid, but the haze was slightly thinner. Sterling Edmunds flew his Red Rider Alpha on a K1100 blue-flame motor (Ed's, not Aerotech’s) which produced some serious liftoff speed and an eventual altitude of 6020 feet.

Mike Harris had three flights: Ignorant of My Destiny flew on a Hypertek EX K240 using the ZNO/HTPB grain chemistry for an altitude of 3219 feet. The same rocket flew again on a J240 that used a plain PVC pipe fuel grain. 2229 feet this time. Finally Mike brought out Periwinkle’s Pride and flew it on a small, fast PBAN motor in the H range.

Mark Lloyd managed to get all of the ants out of his Big Red, AKA Lucky 13 and flew it on a 3’ M motor made with a fine red-flame formula. This was a fine flight to 6600 feet. The main parachute came out at apogee, again, but the wind was moderate and all parts were recovered without too much effort.

Dave Muesing finally made his first 2-stage recovery flight with his rocket called Moose and a huge candy motor in the big J to small K range. This main parachute also popped out too early, but it fell in the field.

Finally, Ed Rowe was the victim of the strangest case of rocket voodoo that I have ever seen in my brief experience in high-power. Ed flew his King Viper on 3 54mm red-flame L motors that lit up instantly and screamed off the pad in the fastest “red motor” flight I have ever seen. The big rocket was totally out of sight in a second. After a few more seconds we began to hear the hideous shriek that signals a rocket coming in ballistic. Most observers couldn’t get a visual on the rocket before it hit, but a few of us saw it come in just over the tree line behind the porta-potty. My impression was that the rocket came down about 100 to 200 feet beyond the tree-line. A lot of people spent the next 2 hours combing every inch of that ground carefully, and Bird-Dog has been back Monday and Tuesday to search some more. No trace of this rocket has been seen. No holes in the ground, no fragments of fiberglassed phenolic, no fin fragments, nothing! There are two classes of explanations for the disappearance of a 11 foot-long, 50 lb rocket. The first set of explanations makes the (extremely probable) assumption that estimates of distance are very unreliable when based on observations of fractions of a second, and Ed’s rocket is probably in the woods beyond the mobile home to the right of the church, about 500 to 600 feet beyond the tree line. The second set of explanations invoke the occult or some sort of supernatural mechanism.

I have never seen anything like the demise of the King Viper and I hope I never see anything like that again.

Alan Whitmore
Prefect, Tripoli NC