Launch Report, August 28-29, 2004

The weather on Saturday was almost perfect for rocketry. There was fog early in the morning, the kind of glowing fog that indicates sun on top of a thin layer. The fog burnt off before we could get the pads set up to reveal a clear blue sky and almost no wind. Humidity was high, but the skies remained clear and the wind calm all day. Joel Chauvot flew a new 5.5” rocket named Sue’s Fury later in the day on an L850W, and the main parachute came out at apogee. This is usually a perfect way to lose a rocket, but the ensemble drifted down slowly, eventually landing in the field about 500 feet away.

Late summer is the time to fertilize pasture-land, and we kept company with a few tons of dry chicken manure dumped right where I like to set up the RSO table, but those of us who remembered last August just dismissed the ordure as a mere trifle. Minor league stink, really.

Here is the motor use summary:

In June I pointed out a statistical anomaly, the use of more I motors than C motors. This month you will notice an even more bizarre imbalance: on Saturday there were more J motors flown than C motors. Four K motors is a huge proportion of the motors at a conventional (commercial motor) launch at which only 62 rocket flights are made. There were the usual number of children in attendance, Zach and Ben Kier were there, Brandon Ray, David Estep, Ian Hoetjes, Jordan Glover, and Hannah Boyd, all kept the LCO’s busy, but the number of people who came to fly High-Power was robust and gratifying, considering the discouraging weather reports on Friday.

Remember that clusters and staged rockets are classified by the total installed motor impulse and check out this table of the flyers who made J and K level flights:

This is a very impressive lineup of high-power flyers, and their success rate was very high. The bad news is that there were no successful certification flights, nor did I sign up any new Tripoli members. I have high hopes for the September and October launches.

Sunday was an experimental day and the weather was almost as good. Lumps of very wet clouds drifted over, occasionally dropping some rain, but leaving big windows of clear, sunny skies to fly into. [Never end a sentence with a preposition.] Rich Miller returned after a long lay-off, and flew a couple of different rockets on H motors. Mike Harris made his first foray into homemade APCP propellants with a new 4” rocket, Ignorant of My Destiny (aren’t we all?). Mike had a fine flight with a 5 grain 54mm K motor made from Terry McCreary’s starter formula. Alan Whitmore flew the Astro*Mollusc on a 6-grain 38mm I motor and the GFI on a 5-grain 54mm K motor.

Mark Brown brought a pair of H motors made from a green-flame formula that he flew in his small flying saucer. These proved hard-to-light as usual, but when lit, produced a bunch of thrust. Mike McBurnett had 2 good flights, one of which was made in the Soliton, a scaled-down model of his Level 3 project. Mike recorded no motor data for that flight.

Alan Whitmore, Prefect, Tripoli East NC