Whitakers Launch Report, November 15-16, 2003

            Once again, the weather was the big story at Whitakers this weekend.   Saturday was a lot like the curate’s egg: “Good, in parts”.  We started off with decent conditions – high clouds, light winds and the occasional light drizzle.   At about 1:15 the drizzle worked its way up to a light rain which soon became a steady rain, but the rain was falling straight down, so we just gathered under our tents and canopies and waited it out as the temperature fell.  And fell.  By 3:00 the rain had stopped, but it was cold and damp. The rockets, however, did not stop flying, and by sundown there were 42 recorded flights.

            Sunday was completely different.  High clouds thinning out to blue skies by 2:30, warm temperatures (low 60’s) and calm winds:  One of the finest days for rocketry that we have seen in 2003.

  First of all, the motor breakdown:

             As before, all clusters are classified according to total installed impulse.  For example, Dave Morey flew the redoubtable Sinister 29 once again on an H180W, air-starting 2 H165R’s 2 seconds later, followed by 2 G40’s 2 seconds after that.  That makes 762 total Newton.seconds of total thrust, so that flight was classified as a “J”.   That was a great flight, by the way.  The cloud cover accentuated the bright yellow flame of the ground-started H180 and the 2 red-flame motors came onstage low enough to be seen easily and make an artistic contrast.

              The bad news is that this is not many rocket flights, attendance is down and the big, exciting motors are not being flown on Sport launch Saturdays at nearly the numbers that they were one or 2 years ago.  The good news is that the Discovery Channel special and general word-of-mouth information has generated a lot of interest in rocketry and there were a lot of interested spectators, a few new Tripoli members were signed up, and the certification process is back on track.  One level 1 attempt was made, 1 level 2 attempt was made and successfully completed and another L2 attempt was being set up on the pads as dark was falling when one of the launch lugs broke off, and a level 2 written exam was administered and passed.

              Congratulations go out to Mike McBurnett, who certified level 2 with his Binder Design Excel flown on a Cesaroni J285, making a picture-perfect flight. 

              Other highlights:  The Ray family was there in force:  Jeff, Matthew and Rose Ray all made flights and Matthew earned the “most prolific flyer” award with 8 flights on a rain-shortened and Winter-shortened flying day.  This has got to be some kind of ‘most rockets flown in the shortest time’ award, made more impressive by the fact that the Estes launch controller only had one working lead for most of the day.

              Zack Kier made 5 flights, some interesting clusters and a fine 2 x D12-powered rocket he calls S.A.M. 

              On Sunday, the homemade motor cult came back to fly their Experimental motors in absolutely perfect rocketry weather.  Ten flights were made, including 3 M’s: The Big Boys were definitely ‘In The House’. 

              Mike McBurnett wasted no time in using his level 2 status to good effect.   He flew his Excel  again on a 38mm I motor made by Ed Rowe with his latest White Lightning clone. 

              Dave Muesing had 2 flights, one was the Proto VII on the stoutest sugar motor I have ever seen:  Dave is really beginning to get a handle on the KNO3/dextrose chemistry.   He also flew the Proto VIII on a KNO3/Mg/RIO/Epoxy formula that was very exciting.  Dave is one of the small number of rocketeers who are taking “the path less taken” and expanding our knowledge of propellants using oxidizers other than ammonium perchlorate, and he has gotten really good at it.

              Ed Rowe flew his Black Brant on a K-sized 54mm version of his new White Lightning clone for a perfect flight of 5176'.  Mark Miller also made the drive from Virginia to fly his Magnum on a 54mm J motor made by Alan Whitmore.

              The undisputed heavy-weight champ of the weekend was put up by Jim Livingston.  He extended his 9-O-Mite with a section from his gargantuan Viper to make a 75 lb. rocket capable of handling the power of his 115mm diameter, 3 grain M3300 made from one of Mark Lloyd’s recipes.  The flight was fabulous, and recovery was perfect, even though the rocket settled to earth about 200 yards short of the tree-line down by Mrs. Smiley’s house.

                          Alan Whitmore started Sunday off with a flight of his Spork on a 3” 5-grain M2774 motor cast from the reliable CP3 formula.  Flight (to 5800 feet) and recovery were perfect.  Mark Lloyd had a fine flight with his Magnum on a K250 made with one of his older sparky formulas.

              We now come to one of the most controversial parts of the monthly launch reports, and by ‘controversial’ I mean the sort of information that I always get chastized for reporting.  A lot of people who fly at Whitakers and are involved in Tripoli and NAR leadership positions, believe that I should never report any failure, cato, shred, or land-shark in this public forum.   I should only report positive results, lest the general public get the impression that amateur rocketry is dangerous and needs to be legislated out of existence.  I disagree with this approach in so many ways that it is difficult to know where to start.  You may have noticed that I do not report unsuccessful cert flights or many failures of any kind on Sport launch days.  This is intentional, I don’t want to discourage anybody or embarrass any beginners.  Occasionally a wreck is so hilarious that I will report it, especially if I know the wrecker well enough to know that he or she would not be embarrassed.

              EX days are a different matter.  People who fly homemade motors are comfortable living on the ragged edge of performance and when they fail it usually makes such a spectacular show that the failure is as entertaining as the successes, and even more informative.  It’s no shame to blow up something on EX days, quite the contrary: if you never tear anything up, you are probably not trying hard enough.

              Now that I have that rather long-winded prologue out of the way, it is my duty to report the demise of 2 rockets that came apart in a really BIG way.  And by coincidence, they were set up on the pads at the same time and met their ends minutes apart.  Alan Whitmore flew his Confusing Fall Warbler on a 5-grain 54 mm motor loaded up with a K1300 made with the new 0.2% catocene formula.  The Altaac reports that 1.3 seconds after the button was pushed, the Warbler was haulin’ the mail at 970 f/s when the fins came off and the bird tore itself into little pieces – a classic maxQ airframe failure.  Altimeter, Walston transmitter, parachute, and motor were recovered intact, so the re-build process should not be too expensive.

            Once the detritus from that debacle had floated back to earth, we pushed the button on Mark Lloyd’s unnamed large black rocket that was loaded up with a 115mm 3 grain M1800 made from one of Mark’s newer sparky formulas.   Liftoff was spectacular, the volcanic roar made by those chunks of hot titanium being blasted out of the nozzle is almost heart-stopping.  The boost phase was breath-taking until about 1000 feet, when the forward bulkhead let go and did some major damage to the rocket.  I can report that standing under a falling cloud of debris containing several burning chunks of sparky propellant is not an experience for the faint-hearted.  All of the propellant burnt up by land-fall, and we were able to patrol the pasture at leisure, picking up a fragment of Mark’s rocket here and a chunk of Alan’s rocket there.  All in all, it was a very educational experience.

 Alan Whitmore, Prefect, Tripoli East NC