HARA and a 1988 commercial launch from the Cape...

The tech talk at the March club meeting was by Wayne McCain, a former HARA member from way, way back. His topic was the first commercial launch (with a paying customer) from Canaveral Air Force Station, one in which a couple of HARA members (he and Matt Steele) played prominent roles. The rocket was a LOFT-1 (Launch Operations Flight Test), a 10 foot, 6.1 inch diameter vehicle powered by a N5000 motor developed by Vulcan Systems. Imagine - a N class motor back in 1988! Actually, there were three of these beasties made, but the ATF confiscated two when regulations set in - their fate is unknown, but it is probable they were destroyed. Anyway, here is Mr. McCain's talk (about 30 minutes in length):

Inspired by the talk, I gathered together the available data - which wasn't much - on LOFT-1, and concocted an 18 mm BT-55-based downscale in OpenRocket:

OpenRocket downscale of LOFT-1 (Click to enlarge).

3D representation of LOFT-1 downscale (Click to enlarge).

Looks like I have a new entry on the build list...