A little launching...

Late April/early May can be a busy time for HARA, with schools requesting rocket assistance/demos for their Space Week activities.  Our club VP and his wife did an outstanding job with "Build it/Fly it" sessions at a couple of local schools, and Duane got tapped with performing the annual rocket demo at Horizon Elementary. Despite the small field, I love the event at Horizon - the enthusiasm of the kids is terrific - so I volunteered to assist in the Thursday afternoon launch. It also gave me an excuse to take part of a day off work, which ain't a bad thing these days.

Duane loads his School Rocket as the Horizon students file in on the north side of the field (Click to enlarge).

We arrived at the school around 1, set up Duane's pads and controller, and unpacked the rockets. Each of us had brought 3 - I followed a school theme with my Estes Pink Crayon (B6-4), Skywriter (A8-3), and Generic (A8-3), whereas Duane had prepped his Odd'l Rockets Birdie (A10-3T), Estes Make It Take It (A8-3), and BMS 3" School Rocket (D12-3). The Launch Control Officer (LCO) for the demo would be Beth Bero, an outstanding Horizon teacher who is into science stuff. She must have been a lucky LCO, for we dd not loose any of the 6 rockets launched, and there was only one minor flight deviation when the nose cone of the School Rocket separated from the rest of the model at ejection. A post-flight check showed that the plastic attach point for the shock cord had broken - sometimes these plastic nose cones need a bit of reinforcing to enable them to withstand the stresses at ejection.

Beth sends the Estes Skywriter on its way (Click to enlarge).

The important thing is that the 700 kids present enjoyed the launch. My thanks to our two rocket retrievers, Cricket and Jason, who did a fabulous job recovering the birds. I am looking forward to next year, and am thinking that it is time to build a mid-power saucer so that we can awe the young ones with the fire and noise of F composite motors. Duane suggests that it would also be a good idea to throw some kits Beth's way, so that the Horizon students can see their rockets launched in the demo. This would most definitely add to the fun.

Starting to set up the range at the Manchester sod farm (Click to enlarge).

HARA's regularly-scheduled club launch had to be scrubbed on May 6 due to high winds, so it was rescheduled for yesterday. Being a low power dude, I normally do not attend Manchester launches, as 2 hours is a pretty long ride to launch some mod rocs, especially with Pegasus field just a few blocks away. However, I was in the mood to launch some mid-power rockets, so I grabbed my Estes Trajector and Majestic and hitched a ride with Duane up to the sod farm. We arrived around 9:30, just as the clouds were making way for the Sun, and joined in with setting up the range, which opened around 10:30 or so. The crowd was light, as is the norm with make up launches; I estimate that about 60 rockets were launched on Saturday, at a very leisurely pace.

My Trajector is first off the pad on an Estes F15
(Click to enlarge).

And the first to drift into the trees (Click to enlarge).

Even though the skies were rapidly clearing, the wind was still high, in excess of 10 miles per hour out of the north. Due to sod operations, the operators of the farm had situated us on the southwest side of the field, the worst place to be given the wind situation. Needless to say, the rocket gods were very pleased with the number of sacrifices Saturday, and many a bird drifted into the trees to the west and south of our launch position. The first of these happened to be the first rocket launched - my Trajector, on a F15-6. It started out well, with a good straight boost towards the north east, but the rocket stayed aloft too long in the high wind, drifting into the top of a tree near the edge of the field. It hung there, 60 feet off the ground, mocking me throughout the day. Angling the rods and rails helped a bit, but thermals begin to kick in as the day wore on; the crowd spent several minutes watching a mod roc cycle between descending, hanging stationary, and ascending before it finally decided to drift into the trees. It was a tough day for many of the flyers - fortunately, Chris Short was there with his trailer of goodies, enabling rocketeers to purchase kits and motors to replace their losses (or to add to the collection).

Art shoulders his Level 1 rocket for its journey out to the pad (Click to enlarge).

On the high-power side, there were a couple of level 1 certification attempts, one by a University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) student. He was very happy to cert level 1 with his black homemade carbon-fiber rocket powered by an Aerotech H motor. Art Woodling's old red-white-and-blue level 1 rocket put in an outstanding performance on an Aerotech I; it even managed to land within the field, thanks in part to a Jolly Logic Chute Release. A UAH rocket team flew a prototype rocket twice on J motors; it featured a deployable glider in a canister, which failed to deploy on both flights. We have had several college teams try deployable gliders in the NASA Student Launch program over the years, most of which have ended in failure. It is very tough to design and build a canister that will cleanly eject from the rocket's interior and then separate to allow the glider to deploy properly. Anyway, the first flight of the UAH rocket landed in the field, whereas the second saw it drifting well beyond the southern treeline. I do not know if it became an expensive sacrifice to the rocket gods, because Duane and I had to leave before the team returned from the recovery attempt.

A member of the UAH rocket team discusses their rocket with Art (Click to enlarge).

Another Manchester launch is now in the books - flew one, lost it. Fortunately, Estes now has the Trajector on sale for 16 bucks, so I'm not out much (unless you count the money I gave Chris Short for an Aerotech Arreaux - I gotta learn to stay out of his trailer of goodies).