Inventory time...

The TARC season officially begins in September, which gives me a good excuse to inventory my rocket stuff. After all, one must know what one has in order to help out the local rocket teams… and to ensure I have what I need for the start of next year's flying season.

Today was inventory day for the conventional black powder (Estes and Quest) motors. I hauled out the stash, dumped things unceremoniously on the floor, and started sorting. 3 hours later, I have the count - 552 usable bp motors (this does not include the archaic "old as the hills" motors I have from the Stone Age - kinda afraid to risk a rocket with one of those). The nice thing about doing an inventory is that not only do find out what you need (A10-3T's and D12-3's), but you also discover what you do not need (A8-3's). I have 122 - that's right, 122 - stinking A8-3 motors! In my defense, I did not buy this many; whenever folks give me rocket gear, it usually includes a few A8-3's. Since the A8-3 is a bit underpowered for most rockets I don't use them often, so they stay in the stash and accumulate like Tribbles (well, maybe not that extreme). In brief, the A8-3 is boring.

Fortunately, we have the return of Rocket City Blast Off this October. Maybe I can give away a bunch to members of the public who want to fly their rockets but have no more motors. This is plan A for reducing the tally. Plan B involves a lot of flights of an Estes Cobra or Ranger, a Semroc Goliath, or some other 3 18 mm motor cluster rocket. 40 flights, and I will have depleted the backlog. Should take about 3 years, during which time, I will have received another 100 or so A8-3's :/

No Mas!

I just gotta say no when someone offers me that motor.

I also put in a little work on some rockets today - the Viking 7 scale model is in primer, the Wizard has its base coat of white paint, and I am going to attach the fins to the #1905 Estes Stinger tonight. The K-53 Stinger clone is built, awaiting filling and sealing of the balsa surfaces.