Flying this weekend

[A Fish Named Wallyum]

Anyone? My wife and kids are deserting me tomorrow, so I guess I'll have to find something to do with myself. I'm busting my butt putting the finishing touches on the Semroc Taurus and the E engine Thunder Roc. I've also got an old Mini Bomarc that I picked up on Ebay. The paint on it weighs as much as the rocket itself, so that could be an interesting flight. :cool:

[stefanj]

I might do a quick launch-and-run from the big vacant lot across the street. It's been plowed under, and I figure I may as well use it before the new crop of condominiums pop up.

I'm not sure what to launch, I feel the itch.

[Bob H]

yup, club launch tomorrow. Predicting highs in the 90's and high humidity. Should be a scorcher but I'm going anyway

[CPMcGraw]

Anyone? My wife and kids are deserting me tomorrow, so I guess I'll have to find something to do with myself. I'm busting my butt putting the finishing touches on the Semroc Taurus and the E engine Thunder Roc. I've also got an old Mini Bomarc that I picked up on Ebay. The paint on it weighs as much as the rocket itself, so that could be an interesting flight. :cool:

Weather permitting... Supposed to be raining here tomorrow. Never know until it starts, though...

I have a number of "maiden flights" to put up...

ESTES: Screamer, Sparrow, Lucky Seven, Eclipse
QUEST: Falcon
SEMROC: Astro-1, Micron, Astrobee 350
BARCLONE: Blue Sneek
CENTURI: Payloader

I also want to fly the OT again, now that I have the right motors and the glider has been re-weighted.

Craig McGraw

[Tweener]

Well, it's tomorrow now, and the wind is so high here it would rip a kite to shreds. I still only have two launchable rockets, and the AstroCam 110 is out for sure. I may manage a couple shots with the Cruise Missle RTF, just to get the WOOOSH rush. :D

[stefanj]

My new ORACLE arrived yesterday. I assembled the rocket last night and tested the camera this morning.

Besides testing the Oracle video cam, this was the first test of my home-brew ultra-portable PVC tripod.*

I stowed my laptop and a shoebox with a bare-minimum launch supplies in my trunk, and after a stop by the dog park went to my place of work. There's a nice school field next door, and I had to go to the office anyway to pick up a launch system**.

Everything went fine. A family playing baseball didn't have a problem with my launching. The rocket flew fine, and I was able to pack up and get the camera back to the car within ten minutes. I saved the video, viewed it from hard disk to make sure it played, and headed home.

[CPMcGraw]

Weather permitting... Supposed to be raining here tomorrow. Never know until it starts, though...

Well, the rain held off, but the winds picked up between noon and 5 PM, which was my scrub hour. :( Rain is expected tomorrow, now, due to that tropical wave off the east coast... :( :(

Maybe I can get some flying time Monday, now that all the kiddies are away from the school. :rolleyes: The local grade school is being renovated again this year, likely delayed due to Ivan last year, so there's still some activity in the building. Just not (AFAIK) "summer school".

Realized I still had not flown a rebuilt Estes Calypso, so that one will get inserted into the flying list.

Craig

[Tweener]

Well, it's tomorrow now, and the wind is so high here it would rip a kite to shreds. I still only have two launchable rockets, and the AstroCam 110 is out for sure. I may manage a couple shots with the Cruise Missle RTF, just to get the WOOOSH rush. :D
Things improved! I flew the Cruise Missle once and the AstroCam 110 six times (sort of). The third launch of the AstroCam returned a launch vehicle and chute only. The cone / camera had broken free of the shock cord. A short search later and I had all the parts back except the shutter spring. So I went home, lengthened the shock cord (darn Estes ejection charges!) :mad: , and put the film cartridge into my old (string shutter release) AstroCam. After advancing the film a few frames to be sure of being past the exposed section, I went out and got in three more perfect launches.

If I remember right, the old instructions had a short length of shock cord on the chute which connected right on the cone's screw eye. There was a second shock cord on the screw eye that connected the camera and launch vehicle. This would be better because the most common cord break is between the cone and launch vehicle, and at least the cone would recover okay. (I think that's what happened to my old launch vehicle.) Better yet, maybe I'll just keep them completely separate and go with two chutes.

[barone]

The instructions show a doubled shock cord (one end of a 12" shock cord tied to the opposite end) threaded through the screw eye on the camera and then the parachute tied (or looped through) that shock cord. A second shock cord is tied to the screw eye and attached to the rocket. If you elect to use two parachutes, I'd suggest using a smaller one on the camera. I used the 12" chute (provided with the kit) and watched my camera float away when the shock cord broke between the camera and rocket.......last seen headed for the swamp......alligator bait.......if it made it out of the trees.......never made a trip back in......

[A Fish Named Wallyum]

I must be getting old. I arrived at the VOA field before noon yesterday to find that they had just finished setting up for a competition that had been arranged so that we get some pre-NARAM set-up experience. I volunteered to work the west theodolite since I wasn't planning on being a part of the competition. Big mistake. I wound up stuck out in the weeds for two hours getting baked by the sun in 95+ heat. I hadn't taken my water jug with me, and by the time I got the chance to get back to it, it was too late. I sat down and hit the water hard, but I just kept feeling worse. I flew my USS Atlantis cluster and the Semroc Taurus, but I noticed that the field kept swimming in and out of focus as I walked after the rockets on recovery. After recovering the Taurus I started to work on the Thunder Roc to get it ready for it's first flight, but midway through the process I realized that I wasn't going to get any better and if anything was starting to feel worse. Lots worse. I packed up and was on my way home by 2:30. What a waste. Two flights on a day when my wife and kids were out of town and I had nothing to do but fly. How often does that happen? The only good things were the two flights, both of which were impressive, and the fact that I now know how to track a competition bird.

[rmmcdaniell]

I feel your pain. Yesterday reminded me how the sun can make launching rockets less fun.

When I go by myself to fly rockets, I almost always do it either early in the morning or about two hours before it gets dark. Club launches are always during the middle of the day.

At the GSSS launch I attended yesterday I had fun but not nearly as much fun as when the sun isn't beating down on you. I was there for 2 1/2 hours and got sunburned as I forgot the sunblock at home. Furthurmore, tracking the rockets is 10x more difficult when that sun is right over head and it really takes the joy out of watching them go up. I lost two yesterday when the rockets crossed right in front of the sun on thier way down and never saw where they landed.