Well the moon, sun and stars all lined up and I was able to have a full day of flying my rockets in So. Calif. First I would like to thank DART of San Diego for obtaining the permit, Thanks Mike. So the night before I packed my wadding and powdered my chutes and drove 60 miles to Fiesta Island. I flew all a lot of my vintage rockets, no clones and only stopped because the wind picked up. It has been a while since I flew some of my rockets. First off I am amazed with how all these rockets did, some of the kits are from the 70's. They are built per the instructions with no modifications other than brand new Estes Rubber shock cords and new 1/4 inch tape disks. I flew all these rockets with no problems other than almost loosing my Mid 70's Omega and Alpha. I also had a lot of fun using my old vintage launch systems. Sorry about the pictures, we are working on taking better pictures with our Canon SLR, need to buy a bigger lens. Someone asked me if launching was the best part of rocketry. I told them I am crazy because the best part is ripping into an old Estes bag and laying out the parts. Now I have to spend all day cleaning the sand out of the rockets.

Here is the Solar Flare, flew with B6-0 and A10-3T. Launch was perfect and second stage went off perfect. Neat little flier.



Next is the Orbital Transporter vintage version with balsa nose cones. This one flew real nice, the shuttle was blown around a bit by the wind. C6-5



Here is the original Interceptor, flew real nice and looks good in the air. My GF snapped a nice picture of the rocket landing. By the way she was amazed these rockets are older than she is. C6-5

Here is the Omega, I should have used the Big Foot pad for this, but the Ol Centuri power pad did just find. This rocket flew a lot higher than I thought it would. It took me an hour to find it. Thank god for the Estes Orange Chute. When I built this rocket people warned me about the second stage not igniting. I built it per the plans and had no issues. D12-5 D12-0



Here is the Wolverine, this is another people warned me about. I had no issues with it flying unstable. It did float a long way with a 10 inch chute. A10-3T



The Teros flew real nice and had no problems. B6-4


The Sandpiper is a nice looking bird taking off. B6-4

The Bat flew nice and came straight down with the Crepe streamer. B6-4



The Manta Bomber was a successful flight. I still have the original I built back in the mid 80s. I did not fly it yesterday but I flew it several months back......I must have flown that bird over 20 times and the old recovery system is still doing well. B6-4



The Condor flew nice, but once again the little glider was blown around by the winds. A3-4T



The Alien Invader makes for a nice picture. C6-5

Of course my Favorite rocket The Der Red Max. Flew real nice and looks good sitting on the pad. C6-5



The Goblin went real high and of course I lost track of it. The D engine really sends this bird up there. The streamer does help with the rocket coming down. D12-7

The Colonial Viper, this is probably my expensive rocket that I launched, goes for over 100 dollars on Ebay. I have collected 3 of these birds. This rocket flew real nice and have some pictures of the recovery. C6-5







The mini shuttle,,,,flew nice comes down a little too fast with the small streamer. B4-4

The Gyroc, this is a neat little rocket. I was curious to see the recovery system on this, I heard it just becomes an erratic flier and darts into the ground. I must say this is not true. This rocket flew nice and straight and the recovery was a slow spinning towards the ground. A8-3



The final rocket is the Classic Estes Alpha. This bird was flown on a C6-5 and I lost track of it. This one drifted along way and took awhile to chase down.

Beautiful David!

Love them pics.

Oh, and those smoke trail shots..... just lovely (just kidding)

__________________
Leo

My rocket fleet and more @ Leo's Leisure Site and on YouTube - My latest project: ALTDuino

My poor girlfriend had a hard time trying to get the perfect shots of the rockets taking off.

Heck, she got more rockets in the picture than I could ever get. And I would guess she got a kick out of the days event

__________________
Leo

My rocket fleet and more @ Leo's Leisure Site and on YouTube - My latest project: ALTDuino

We will probably buy a larger lens so we can get some recovery pictures.