The Olympic Peninsula 4-H Rocket Club hosted their 'Pasture Blaster' event this weekend (08/24-26) I decided to head over, since I was suffering from severe black powder withdrawal symptoms. This event is a FAR 101/Class 1 only event with a Ceiling of 3000 feet, so no big stuff, but my fleet contains number of class 1 builds I’ve put together and had not flown yet.

The first thing I put on the pad was my Estes Patriot, which I had modified to fly on E impulse engines instead of D. This flight was on an Estes E9-6 and went perfect! The Patriot made a very straight flight. There was no altitude tracking, but I was amazed at how high it went. It also came down nice with only about a 50 yard walk for retrieval.

Next up was my Semroc Omega. Engine selection was a D12-0 in the booster, and an E9-6 in the sustainer. I replaced the stock chute with a bright orange 15” nylon chute I picked up from the onsite vendor. I didn’t want to lose this rocket and this added some visibility. The flight was fairly straight, and HIGH however there was some weather ****ing to the north and east as the wind was now starting to come up. The rocket then drifted in the upper level winds to the south and I had to hike several hundred yards and cross a couple fences before spotting that bright orange chute. No video cam on this one, so I had placed a 1oz fishing weight into the Payload bay and packed it with Dog Barf to prevent it from moving around too much in flight. This may have been a mistake, as the nose came off at ejection, and the weight and nose cone were lost in flight. I’ll have to contact Carl and get a replacement or two.

The wind was now fairly constant, so I decided to hold off on the larger stuff and launched a few smaller birds on A’s, including my Semroc Mark, and a Lil Ivan. At least with only A’s in them they should stay on the field.

Because of the over-sized launch lug on the Mark, they had me launch it from the ¼ inch pad normally reserved for the Mid Power birds.

Ivan broke a fin on landing and will require some repair. It was more like separation at the joint rather than a break, so it should be an easy fix.

In the early afternoon the wind died down so I decided to try my hand at the NAR spot landing competition. I put a 1/2A3-2 into my Mini-Red-Max, and at first it it was going exactly as I wanted, but just before landing it caught some wind and ended up 37 meters from the pin. Oh well… maybe next time.

By 4pm the wind was almost gone, and I had two more rockets I wanted to put in air.
First came the Estes QCC Explorer on another E9-6. It flew high,straight, true, and landed only a few feet from the pad, no walk needed!

That only encouraged me, so I grabbed the Estes Pro-Series-II Leviathan. Only an hour earlier launching it would have been unthinkable. I decided to put a F50T in it. It flew a lot higher than I thought, but it was straight and true, touching down only about 75 yards from the pad. Best of all it came back without a scratch.

After the successful flight with the F50, a decision was made; but first I had to make sure it was going to be possible. I checked the rules, and yes, a NAR Level 1 certification was possible under FAR 101 class 1 rules. I could not use the rocket I had built for this, as it exceeded the maximum weight for FAR 101. However the Leviathan would meet the rules, and could take the the necessary engine.

Since I had assembled a Mad-Cow Cowabunga for this attempt, I had originally planned on using a 38mm engine. I checked with the onsite vendor, and we decided to go with a Cessaroni H90, however he did not have the correct casing, but he did know someone onsite that did have one. The 77 gram propellant weight put it within FAR 101 rules. A few minutes later I had assembled my engine in a borrowed 29mm 3 grain casing, and trimmed down the delay to 10 seconds.

The person I borrowed the case from agreed to be one of the two witnesses, and the engine vendor the second. The rocket was inspected and determined to be up to the job. Even the RSO agreed that the Leviathan seemed to be quite sturdy and approved the launch. I was very nervous as the LCO announced the Certification attempt. Would I ever see my Leviathan again? The rocket flew fairly straight, a bit to the east as pretty much everything was today. It went totally out of sight for a few seconds, until deployment…. What beautiful sight! The chute, deployed perfectly, and the rocket slowly glided down to a soft landing. We did have to hike a couple hundred yards to retrieve it, but that was the best hike of the day.

Final inspection… the rocket was in perfect shape. A minor scratch in the paint where it rubbed on some scrub brush when it hit the ground, but otherwise ready for another launch!

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Member: Washington Aerospace Club NAR Section #578
NAR #94383
TRA #15009
HPR Level 2

And a couple of hours later, after dinner, I, too certified level 1 with my Estes Leviathan....which is pretty much stock and built entirely with Elmer's white glue (except for the epoxy holding that lovely plastic threaded motor retainer in). It weighs just under 22 ounces sans motor.

I opted for a CTI H87 Imax motor with the delay set to 9 seconds. Gorgeous straight up flight and not quite as long a walk as RWW's. The Pnut reported 2339 and a look at the data later last evening showed the delay was a bit long...but going to 7 would've been too short.

In any event, successful recovery and no damage. Now I can fly those over-80N-average-thrust Gs I have - legally .

Oh - and RWW's QCC Explorer is something to see...it's gorgeous.

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Bernard Cawley
NAR 89040 L1 - Life Member
SAM 0061
AMA 42160
KG7AIE