Painfully short launch - B6-4 Field - May 2, 2020
 

Short in that it was only two flights, painful in that, well, read on...….
Saturday was beautiful here, sunny from the start with early morning temps in the low 70's and little to no wind. I'd prepped a box of birds on Friday and had 24 that I planned to try to fly starting at 10:30am, but the field was in use when I arrived. I had grass to cut, so I went home and knocked out the yard. Somehow I still had energy to think about flying, so I returned to the field 3:30ish. Now it was overcast and gusty, but I decided to give it a try.
First flight was the Estes Patriarch, an RTF that I'd picked up for $.89 a few years back specifically to use as a wind test bird. B6-4 flight was arrow straight to 250-300', but immediately upon ejection it headed for US 27. The chute was not unfurling, but the winds aloft must have been pretty strong because it was moving at a rapid clip. Missed the lone remaining tree, the wires, and US 27, but came to rest on the sidewalk of the medical building across the street. Broke off a fin tip, but $.89, you know?

Flight #2 was the painful part. I figured I'd be safe with some draggy, lower level stuff, so I pulled out the Estes DOM Orbital Transport Laboratory that I'd just finished. A8-3 flight, so it seemed it would have been safe. Things looked great at first, the flight was as arrow straight as the Patriarch, but it also recovered like the Patriarch. It raced toward the tree, the wires and the road, clearing the first two, but the chute was taking it down right into oncoming traffic. It cleared the first vehicle, but the second one caught it at 35mph. They never touched the brakes. I safed the pad and headed up to see the damage. The collision with the car had knocked all of the fins off. They were spread out near the intersection. The body had landed in the northbound lane and the chute had dragged it through the oncoming cars. One of them caught it full near the edge of the road. Completely flattened it. The nose cone and chute were perfectly fine. I waited at the field for the car to come back, but they never did, which leads me to believe that they didn't even feel/hear the collision. Anyway, back to the drawing board on this one. Luckily I still have all the patterns and templates down on the desk.

Too bad about the Transport. It's fortunate the nose survived. The rest looks easy to replicate.

Ouch, Bill. You've created a new term with that last launch: rocket road kill. At least, it's the first time I've ever seen it.

Earl

Ughhh.
That's a bummer about the orbital Laboratory. At least it did not have a finish other than white yet.

At least you didn't spend all evening cutting trees out of roads and off other people's houses while ignoring your own mess. At the rate things are going here with storms, I'll soon be living on a prairie...without moving!

True. It was also far from perfect. I reprinted the nozzles using the payloadbay.com transition tool, never figuring that the reason the first one didn't quite fit was because it was supposed to be glued to a centering ring. I faked it the best I could from there, but I'd planned to redo it correctly after the flight. Now I REALLY get to redo it. :chuckle:

Yeah, I'm not the least be bummed. Just glad the car it hit wasn't damaged. Balsa and scrap BT-60 are cheap. ;-)
Just out of curiosity, what does the 442 stand for?

I've seen several others get run down on access roads and small country byways. Considering all the years that I've flown next to a major US highway, I'm not doing bad at all. Once in 43 years. :cool:

I've been watching the weather down your way with my daughter in Nashville. She's just starting to realize how good things were in Fort Thomas.