Just wanted to pass on a success story from yesterday's NIRA launch. It was a BEAUTIFUL October day in Chicago, but for unknown reasons (perhaps every one was at home looking for the Cubs game on TV) we only had about half a dozen of the NIRA regulars at the launch. But we had LOTS of new folks who had a great time.
One group was a bunch of Cub Scouts. I checked them out and found they had ordered a bulk pack of FlisKits Rinos over the net. 10 kids must have made 3 flights each. They all had a GREAT time, and really liked their rockets. What they got was definitely more substantial than the typical Bandit or RTF junk from you-know-who. The only damage was from one dad stepping on the fins of one rocket, repaired with some CA and flown again. The kids and the parents were all very happy.
So thanks to Jim and Brian at FlisKits for making this happen.
[Disclaimer. Jim and Brian are old friends of mine. But the cub scouts didn't know them at all and were VERY happy with their rockets.]Aside from my Happy Meal, I was mostly buring up motors that lose certification at the end of the year. I've got a large supply of A10-0Ts, so flew as many food containers, CDs, etc that I could. I have some old Quest C6-7s, and remember why I stopped flying them. Both catoed!
But the neatest flight I made was my second of the day. A local home store had a blow molded Haloween lawn ornament ghost for 7.99. I was disappointed, as the ad showed it as a green alien looking thing, but it's just a ghost with green lights. I may "convert" it to an alien, but for now a ghost is fine. Converted it over the past couple weeks, used hot melt to attach clear Lexan fins, cut off the head to allow for ejection, and ran a 29mm MMT /
56mm chute tube through the middle. Flown on an F62-4 it went perfectly straight up and ejected right at apogee. Now I'm ready for those kids a week from Friday! I'll see if I can get photos from Ric Gaff on the NIRA web site.My daughter made 4 flights, including her brand new Super Eagle, which is a couple inches taller than she is. All flew well. And she burned up 2 more of my A10-0Ts.
We also had 2 schools registered for the TAC come out and make test flights. One was a repeat from last year, and made several good flights. The other was out for the first time, and were from my old high school! They too made a qualified flight although they didn't know how good as they didn't have their altimeter. Both were 4xD12 boosters; one with a D12 sustainer, the other with 2xC6. The experienced team had one flight where one booster motor failed to ignite, and the second stage ignition back-lit the motor, producing a spectacular tumbling flaming booster. Fortunately it burned out before landing in the dry grass.
Bob Kaplow NAR # 18L TRA # "Impeach the TRA BoD" >>> To reply, remove the TRABoD!