Saturday's Fiesta Island launch was just another crummy day in paradise. The San Diego morning weather was foggy, but it slowly cleared, as predicted.
His most excellent Se=F1or El President=E9 for Life had a cold and could not attend. There's always something, you know.
Fortunately, DART number 2 took charge and strictly enforced the new regime, keeping us on half-hour on and half-hour on schedule. John also limited us to A and B impulse for the first half-hour to keep us out of low hanging clouds. John did a good job, though he could work on the introductory speech. (No one gives the introductory safety speech at a rocket launch as well as El President=E9. We should record him the next time he gives it.) However, the DART organization clearly demonstrated that it has depth in its leadership at this launch.
A large crowd attended the launch. The flight line was two cars deep. A traffic jam forced me to arrive late, so I parked on one end of the line. There were so many cars, I didn't see Paul Snow test the Delta staging on the other end of the line. I've been working with Paul and other volunteers to get the Delta ready for Plaster Blaster. After paying my respects to Amida Buddha Sunday morning, I plan to join Paul and his team again.
I launched 5 different rockets 7 times. 5 flights were successful.
My big success was a Mylar=99 streamer I found in a party store. Twelve feet long and 4.5 inches wide, it's ideal to return sport rockets. It flew 3 times on two different rockets. Even on a foggy day one could read the slogan printed on it, "Welcome Home." How appropriate for a returning rocket? Not bad for a for only a buck!
Loads of fun!
The latest addition to my rocket collection, a "School Rocket" from Balsa Machining Service, had a strange failure. The ejection charge blew the soft balsa nosecone apart. Has anyone else ever had this failure? Did I have too tight a fit to the body tube? I don't think so. It could be that I had a Kevlar=99 string wedged between the body tube and the nosecone. A Kevlar=99 string broke, and pieces of the nosecone returned on the "Welcome Home" streamer, leaving the School Rocket to hit the sand hard. The rocket survived the hard landing without a scratch, anyway. School rocket is a tough little design, with through-the-wall fins, just like the high power rockets..
The other failure was a parachute deployment on my Astron Drifter clone. I've got to watch for tangles in shroud lines when I pack parachutes. Fortunately, I specified basswood for the wild, long and thin fins of this classic Estes rocket. It survived the landing. Like the School Rocket, it will fly again.
Lessons learned!
-.-. --.- Roger Coppock