November 2002 launch report (11/30/2002)
Blown away !
On Saturday, November 23, MASA-ites and guests gathered for
the last launch of the year at the soccer fields near Elk River.
A big thanks to:
- Lee Frisvold for volunteering to be launch director for this
event.
A few of the flights:
MASA members - please send in your thoughts about the
launch!
Lee Frisvold writes:
The Nov launch day started with a pretty good wind that gusted
around 15mph. The hard core people showed up - 9 in total.
We launched 5 racks with 21 flights and 2 misfires. The spot
landing contest was open to any rocket with any motor due to the
wind and # of people that showed up. Mike Erpelding brought a
300ft measuring tape to help measure the distances (thanks Mike).
The way the wind was blowing, we may have needed it. We had eleven
competition flights with Mike Erpelding winning at a distance of
57ft. Second place went to a father Ken Paulsen and his kids
Matt&Emmy with a rocket they borrowed from the Lentz's at 63ft
edging me out by 1.5ft (ouch)! I talked to Mike to see if it
mattered if I gave the rocket kit to the Paulsen's and he would
get the motors and he said it didn't matter (thanks Mike).
The Skywinder drag race was left to mine only as Ellison's fell
apart before it he could put a motor in. (Hmm) <grin>
I won the drag race with a C6-3, which was the largest motor used
at this launch. Glen also launched a rocket with a C6-3 and it
almost floated to Hwy 101. I almost lost 2 rockets not from
floating away from going too high but after it landed the wind
blew it away.
Highlights :
Mike Erpelding's Heliroc that did numerous flips. Stuart Lenz's
AMRAAM that went maybe 50ft and then came down ejected the chute
at about 20ft. Ken/Matt/Emmy Paulsen's Masa special that floated
at apogee for a couple of seconds before the ejection charge blew
the nose cone and lastly the usual Lenz flights that flipped or
barely made it off the pad.<double grin>. I want to thank
Ellison for helping me LCO and lastly Stuart, Ellison, Mike, Glen
and David in helping me setup and tear down the equipment. We
launched our last rocket at about 11:45 and were all cleaned up by
noon.
Now we are ready for the winter launches - hopefully the wind
will be low and the sun will be bright.
Stuart Lenz writes:
The day dawned crisp and clear and the rockets started flying
around 1000 A.M. By noon, the wind had picked up and after the
wind sock blew over we wound up the launch. There were ~9 people
present and about 25 flights, most of which participated in the
precision landing. This was quite a challenge with the
increasing wind. The largest engine was a C6-5 by Glen with A and
B by the rest of the group. Fun was had by all and now we are
ready for our Winter launches, weather in the high 30's will seem
warm by January/Febuary.
The Details:
Full launch tally (in
Adobe Acrobat PDF form, requires version 4 or newer of the Acrobat
reader)
The totals were: 22 flights, 22 motors. The
cumulative total impulse was 106 Ns with an average total impulse of
4.8 Ns. The motor breakdown follows:
|
Type |
# Burned |
| MicroMaxx |
0 |
|
1/4A |
0 |
|
1/2A |
0 |
|
A |
5 |
|
B |
15 |
|
C |
2 |
|
D |
0 |
|
E |
0 |
|
F |
0 |
|
G |
0 |
|
H |
0 |
(Alan Estenson)
|
