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June 2004 launch report (6/26/2004)
A bit breezy, but what the heck...
On Saturday, June 26th, many MASA members journeyed to the
Elk River VFW for the monthly launch. This launch marked
MASA's first official NAR section contest with Mike Erpelding
serving as Contest Director. Temperatures were comfortable
with partly-cloudy skies and a slightly annoying breeze out of the
NW.
NAR-sanctioned Section Contest; Events were: A boost
glide (A BG), A streamer duration (A SD), B parachute duration (B
PD)
A HUGE thanks to Mike not only for hauling a whole pickup-load
of equipment, but also for serving as CD, bringing cake & soda,
and having "door prize" drawings for a couple rocket kits!
Photos on this web page are courtesy of Russ Durkee.
Thanks Russ!
A few of the flights:
MASA members - please send in your thoughts about the
launch!
Ted Cochran writes:
What a cool day to be out launching! It's been a long time
since I've had time to spend 5 hours at a launch....
Thanks to Mike for arranging the NAR Competition. I'd forgotten
how much fun (and excitement, and frustration... -) can be had.
Also thanks for bringing the cake!
There was pretty much a steady stream of launches, not all of
them contest launches.
Stuart Lenz' 5 minute plus parachute flight was easily the
highlight of the day, I think. A pity we aren't allowed to use
binoculars when timing, or we'd have seen it go another 5
minutes... I was amazed at how much better all the PD rockets were
when the sun (and thermals) were out...it was like night and day.
On the sport range, there was a nice Geminee flight, an
interesting two stage embedded rocket (alas, the top
stage...didn't), at least one gutsy flight on an F motor, and
Ellison's Deltie Thunder flight on a C which had just enough room
to pull up. Paul, did your six-pack-with-a-stick thingee fly OK?
I'm sorry I missed it--it looked, well, different -).
I managed to get 6 competition flights in (five of which were
qualified, and most of those were pretty decent). The (redesigned
and rebuilt) streaming broadband bodyless streamer rocket worked,
but I only had a 2" x 20' streamer on it. Now to find some
8" mylar in 20 foot lengths -) I also got to fly one sport
launch--the Kosrox Mars Lander, which blew out a parachute and
landed hard but with easily repairable damage to a leg.
Seth had a little less luck. His Deltie pod was somewhat
misaligned, which resulted in the rocket exhaust completely
burning through the center strut of the glider, which nevertheless
flew, sort of. He got two streamer duration flights in--the first
separated, and the second sort of exploded when the streamer (or
wadding) jammed at the top of the BT and the lariat-looped and
taped motor didn't come out the back, either. The fins all popped
off, and the body tube was split up both seams from one end to the
other. At least some of the streamer got out, but it was a fairly
short flight.
Prang award nomination to the motor that flew through the
rocket; at least I think that's what all that noise and spinning
flame and smoke was all about....
The folks that weren't there missed a terrific day!
Mike Erpelding writes:
It was a great day for flying rockets! Grand total we had 61
sport flights and 56 contest flights. There were a total of 20 B
motors burned in the B Parachute Duration event and 44 various A
motors and two 1/2 A motors were used in A Streamer Duration and A
Boost Glider Duration.
I set up the launch range in the standard contest circle.
We operated the range like it was a rack system. Normally in
contests, the range is usually open. Members adjacent to a pad
about to be launched, usually step back for a while. It is always
a good practice to look up and watch the launch, even if you're a
long way from the pad being launched. To help prevent confusion
with all of these new changes already, we would close the range
each time it was full. The day went by extremely fast!
Here are the final results from Contest Manager program. All of
the times are in seconds. Seth Cochran was the only NAR B division
competitor who entered the contest, so he was combined with C
division. The only other young person who entered the contest was
Justin Nelson in non-NAR A division. Justin was combined with non-NAR
C division also. A printed copy of the contest results and any
ribbons won will be mailed out to each competitor the first part
of next week. ( They just need to be weighed for postage.)
|
NAR Meet Champions |
| Place |
Contestant |
Total Points |
| B Division |
|
|
1 |
Cochran, Seth |
26 |
| C Division |
|
| 1 |
Cochran, Ted |
236 |
| 2 |
Lenz, Stuart |
188 |
| 3 |
Whitaker, David |
148 |
| 4 |
Estenson, Alan |
96 |
| 5 |
Jarosch, Kenneth |
64 |
| 6 |
Grimm, Lee |
58 |
| 7 |
Nelson, Mark |
16 |
| 8 |
Schwartz, Larry |
8 |
| B Parachute Duration (NAR) |
| Place |
Contestant |
Flight 1 |
Flight 2 |
Total |
NAR Points |
| C Division |
|
|
|
|
| 1 |
Lenz, Stuart |
281 |
14 |
295 |
80 |
| 2 |
Cochran, Ted |
72 |
149 |
221 |
48 |
| 3 |
Whitaker, David |
138 |
49 |
187 |
32 |
| 4 |
Jarosch, Kenneth |
98 |
41 |
139 |
16 |
| 5 |
Estenson, Alan |
88 |
32 |
120 |
8 |
| 6 |
Grimm, Lee |
21 |
86 |
107 |
8 |
| 7 |
Nelson, Mark |
32 |
30 |
62 |
8 |
| A Streamer Duration (NAR) |
| Place |
Contestant |
Flight 1 |
Flight 2 |
Total |
NAR Points |
| B Division |
|
|
|
|
| 7 |
Cochran, Seth |
DQ |
12 |
12 |
8 |
| C Division |
|
|
|
|
| 1 |
Whitaker, David |
146 |
61 |
207 |
80 |
| 2 |
Jarosch, Kenneth |
31 |
56 |
87 |
48 |
| 3 |
Grimm, Lee |
33 |
DQ |
33 |
32 |
| 4 |
Estenson, Alan |
13 |
17 |
30 |
16 |
| 5 |
Cochran, Ted |
26 |
DQ |
26 |
8 |
| 6 |
Nelson, Mark |
15 |
- |
15 |
8 |
| 8 |
Schwartz, Larry |
6 |
- |
6 |
8 |
| - |
Lenz, Stuart |
DQ |
DQ |
0 |
0 |
| A Boost Glider Duration (NAR) |
| Place |
Contestant |
Flight 1 |
Flight 2 |
Total |
NAR Points |
| B Division |
|
|
|
|
| 6 |
Cochran, Seth |
29 |
- |
29 |
18 |
| C Division |
|
|
|
|
| 1 |
Cochran, Ted |
46 |
145 |
191 |
180 |
| 2 |
Lenz, Stuart |
34 |
51 |
85 |
108 |
| 3 |
Estenson, Alan |
24 |
34 |
58 |
72 |
| 4 |
Whitaker, David |
26 |
27 |
53 |
36 |
| 5 |
Grimm, Lee |
47 |
- |
47 |
18 |
|
NON-NAR Meet Champions |
| Place |
Contestant |
Total Points |
| A Division |
|
|
1 |
Nelson, Justin |
80 |
| C Division |
|
| 1 |
Myers, Jim |
112 |
| 2 |
Frisvold, Lee |
96 |
| 3 |
Jarosch, Paul |
48 |
| B Parachute Duration (NON-NAR) |
| Place |
Contestant |
Flight 1 |
Flight 2 |
Total |
Points |
| A Division |
|
|
|
|
| 2 |
Nelson, Justin |
35 |
48 |
83 |
48 |
| C Division |
|
|
|
|
| 1 |
Frisvold, Lee |
41 |
78 |
119 |
80 |
| 3 |
Myers, Jim |
80 |
DQ |
80 |
32 |
| A Streamer Duration (NON-NAR) |
| Place |
Contestant |
Flight 1 |
Flight 2 |
Total |
Points |
| A Division |
|
|
|
|
| 3 |
Nelson, Justin |
21 |
11 |
32 |
32 |
| C Division |
|
|
|
|
| 1 |
Myers, Jim |
24 |
67 |
91 |
80 |
| 2 |
Jarosch, Paul |
DQ |
46 |
46 |
48 |
| 4 |
Frisvold, Lee |
12 |
15 |
27 |
16 |
| A Boost Glider Duration
(NON-NAR) |
| Place |
Contestant |
Flight 1 |
Flight 2 |
Total |
Points |
| C Division |
|
|
|
|
| - |
Myers, Jim |
6 |
5 |
11 |
0 |
I brought a birthday cake and a few kinds of pop along to the
launch for a treat, since Wednesday will be my birthday. The other
surprise was an idea that I got from Lee. For something different,
we had a small raffle for three rocket kits that I donated.
The winners were
- Jim Strong - Estes Wizard
- Paul Jarosch- Estes Yankee
- Brett McDowel- FlisKits OverDrive
The raffle went over well. I think we should do it again in the
future.
I hope everyone had fun today!
Ken Jarosch writes:
Sport Launch
Paul flew his Cruise Missile twice on A3-4T's with good
flights. He then tried his Wacky Wiggler on a C6-5 which flew to
about half the max. height when it got hit by a wind blast and
loosened the parts. The rest of the flight was a tight corkscrew
before ejection. Even though this rocket falls dead pan it still
drifted to the fence line. The second flight he used a B6-4.
My only sport flight was one junkyard rocket called the Borg
(tube) Cube. It consists of 9 toilet paper tubes and a weight of
0.40 oz. out on a 3/16" rod as a moment arm. This was it's
4th. solid flight after 3 modifications. It rose straight and fast
on a C5-3 with little forward air resistance due to the open
tubes. It did wind cock a little and the chute was somewhat burned
together.
Contest Launch
While I don't have many contest rockets per se, I did try
several 10-12 year old high performance and 2nd stage
rockets. Paul started with an old 2nd stage called the Cloud
Buster II on a A8-5. We have use this for years with great
reliability. It flew in April at Rockford. It uses a old 5x50
condenser paper streamer. For some reason the clasp tore open on
ejection costing Paul this flight. For his second attempt he used
a modified High Flier from Estes. This flew with a A8-5 and a 5x50
tracing paper streamer. This drifted over to the second fence line
by the road. Paul skipped the B PD because he wasn't feeling all
that well.
I started with a HP "C" rocket on a A3-4T and a 4x40
streamer. The streamer had taken a set an did not open well for
the first flight. I counter wound the flat section of the streamer
and tried it again on a A3-4T. This time all went well and it
drifted to the fence again.
All I had was light rockets so I knew anything flown on a B
motor was gone for good. But wanting to try out a High Flier mod.
rocket on a B6-6 I removed the full 22" chute and replaced it
with beat up 12" Estes chute. This ultra light rocket with
very thin fins really went up there. It was lost across the
road. In order to meet the requirement that one rocket has to be
returned , I took a large streamer and D12-7 out of my D SD rocket
and put in a 12" Estes chute. With an adaptor I used a B6-2
motor for a medium height flight and return.
If the winds hadn't been so high I would have liked to try some
of the old rockets with 24" and 30" chutes that I had
along.
The Details:
Full launch tally (in
Adobe Acrobat PDF form, requires version 4 or newer of the Acrobat
reader)
The totals were: 117 flights, 118 motors. The
cumulative total impulse was 902 Ns with an average total impulse of
7.6 Ns. The motor breakdown follows:
|
Type |
# Burned |
| MicroMaxx |
0 |
|
1/4A |
0 |
|
1/2A |
3 |
|
A |
42 |
|
B |
32 |
|
C |
27 |
|
D |
11 |
|
E |
1 |
|
F |
2 |
|
G |
0 |
|
H |
0 |
(Alan Estenson)
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