May 2010 launch report (5/22/2010)
On Saturday, May 22nd, MASA held its fourth launch of
2010. It was held at the sod fields near Nowthen.
This was a case of the weather forecast being completely wrong...
There were various special events planned for the day (Birdie
drag race, HPR Cert Day, HPR "Smack-down"). Ultimately, none
of them were able to happen.
The crew was on site at 8am to begin setting up the launch range.
The forecast had called for mostly-sunny skies with increasing winds
out of the SSE. In actuality, the skies were overcast, the air
was damp, and the winds were light and variable. The range
opened for flying at 9am, and rockets immediately began taking to
the skies. A number of people started working on prepping for
their planned cert flights. About 10:30, a few rain drops
began to fall. The rain became steadier, the winds picked up,
and there was lightning off in the distance. At 11am, the
launch was officially declared as done for the day. Everyone
scurried around in the rain, gathering up all the wet and muddy
equipment, packing up their belongings, and heading home. A
few hours later, the sun and the stiff winds both finally appeared.
Oh well. There will be nice days to fly rockets. We
just need to be patient.
A big thanks to everyone who got soaked and muddy picking up and
packing up all the equipment!
A total of 36 flights were recorded on motors
ranging from A to J.
A few of the flights:
MASA members - please send in your thoughts about the
launch!
Art Gibbens writes:
Just wanted to say thanx for ALL the attention as I assembled
my motor under Carol's pop-up canopy.
Seriously.
Really, I mean it.
I mean, where else can an "almost ready to launch to certify"
guy go to have so much fun with so many fellow rocketeers under
one canopy while still getting wet? :-)
I know there will be other days to certify and I'll
eventually "get 'er done." Thanx for all the encouragement!
My neighbor Blake and his son Wyatt had a blast too, even
though they didn't fly their rockets. Way impressed with the
big-loud one.
Thanx to all that helped pick up the range in the rain (after
the lightning had subsided).
Ken Jarosch writes:
We planned for a very limited time frame with windy
conditions. Also the theme was odd-rocs. That naturally leads to
the Art AppleWhite Collection in my case. Paul was burning up BP
motors.
With the above in mind, Friday I loaded up various BP motors in
the rockets. I also pre-assembled 4 AP RMS motors one F and 3
G's. This saves all that time on the field when you are counting
seconds. I also had the Flight Cards made out at home, another
time saver.
Saturday morning while checking the winds for the day we watched
in surprise as a huge front moved across the Western MN border
towards St Cloud with expectations of ELk River around 10:30+-.
We checked the email thinking this might be cancelled because of
all that was riding on the Certs. before we drove up there.
Paul works nights so he loaded the car at 5:00. I was up at 6:00
and we were on the road at 7:25. Paul and I got there at 8:30 or
so.
We immediately set up two pads for one controller. We leap
frogged our flights back to back never missing a beat. ANd with
the very excellent RSO/LCO job by Neal Higgins it went like
clock work. The first 45-60 minutes we had the field all alone.
So here's Paul's tally.
1) Plastique Boink A8-3
2) FootBall Boink A10-3T (Required flight)
3) Cato Rocket /Troll C6-0
4) Wacky Wiggler B6-4
5) Tri-Vor-Tex / Troll on a chute 3X A10-3T
6) Fun Noodle C6-3 you have to see it. Long Green Foam Noodle.
It goes up with pop off fin cage and the foam floats back down
He has it perfectly balanced so it comes down flat.
My tally.
1) Yellow Ultra-Delta Saucer - Infamous Quest D5-4. All Paper
saucer arced over under thrust into ground. 4th try, one was ok.
Very regressive motor not for high drag rockets. No more.
2) Hour Glass E9-4 Straight climb with tumble ascent at end
burn.
3) The SnowFlake C6-3 a fair flight this time.
4) Stars & Stripes Original saucer F24-0W Best motor for this
rocket.
5) Smiley on a G79-0W HPR Style 29/120 Big flame and lots of
smoke to nice altitude. AeroBrake recovery.
Rain stopped A) 29mm Stealth (Qubit type) with rotation and
tumble patterns on a G76-0G.
B) CINCO Saucer/Pyramid One of AppleWhites larger rockets. A G,H
& I rocket 50Ns to 250Ns average motors. To be used with the
AeroTech 38mm Special RAS G,H, & I motor.
I wanted to demonstrate the use of the 38RAS system. You need 3
hands. But a tube will help. Must be very careful that the O
rings and fiber washers don't move while installing the spacers.
The Details:
Full launch tally (PDF)
The totals were: 36 flights, 39 motors. The cumulative
total impulse was 1542 Ns with an average total impulse of something
completely silly due to the single J motor completely skewing the
curve...
The motor breakdown follows:
|
Type |
# Burned |
| MicroMaxx |
0 |
|
1/4A |
0 |
|
1/2A |
0 |
|
A |
9 |
|
B |
4 |
|
C |
10 |
|
D |
7 |
|
E |
2 |
|
F |
3 |
|
G |
3 |
|
H |
0 |
|
I |
0 |
|
J |
1 |
(Alan Estenson)
|
