The March Lion - 3/22/25

 I'm guessing that I'm not alone in saying that 2025 has not been my year.  With almost three months gone I've managed one launch, that being a cold launch in January where I forced B6-4 Field to submit despite the cold, snow and ice.  Apparently, Ma Nature holds a grudge because every weekend since then has been awful.  Cold and snow I can deal with.  Winds and muck are another story entirely.

I'd been eyeing Saturday, March 22 all week long.  Rain had been working us over pretty well, but Thursday and Friday had only seen sporadic showers.  I was tempted to hit the field after work, but I had a new recipe that I planned to try that night, and I still had to hit the grocery store for supplies.  I set my sights on Saturday morning.  

Saturday dawned clear, cool and breezy, so I once again forced the issue and packed up the gear I'd prepped on Friday.  This time my traveling circus included a dozen or so hopefuls, many of which would be first time flyers.  Two Estes D.O.M. birds, the Flying Jennie and Tiger Shark, were among the group, along with an Estes Solar Sailer II, a Semroc Oso and Cherokee C, and a US Rockets Stripper.

First off the pad for me would be my clone of the Estes Attack Craft Orion that I hadn't flown since I decided to repaint it in 2010.  When I cloned it, I printed my own decals, and they'd always been a disappointment to me, so I bought a new set from Sandman to dress it a little better.  I still have to finish, but hey.....

The flight was uninspiring.  Like every flight on the day except the Flying Jennie, it was an A8-3, but the added weight of multiple paint layers seems to have made it something of a pig.  The flight was straight and stable, but light on altitude as it topped out at 136'.  Ejection occurred as it was sliding back and the first chute of the day was a rousing success.  Even better, it drifted back to the foot of the pad.  Nothing would threaten it for the "closest to the pad" award, which was more decals.

For the next flight I stuck with the underwhelming theme, an Estes EPM-010 on another A8-3.  I bought this on sale years ago, then opened it and let it sit around for a few months.  During that time a couple of pieces were scavenged for other projects, and eventually the pieces were scattered.  I recently found the decals and instructions in the original bag, which got me reinterested in the project.  I think this had actually been loaded with a B4-4 earlier in the week, but the Friday prep session caused me to rethink the B flight because of the forecasted winds.  Still wearing the initial fill & finish on the rear fins, and minus the rear-facing pod cones because they weren't yet glued in, the EPM-010 would be flight #2 on the morning,

After the vanilla performance of the Attack Craft Orion on the A8-3 I was expecting a similar flight with the EPM-010, and I wasn't disappointed.  There's a lot to this bird, tubes, transitions and nose cones galore.  It's a cool design for what I suspect might have been an SPEV-type bird meant to burn through a bunch of extra parts.  To that end, it's fairly chunky.  It left the pad heading left but clearly struggling for altitude.  Like the Attack Craft Orion, it reached apogee quickly and began backsliding before ejection.  The chute filled instantly and brought it down in short center field without damage.  Definitely the best recovery of the day.

Flight #3 followed the flying pig trend.  I cloned the Estes Xarconian Destroyer after seeing a Facebox post and realizing that I had the necessary nose cone downstairs.  It was a quick and dirty project, with scrounged body tube and motor mount.  

The XD began wiggling as soon as it cleared the rod, struggling to 129'.  It was sideways at "apogee" and seemed to be lacking in direction.  Then it found "down" and followed that direction until the ejection charge fired.  It took a while for the body to pass the nose cone and parachute, and by the time that occurred it was too late for the chute to unfurl.  The whole XD crashed into short center field with the dorsal fin taking the brunt of the impact.  (The glue is drying as I type.)  This build was done using basswood because it's what I had in sufficient quantity in 3/32" thickness.  I'm guessing a smattering of BBs and epoxy will have it boosting straighter, but nothing will turn it into an A8-3 bird.

The next flight would be the surprise of the day.  I'd been carting around the instruction sheet for the Estes D.O.M. Flying Jennie for quite a while before I started collecting parts for it last month.  Everything came from the scrap bin, my favorite kind of project.  (That's two on the day if you're keeping score.)  I managed to get something of a glide on the latest hand tosses, so I brought it along for the day.

1/2A6-2 flight, so no matter how it performed or failed to perform, it would be over quickly.  Boost was quick and quite a bit higher than expected, easily the highest on the day.  At ejection things happened even quicker.  It boosted slightly to the right, then fired to the left at ejection.  It did a quick loop back to the right, descending the whole time.  I caught up with it as it was strafing the outfield grass, and caught the impact when it hit.  At some point I heard the twang that told me the brace had likely broken loose before it came to a rest in straightaway right field.  While my phone couldn't keep the flight in frame, I was able to follow it the whole time.  It was an impressive flight.  The next one will be an A8-3.

The fifth and final flight of the day would be the Estes Alpha II on an A8-3.  I didn't plan it that way.  Mother Nature did.  Back in 2001, I won an auction for three Estes Educator Alpha kits.  I built this one as intended but used the other two for various cloning projects.  DOH!

The Alpha was another A8-3 flight, but this one appeared to have had its Wheaties that morning.  It was a high, stable flight with a slight arc out toward the hill in right-center.  It was still moving up when the ejection charge fired and the chute filled immediately.  The full chute.  It was still well above my head when it passed over me and I knew it was in trouble.  The winds had been steady all morning, but they suddenly seemed to have picked up.  The Alpha crossed the field quickly, easily clearing the parking pad, the wires, and US 27.  It started to clear the doctor's building but suddenly disappeared.  I dropped my launcher and started the walk that I fully expected would turn up nothing.  I checked the lawn of the office, looked in the trees at the edge of the property, then started checking the yards on S. Ft. Thomas Avenue.  I was about to give it up as lost when I glanced on the roof of the office.  The Alpha was on the back side of the roof, wrapped around a vent pipe.  I was heading back to the launch area and as I was crossing the street, I looked at the flags in front of the school.   They were standing straight out from the poles.  Yeah, the wind had picked up a little.

Back at the pads I couldn't find another rocket that I felt like sacrificing to the skies, so I packed up and drove back over to the office building.  By this time the Alpha had blown off the roof, but I couldn't figure out where it had landed.  I was about to check back across the street when I saw it tangled in a tree next to one of the suite entrances.  It was hung up by the chute and it was obvious that I'd need help that I didn't have in my car.  I headed home, found a piece of trim that was about 8' long and headed back to the landing site.  I found that the winds had dislodged the Alpha, causing it to drop a foot or so.  I was able to get the end of the piece of floor trim into the parachute, but pushing up wasn't dislodging it at all.  It was about this time that I noticed that someone was working in the office next to where I was standing in the landscaping.  I took stock of the situation.  The wall in front of me didn't look like it would be sturdy enough to me to balance on without risking a divot, but the Alpha fins were only a foot or so above my outstretched fingers.  I decided to jump and grabbed one of the Alpha fins.  I managed to hang onto it when I landed and began pulling it down until I could get to the nose cone.  I was reaching for my knife to cut she shroud lines when the chute suddenly pulled loose from the tree.  The Alpha had some shingle rash but was in pretty decent shape otherwise.  I headed home with minimal repairs to make and a whole tote full of rockets for next Saturday when temps are predicted to be in the 70's.  There's a corn launch and failing that, a B6-4 Field launch again.  Whatever the case, I'm flying somewhere.

2025 is in the books

 Winter league opened at B6-4 Field on Sunday, January 26.  It wasn't a pleasant day.  It was cold.  It was frozen.  It was snow-covered.  But it was clear, and it beat traversing the snow-covered back yard hill to burn the old cabinets from our basement, which was what my wife had planned for the day.  I reminded her that I'm a 62-year-old guy with a balky knee that she hopes to do a lot of walking with on a Mediterranean cruise in May.  I don't mind spending a day burning, but walking downhill on crusted snow is where I draw the line at the moment.

So, that said, I wound up on crusted snow later in the afternoon.  B6-4 Field is flat, and the snow isn't as much crusted as it is turned magically to ice.  The hill next to the field is one of the biggest hills for sled riding in Northern Kentucky, so it has had a ton of foot traffic in the last few weeks.  I set up behind second base due to the wind coming in from the northwest.  This gave me the whole field out toward left as my recovery area, and with mostly A8-3 and mini flights, I figured it would be enough.

My first flight on the day was a first for me, the Estes Shuttle Express that I inherited from a friend.  The gliders are long gone, and based on past experiences, good riddance.  This would be a B6-4 flight because it's kind of a pig to try on an A8-3.  To be honest, I was hoping a stray kid would come along and think it was cool looking so I could pawn it off on him.  

No such luck, but a dog came by and took a leak on the remains of a snowman, so I got that going for me.

Anyway, the Shuttle.....

As a wind test bird, the Shuttle Express did okay.  It left the pad heading to my right and behind me in deep right field.  At ejection the old chute, which I had prudently opened before the flight, suffered significant shrinkage due to the cold temps and brought the SE down rather quickly.  This was far from the tragedy it sounds like as the recovery wound up happening at shortstop rather than a lane of US 27.

Having spent Friday and Saturday working on three MPC clones, the next flight would be the one that I was most looking forward to seeing fly, the Delta-Katt.  Depending on the simplicity of the project, I have a range of luck that runs from really, really awful to surprisingly good with gliders.  Both would be on display on this day.  First the good, the MPC Delta-Katt.

I had no idea what a Delta-Katt flight would be like, so the first flight would be on a 1/4A3-3T.  I'd tested the glider for glide capability and the ability to separate from the booster.  Both had been impressive, so I was guardedly optimistic at my chances for success.  This just in, 1/4A flights are pretty much over before they start.  As near as I can tell, the DK boosted, cleared the rod, and ejected at less than 100'.  I was dimly aware of the glider coming from behind me toward the infield, and it sounded like the booster landed in front of the pad and to the right.  I was able to get my phone around to catch some of the glider, which performed as nicely as it had on my test throws.  I began scanning the area in front of the pad for the booster but found nothing.  I stomped around the area for the next ten minutes, looking for the all-white booster on a carpet of snow.  It did have a hot pink streamer, but the area also had deep footprints from the sled people, so it could have been anywhere.  I eventually gave up and went over to pick up the glider, and twenty feet to the right I spotted a flash of hot pink.  Good thing.  I really didn't want to have to build another booster.

Flight #3 would be over 10 years in the making.  Back in 2014 I was picking up snap swivels at Wal-Mart and noticed a selection of light-up fishing bobbers, a couple of which I thought might work as nose cones for a night flight rocket.  I thought right, and for a few weeks, I spent an hour before work perfecting my project.  I treed one, and the ghost still haunts B6-4 Field.  I called this one the Night Stalker.  Carl Kolchak eat your heart out.

This would be an A8-3 flight and surprisingly one of the higher ones on the day.  It left the pad leading toward the right field fence/hill to around 282'.  Ejection occurred out over the trees, but I had the breeze working in my favor and it recovered in straightaway right field.  

The next rocket on the pad would be another MPC newbie, the Pipsqueak.  If nothing else I was smart on this one and the Super/Star.  I gave them both quickie paint jobs with flat paints that I had laying around.  Nothing permanent, but they'll provide some contrast against the white snow.  At least that was the theory.

This would be another 1/4A flight.  They're hard to get excited about, basically just a launch and an ejection charge.  They're useful for small rockets on small fields, but not much else.  This flight was higher than the Delta-Katt, but there wasn't much to it.  Very much like a bottle rocket, except that you get parts back at the end.  It left the pad heading right and topped out at 231'.  Got to see a smoke trail.

Flight #5 was the Starlight Super Tiger.  I have a vague memory of discussing the design of this rocket online, then having it show up in my mailbox.  It hasn't flown much over the years, and only recently graduated to "primed" status.  The fact that it hadn't flown since 2017 and was near the top in one of my totes meant that it was handy when I was prepping today's rockets for flight meant that it got the nod.

After this flight, I'm thinking it might be a good idea to drop some nose weight in for the Super Tiger.  It wiggled as it left the pad and continued through the whole flight.  The Super Tiger topped out at 236', then recovered over near third base on a partial chute.  

The next flight was a home-built fighter that used a damaged Estes Crossfire ISX as a starting point.  I subbed in a cockpit nose cone from the Estes Sci-Fi nose cone assortment and added wingtip cannons made using the small tubes from the poo bags my son uses for his dog.  Occasionally.  I call it the Crossfire Gunship, but I'm not married to the name.

This rocket would be the second straight flight to be all or mostly white primer.  I clearly didn't think this out well.  I had the same issue flying cornstalk colored rockets in the cornfield several years back.  Luckily I found this one.  The flight was excellent. high and stable with a slight arc to the right.  It topped out at 229', then recovered just behind second base.  If nothing else the flight got me reinterested in coming up with a paint scheme for this one.  And a name.

My third MPC clone of the day was next, the MPC Super/Star on a 1/4A3-3T.  It would just barely end my string of white primered flights, having had the flat red and black applied earlier in the day.  

Another 1/4A flight, so quick off the pad and over before I knew it.  This was another largely straight flight with impressive altitude to 226'.  I pretty much lost it after that, and didn't pick it up until I saw the flash of pink from the streamer when it bounced on the ice.

The Estes Payloader II had no business making the trip to the field.  It last flew in 2023, so I didn't owe it a flight, but I got it mixed up with the Solar Probe.  No, I don't know how.  I'd been re-gluing the nose block/payload tube on Saturday, so it was near the top of the pile.  And it was shiny.

The Payloader II was one of my favorites of the 2010 Centuri reissues.  It built nice and flies great.  This was no exception.  It left the pad heading as dead straight as any flight on the day.  Altitude topped out at 224' and the recovery drift caused momentary cinching before dropping at the edge of the field, just before the hill to US 27.

Flight #9 would be the lone Quest flight of the day, the Super Cruiser.  This had flown here at B6-4 previously but had begun skywriting as it left the rod.  The resulting crash cost a couple of fins, and while it was convalescing, I added extra nose weight.

Gotta admit, I was expecting some wiggling for this flight, but there was nary a trace of a stability issue.  The A8-3 flight topped out at 235' with a slight lean away from the pad.  Recovery was in front of the pad and slightly left using the same parachute as the Payloader II.  Contact with an ice chunk cost me another fin, but it will be an easy fix.  The sticker decals that came with this delaminated from the sheet they came on, so I've been planning to print up a set of waterslide decals, a project that just got moved up.

The Semroc Javelin dates back to the days of my "buy two, fly one" philosophy.  I got in on the ground floor by being on the computer when Carl released the Javelin, so I got two low number kits.  I built the higher number of the two and it's lived kind of a rough life.  It loses a fin with each flight.

The A8-3 flight was impressive, high and straight off the pad to 357'.  At ejection I instantly regretted the small chute, but wait........  Two pieces were recovering, never a good sign.  The body began falling toward left field and hit hard.  The nose cone and parachute kept drifting.  I thought they were going to be recoverable at first, but after three steps I dissuaded myself of that possibility.  The cone sailed across US 27 and South Fort Thomas Avenue, still high in the sky.  I watched until the bitter end when the cone and chute cleared a house and disappeared behind the roofline.  Reminded me of a Sky Hook flight from about 20 years back.

 

The last time I flew this Bullpup here at B6-4 Field we had a near tragedy.  After a B6-4 Flight on a breezy day that was really too breezy to fly rockets, the Bullpup recovered across US 27 half on and half off one of the buildings.

It blew down before I got across the street to retrieve it, but it's a cool pic.  The only reason it hasn't flown since then is because I got another Bullpup as a throw-in in an eBay auction, and it was fully decaled.  Today would be the day for redemption.

This would be an oddity on the day, a B4-4 flight.  Turned out to be a great choice, one that I apparently made a few months ago when I unearthed the Bullpup.  It left the pad with a slight lean to the right like many of the flights on the day, but the added thrust of the B4 took it uncomfortably close to the hill, more importantly the trees at the top.  Topping out at 306', the Pup would have been in trouble had I not had the foresight to not unfurl the parachute that had been in the body tube for eleven years.  The parawad saved the day, but the hit on the ice at the bottom of the hill was pretty vicious.  There was shockingly no damage.

I had high hopes for flight #12, the Semroc Mini Dactyl.  I'd flown it once previously over the summer, but despite the glider easily detaching before the flight, it failed to do so at ejection.  It crashed in a heap and got treated to some extra sanding in the months since that flight.

I even got the added bonus of a ray of sunshine just before the flight.  Tell me that doesn't bode well for success.  Yeah, no.  This would be another 1/4A3-3T flight, but the delay seemed to be quite a bit more than 3 seconds.  The flight topped out at 138', but turned over and began racing back toward the field, tracking smoke the whole way.  There was an ejection charge, but things were already moving downward with too much velocity for the glider to have a chance to pull out of the dive.  Both pieces impacted the ice hard.  When I got to the landing site I found the booster tube bent and the glider in pieces.

I still had four rockets left in my box at this point, so I pulled the Semroc IQSY Tomahawk out for an A8-3 flight, not realizing that it would be flight #13 on the day.  

The Tomahawk is another one that is on my list to eventually finish painting and decaling.  It left the pad with an obvious rightward lean, but without flirting with the trees like the Bullpup did.  It topped out at 281', then recovered without the aid of the wadded streamer.  There was another hard hit on the ice across the field in short left-center, but again I escaped without damage.

I finished up the day with the ultimate throw-in rocket, an Estes Firehawk on a 1/2A3-4T.  This bird occasionally bobs to the surface of the tote and gets the nod to fly.  I think the last time was at one of my Mini-Palooza launches a couple of years back.  Not one to get excited about in any way, but a pretty decent flyer on the small fields.

The Firehawk flight was typical on the day.  I'd adjusted the pad for more of a straight flight, but the breeze meant that there would still be a lean to the right off the pad.  The arc was barely noticeable and the flight topped out at 337', then recovered in right-center field with nose blow recovery. 

As I mentioned earlier, at this point I still had two rockets in the box and I could have carried on flying except for one thing: cold feet.  Yeah, I placed personal comfort over hobby glory, and I'm glad I did.  If the current temps are any indicator, the next time I fly at B6-4 Field will be wearing muck boots.  Once it thaws it's going to be a mess.

I would be bringing back 13.5 of the 14 rockets I'd flown, which included two that were going home damaged.  I took the group photo, then visited the now mummified corpse of the Rattler 7, still hanging around in the same place after two months.  I check every day, just in case there's an opportunity to take it home, put it in a bag of rice, and fly it after it dries out.