Like it says, I got to go out and play because my wife went to a movie. Not true exactly, but if she'd been home I likely would have felt guilty and joined in on the Thanksgiving cleaning. I assuaged that guilt by doing a couple of loads of laundry and turning off the crock pot when I was told to. All in all, a productive day. And dinner is ready for tonight.
I took a mix of small-field A & B birds to B6-4 Field, arriving a little before 3 and finding the muddy confines empty but for a single runner. Apparently, I got there at the end of her workout because she loaded up and left as I was setting up. I set up in left center field because an occasional breeze was blowing from the west and would take my birds toward US 27 on recovery. Flying low would lessen the chance of any traffic conflict.
Flight #1 was the Bad Boys Rocketry Super Astron Sprite. I was pumped up about this one. It had arrived last week, and I got started on it immediately. It was an enjoyable build, but I made a change or two along the way, adding an elastic shock cord and a screw eye to the recovery system. The printed resin nose cone bit back a little, breaking when I was sanding it, but nothing that couldn't be fixed with a judicious bit of epoxy. The finished product, though flying unpainted, turned out great.
I had some qualms about making the Super Sprite my leadoff bird as that position is usually taken by a wind test bird, but the winds were minimal on this bright, sunny Sunday. The Super Sprite flight was straight off the pad with a slight arc toward the infield (north) and it was tipping over when the ejection charge fired. It recovered without damage in left field. My optimism soared.
Flight #2 would be another first flight bird, and a weird one. The Stellar Dimensions Vector was an eBay purchase and is a rocket completely built out of sheet balsa. I remember Stellar Dimensions being around right at the start of my B.A.R.hood, but only vaguely. This was the first one I'd ever actually seen in the flesh. It was a bit of a confusing bird. When I was loading motors for the day I noted what looked to be a mini-engine mount, so I loaded an A10-3T. Well, I tried to load it. The motor slid through the hole easily, but then rattled around inside the engine compartment. I tried sliding the white cardboard piece clockwise and was able to a) extricate the mini-motor and b) see how an A8-3 would fit there. Once them motor was in place, the white cardboard piece was put back in place and slid counter-clockwise, theoretically locking the motor in place. I had my doubts, but I was determined to fly it. In hindsight I should have scanned the piece, but my hindsight has always been perfect. Still is.
Since the Super Sprite had recovered to my right, I angled the pad left for the Vector. I thought this would counter the drift to some extent. If the flight had been normal, I have no doubt this would have been sound strategy. One of my old friends from kindergarten days was walking his dogs with his wife and they wanted to see a flight after years of seeing me drive boxes of rockets to the field. Unfortunately, this would not be a flight that gave a good overview of what I did at the field. Or was it? The Vector left the pad heading to the left as expected. It was probably a heavy bird for the A8-3 and seemed to be struggling a bit on the way up. At apogee it tipped over and seemed to stay in that position for a long second before the ejection charge fired. I didn't see anything unusual about the flight, but when I watched the video later on my computer, I could clearly see the white cardboard piece head to the right at ejection and I could also see the motor casing fall to the field at about the same rate as the Vector. The Vector body halves had failed to separate fully, and it tumbled quickly back to the field, landing 20 feet from the pad. The motor casing landed about ten feet out from me, but I didn't see it until I was scanning the area for the motor plug. I'm going to head back up to the field today because I think I have an idea where the cardboard piece landed, and I'd like to find it just to see if I can reverse engineer something just in case I want to try flying it again.
Next up in the A8-3 parade would be the Corporal from Aerospace Specialty Products. This was bought on a whim a few years back when I learned that I was going to be marooned at a satellite office at work for an extended period of time and wanted to have something to fill the long, slow days. It turned out to be a very enjoyable project and I've got my eye on another of their scale kits.
The Corporal flight looked to be in trouble early, as it followed the same path as the Vector. The difference was that at ejection the chute filled instantly, whereas the Vector chute never deployed. The Corporal began drifting back across the field toward US 27 at a disturbing pace, and I'm sure that I made a few utterances about it being the last flight, but the breeze died out enough that the touchdown happened deep at third base.
Flight #4 would be handled by my Estes E.A.C. Firecat, still doing without decals after two years. This was one of the birds that I built after the Great Walmart Mini HoJo clearance of 2022. I'm sure I wasn't the only one. The issue with this bird is that for some reason I got it into my head that this was a mini-powered bird like the E.A.C. Viper or the Mini HoJo from which it sprang. Actually, this isn't a bad thing here at B6-4 Field. It makes it less likely to overfly the field. Well, it's nice to think that.
This flight was my first taste of near tragedy on the day. The A10-3T flight would have been perfect except for the breeze that was blowing across the field from left to right. (Note to self; this is a calm day flyer.) Boost was stable and leaned slightly to the left off the pad to 173'. Ejection occurred as it tipped and the Firecat began a quick cross-field drift toward US 27. I wasn't worried at first, but as it got closer to the edge of the field, my anxiety amped up, anticipating a US 27 landing. That didn't happen. The descending Firecat caught the top wire, slipped to the next wire down, then the next before finally stopping on the lowest wire. That still put it out of my reach, and I started walking over to assess the situation. I looked down as I started up the small hill at the edge of the field and as I stepped up I heard a clatter. I looked up to see the Firecat sitting in the middle of US 27 with a Honda bearing down on it. I braced myself for the crunch that never came. The Honda crossed over the Firecat and except for some road rash, it was spared. I marked the flight down as a success and resumed the launch.
The New Way Der SquaRed Max was next on the pad for its second flight, the first flight in full livery. The decals silvered badly when I applied them, so I might try to give them a shot of Solvaset to see if I can salvage them, but for the purpose of this launch they represent the proud DRM history just fine.
To be honest, I didn't see much of this flight. I think I'm getting a little old to be trying to launch and film things at the same time, because I apparently tracked a floater. The flight of the DSM didn't much enter into the video past the launch, which I barely caught. All I got of the rest of the flight was a slight bit of the touchdown at third base. Flight was excellent, topping out at 168', and if the next two flights followed the DSM path, it would go down as a great day. Sigh,
Flight #6 would be the Estes Rattler-7, a "night-before-the-launch" purchase that eventually set me on the path to full-fledged BAR-dom. Back in 2001, we made our first visit to Akron to see my brother-in-law and his family. Part of the weekend was going to be a visit to his club launch with the Skybusters, but nothing that I had in my storage room was flyable, so I just planned to go as a spectator. Long story short, Tony and I discovered the JimZ plan site on Friday night and visited a local brick & mortar store on Saturday. I picked up the parts I'd need for the Estes Condor that I'd printed the plans for the night before, as well as a 40th anniversary Alpha for myself, the Rattler-7 for my son, and a pack of C6-5 motors. (Go big or go home.) I built both rockets while the rest of the family went to mass and flew both the next day. Both made the trip home with us, but the Rattler-7 came home minus the upper body tube and nose cone. As you can see, the missing parts were replaced, but the planned repaint never materialized.
The Rattler has always been such a straight up/straight down bird that it never occurred to me that it might be a problem on a day like this. Then again, any given Sunday, as they say. At no point during the flight did I think it was in trouble, yet here we are. The flight was excellent, straight and stable to 167', popped the chute at apogee and began drifting toward US 27. I had an inkling that the Firecat had been in trouble, but I never expected the Rattler to catch the wire. There was a moment when I thought it might be an asphalt recovery, but that fin can is pretty stout, so that wasn't a worry. I haven't driven past it in a couple of days. Not sure what the current status is.
Any sane human would pack up and leave at this point, right? Nah. Something compelled me to pull the Custom ATW out for an A8-3 flight. Its predecessor met its doom here on an A8-3 about a decade ago, so nothing like poking the bear, eh? This would be the first flight since 2015, so that long layoff likely had a part in the decision.
As it turned out, this would be one of the best flights of the day. It left the pad leaning back over my head and at one point was over the school/driveway. Altitude was excellent, topping out at 352', not a surprise on a minimum diameter bird. Ejection occurred at apogee as expected and it immediately found its way back over the outfield for a perfect streamer recovery.
Ten days after the fact I'm really not sure why I decided this would be the last flight of the day, but I think that the breeze picking up and the sight of the Rattler swinging around on the wire likely had something to do with it. I still had at least another seven birds in the box, several of them B6-4s. It's likely that I just felt that my luck had been spread thin enough. All things considered, 2024 has turned out to be a decent year from a launch standpoint, and days like this have done their share. I'm nowhere near any personal records, but the flight numbers are going to be respectable, and I still have a possible cornfield launch or two and no telling how many Fabu launches in the month before the calendar flips.
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