The long-awaited WSR launch - 7/12/25

 As the cool kids say, it's been a minute since I flew with the Wright Stuff Rocketeers.  They've been back to eRockets Field since late spring, but cruise vacations, air shows and plain ol' bad luck have kept me from being able to make the trip to Huber Heights in 2025.  Midway through July I'm happy to report that I've exorcised that particular demon.  

Saturday, July 12 was a scorcher.  (It's also my sister's birthday.  Happy birthday, Jen.)  I arrived at the field in what I thought would be plenty of time to help with the setup, only to find the setup done and the crowd sparse.  I also found wind, something that hadn't been expected until later in the afternoon when the rains blew in.  (SPOILER ALERT: It wouldn't be that much later.)  After a quick flyer's meeting under Mike's canopy, we got down to flying.

Once again, I'd packed a box of never flown and not flown in years birds, with a few gliders of recent creation thrown in just to get them some airtime on the big field.  I chose my newly flightworthy Estes R2D2 as my first flight.  This is an original 1977 version that I bought via eBay back in the early 2000's.  I had read enough about them online to know that the smart money was on an engine upgrade, so little by little I got along with the construction.  20ish years passed before a vacation a couple of weeks ago when we planned to spend three days in the pool, only to find that Mother Nature had other plans.  I spent a lot of time in the shop and R2 was one of the kits that came out flyable.

To say that this flight didn't cause me some nerves would be lying.  I knew the switch from 18mm to 24mm would change the flight characteristics, so I overcompensated on nose weight.  A string test was attempted, but didn't tell me much, so I painted it and hoped for the best.  I got it.  As expected, the D12 was plenty powerful.  Unfortunately, the same can't be said for the 48-year-old plastic.  R2 windcocked to the right off the pad and topped out at 214'.  At ejection another of the issues with the design came to light as the parachute suffered some fairly serious burns despite being packed well out of the way of the blast.  The 18' chute still tried to bring things down in one piece, but it was parawad at best and the impact with the ground was pretty harsh.  Sure enough, I found one of the plastic fins broken off when I got to the landing spot.  Looks like an easy fix, but like a lot of the Star Ways birds I don't really see this being a frequent flyer.

Flight #2 would be the eagerly awaited first flight of my FRW Uproar, a scrap box bird built for use in the corn.  No corn here except for across the creek, and the breeze wasn't heading that way.  Still, I went with a D12-5 to keep it on the field.  I guess I should have used a C6-5.

Things started out bad.  Instead of the big windcock I'd expected, the Uproar left the pad heading dead straight.  That, along with the 900+' altitude spelled trouble.  The flight itself was perfect and I'd used one of my smaller nylon chutes for the flight.  It popped just after it tipped over to the delighted howls of the flightline.  The parachute matched my shirt, and my phone case, and on some days my shoes, but not today.  From its position straight overhead, it began drifting quickly toward the long end of the field.  It was clearly going to be a long walk for me and Dave and I were taking bets about where on the field it would land.  I bet midfield on the Wayne Pee Wee football field while Dave bet on it splitting the uprights.  It turned out not to be a long walk at all.  We were both surprised when it disappeared behind the trees and was lost forever in the quarry.  Maybe it's hanging out talking shop with my USR Supersonic.  Maybe Jerry is cackling "MORE POWER!" in a gleeful voice.

Flight #3 would be my first non-B6-4 Field flight of my Estes D.O.M. Flying Jennie, mostly because of my sister's birthday.  Unlike the B6-4 Field load which was always either a 1/2A6-2 or A8-3, this one would be on a B4-2, so I was looking forward to seeing how it flew with legs stretched.

As gliders go, this is a fun little rocket.  It's built out of shop scraps like the Uproar, but not likely to get lost on a B4-flight.  I tried to color it with markers just to keep the weight down.  That's been tough for me.  Harnessing the focus to finish the marker job with my meager patience has been a chore, as you can see.  I never did well with coloring in school either.  That said, this was a fairly quick, simple build and it flew well from the start, so I was pretty confident that it would avenge the loss of the Uproar.  Things didn't start all that well.  Jennie left the pad and arced back over the flightline to our left, heading in the general direction of Rip Rap Road.  Rip Rap Road and I have a long and ugly history with multiple lost rockets happening in the vicinity, but this one didn't have enough motor behind it to join the crowd.  The flightpath resembled a very quick ?, but at ejection Jennie settled into a tight, circular path.  It made one big circle and began heading back toward the football field, crossing back over the flightline and dropping ever closer to the grass before landing gently.  It was my first damage-free flight of the day.

With the strong, steady breeze keeping any more altitude flights grounded, I chose another glider for flight #4, the FRW Dingbat.  Essentially a slightly larger version of the AMROCS Wombat that it was supposed to have replaced, the Dingbat needed its own identity when I was able to successfully repair the broken Wombat.

The Dingbat flight wasn't what I'd expected.  It windcocked heavily off the pad to the right at a steep angle and didn't quite crack the 100' mark.  As a result, the forward motion stalled when the ejection charge fired.  This happened less than 30' from the ground and the Dingbat fluttered to earth, unable to recover the forward motion necessary for any gliding to commence.  Kinda disappointing after the excellent first flight a few weeks back.  Did I say disappointing?  This would be a shining success after the next flight.  Sorry, "flight".

"Flight" #5 would be another glider, this one a real garbage skow of second hand parts, the Jet Freak 4.  For a while, it seemed that I'd build a Jet Freak whenever I turned up a BNC-20 of appropriateish length.  I've killed a couple, lost a couple, and I still have a couple flying.  (Actually, three before this "flight".)

As you can see, 4 hadn't lead an easy existence.  I tried the marker route on it and killed the first marker.  Then the next one couldn't be bothered to match and eventually almost faded away completely.  In the none-too-distant past all of my Jet Freaks were just called Jet Freak, but it began to be tough to tell which one was making which flight in the RocketReviews flight logs, so the remaining three got numbers.  Hence, the 4.  This would be a B4-2 flight, as far as I know the first ever for one of my Freaks.  Found out why.  

Things looked normal as it left the pad.  It windcocked right like every rocket except the one I really wanted to see go that way.  We had an eye on it and things looked normal until they didn't.  There was a definite issue at the end of the boost, evidenced by the sound of a motor going end over end.  Then something happened, and I was able to see something falling.  Thinking it was the Freak glide phase kicking in, I kept the camera on it.  It landed behind me on the flightline.  It was the expended motor.  We immediately began scanning the skies for the glider but saw nothing.  Finally, when it was obvious that the glide hadn't occurred, Dave, Mike and I did a CSI walk-through of the field downwind.  The first thing we found was the engine tube, pylon and nose cone.  Then one by one, the other five pieces were located.  We actually found the whole carcass.  Jet Freak 4 is officially retired.  There will be a gathering in meeting room 7.  Cookies will be served.

The Cosmik Debris last flew in 2007 at the NSL in Muncie.  It wasn't a rousing success.  It got caught on the rod, managed to clear and nosed into the ground effectively destroying itself.  That should have been the end, but there were a lot of parts and time invested in the project, so I didn't feel like I could just toss it out.  If it looks familiar, it's because it was featured in the Estes Custom Parts Catalog in 1974 showing what you could make with Estes parts and your imagination.  I brought it up at YORF and was told I couldn't get it off the rod, so of course I ordered the parts.  I built it and flew it on a C6-3, a fairly lethargic flight.  Then I made the mistake of listening to Lee Berry and Mark Fisher who suggested an 18mm D21-4.  Yeah, it got off the pad better.  It also reached the speed of balsa before it hit 100'.  Somehow it was rebuilt and now rebuilt again.  I had higher hopes for the C5-3.

The over-under on how many Alphas could be built using the balsa from those fins is 14.  That might eventually happen.  Like I said, this flight would be on a C5-3, which should hopefully make for a more majestic trip up the rod.  Or not.  I could post the pics, but the video sells it a lot better.

Moving on.  Next up is an obscurity, a Shecter Streamer Duration Rocket that I purchased open and decided to build.  Not sure exactly when Fred kitted these, but I've been seeing them on eBay recently.  Someone must have found a stash.

Excellent altitude on the A8-3.  Ejected the motor and came in ballistic.  Post-holed the field.  At first I thought my glue joint that connects the shock cord to the fin had failed and let the nose cone sail off on the streamer.  That wasn't the case.  The nose cone buried itself about two inches into the field.  Other than some slight deforming of the body tube there was no damage.  Upon inspection it appeared that the shock cord had caused the nose cone to fit a bit too tight and the motor blew out instead of launching the streamer. 

The next flight would be a three-stager, the MPC Microsonde 3 Payloader.  I figured this would be a decent pick because it had been loaded with a fairly conservative A8-0/A8-0/A8-5 load.  This was another rocket that spent a lot of time waiting to get into the paint booth before my recent vacation, mostly because I had no idea what color scheme to go with.  In the end, I always seem to wind up with orange, white and black.  This time I threw in some silver just to break things up a bit.

Who doesn't love a multi-stage flight, especially when there are three?  My worries about the A8-0 having the power to lift the Microsonde disappeared immediately.  It left the pad leaning into the wind and off to the right, then staged before it reached 100'.  Second stage went not long after and we scanned the skies for the sustainer but didn't see it.  I decided that my best option was to walk the field to my left and found it a couple of hundred feet out.  It had cracked a fin on impact, ironically the same one that I'd cracked off while sanding.  Should be an easy fix.  The flight did dispel any notion I had of flying it at B6-4 Field.  Even on an A8 stack, it would be too much.

I didn't know it at the time, but the Jet Freak 5 would be my last flight of the day.  Unlike the retired guys launch a few months back, I had come prepared for the full sun and heat with a cooler full of Powerade.  I was well hydrated, but still hot, but I still had some flights left in me.  I chose another glider for ease of recovery only to have 5 take me on the longest recovery walk of the day.

The "easy recovery" flight on a B4-2 started innocently enough, boosting right off the pad into the breeze and quickly going out of sight.  The whole flightline scanned the skies for the circling bird, but we saw nothing.  I was ready to give up and start a grid search when one of the young girls at the end of the flightline mentioned that she tracked it and it landed on the soccer field.  I was doubtful but headed off into the direction she pointed.  I walked right up to the glider.  It was upside down, so the neon orange didn't provide much visibility, but the blue did it's best not to blend in.  I let her know how much her young eyes were appreciated after my walk, then attacked the Powerade.  While I was drinking, Mother Nature called an end to the day with a thunder crack off to the west.

Still, not a bad day of flying, even with the winds.  I managed to take all but one home with me and, truth be told, I really had run out of rockets to fly safely in the windy condition.  I had two more multi-stage rockets prepped and ready, both B6-0/B6-6 which would have probably been survivable, as well as my Semroc Oso on a C6-5.  I'd have flown all three without a second thought.  As it is, I have three rockets prepped for our next launch.  I'm also toying with the idea of a D-powered version of the Jet Freak, just for cheap thrills.  Pretty sure I have enough scrap balsa, BT-50 and a nose cone.

Tales of Hades and humidity

 Heat like this wasn't an issue when I roamed these streets as a kid growing up.  Someone apparently felt like it was because they would only keep us in school for a half day the first few weeks of school because we didn't have air-conditioned classrooms.  So, they'd turn us loose at noon so we could stay cool at home.  Never happened.  As soon as we finished lunch and changed clothes, we were outside in the heat, drinking hose water and going into the basement to lay on the concrete floor when the heat became too much for us.  It rarely did.  At night my brother and I contorted ourselves in our beds to try to feel the air from the fan that stood in the doorway of our room.  Many a morning I'd wake up with my head hanging over the edge of the bed, then spend the rest of the day dealing with a stiff neck.

That said, B6-4 Field was a hellscape.  I was surprised to find it empty, but no, I wasn't.  When I stepped out of the car I could see the waves of heat coming off the asphalt of US 27.  I could hear the screams and squeals of kids swimming at the YMCA and country club.  They had the right idea.  I set up dead center on the field, just behind second base.  There was nothing resembling a breeze, so I figured I was safe.  I'd spent most of the previous week finishing, painting and prepping a box of rockets for the WSR launch at eRockets field, only to have it cancelled by a pop-up air show.  Undaunted, I switched gears and started prepping a box of small field birds.  A couple I just switched from one tote to the other.  This would come back to bite me.

First flight of the day was one that I recently rediscovered while doing my medium field prep work, the Estes Hex 3.  I found it in a bag in an out of the way spot downstairs.  I'd completely forgotten starting the project.  Maria and I were on vacation after Tuesday, so while she followed her bliss out in the yard digging holes, I spent the day finishing the Hex 3.  It would fly on a C6-0 because it's cardboard with a motor hook.

Color me impressed.  The Hex 3 left the pad heading mostly straight with a slight tail back over my head, topping out at 158', quite a bit higher than expected.  The Hex 3 would have been a great addition to my low & slow launches back during the pandemic.

Yeah, pretty sparse in the photo department.  I tried going old school and using my Sony camera with the burst feature.  It isn't quite as quick as it used to be.  (A lot like me.)  I switched back to the I phone immediately after checking out what I got of this flight.

At the 20% point, we had the MPC Nike Clipper, a wrecking ball that passed for RTF in the 1970's.  This thing is beastly in many ways, but I'm in an MPC zone so I feel the need to give it a chance at flying.

I thought I had this loaded with a B6-4, but it was apparently a B4-4, which explains why the plug fit badly.  It would have been nice if that occurred to me, but the sad fact is I only had the motors that were in the rockets I brought, so there would have been no chance at a change anyway.  The B4-4 was up to the task, but just.  The Clipper had a noticeable change in direction soon after clearing the rod, going from a straight flight to one heading out toward the trees in right field.  It ejected well after it tipped over and made a quick run back to the field behind me at shortstop.

It seemed that it had been a while since I disrupted the photons, but in reality it had only been since 2023.  I think it had been since 2020 that I probed said photons, so that might make the next round of B6-4 Field flights as they're always great small field birds on a B motor.

The Disruptor flight was much like the Nike Clipper was expected to be had it not had the mid-flight anomaly.  As it was, the boost was largely straight, with altitude touching 266' before ejecting.  The recovery sequence was quick and a touch exciting, crossing back over me through the sun and looking like it stood a good chance of a US 27 landing.  In the end it fell quite a bit short of the road, settling off third base in foul territory at the base of the hill.  It appears that I'm making panic a facet of every flight now as you can hear me saying "That's a goner," on most of the videos.  It's why I stick to photos.

I stumbled onto the P.A.R.A. Bandersnatch while going through old club newsletters at NAR.org, not knowing that the same plan had been issued with another name.  Either way, the rocket greatly resembles one of the rockets that graced the Estes Custom Parts Catalog back in the golden era.  I built mine with the wingtip fins swept back instead of forward, but other than that I stuck with the plan.  Decals were cobbled together from the scan of the Estes Skytracer.

This was a fairly surprising flight.  It was on an A8-3 because of the comparatively small size of the Bandersnatch, but the performance didn't indicate an A motor.  The Bandersnatch left the pad heading left and the flight topped out at 231'.  Ejection occurred out over left center field and recovered in straightaway left.  All in all, a pretty impressive B6-4 Field flight.

The Warlock was one of several homemade rockets I picked up as the only bidder on an eBay lot.  Most of the rockets in the box were pretty standard, but all clearly self-designed.  As each rocket came out of the box that day it got a name, and Warlock required no thought at all.  The name shined through in big neon letters.  It's ugly, definitely the ugliest in that eBay lot and possibly in my fleet.  It's a BT-55 based bird, so I've recently been trying different nose cones and have settled on one of the Interceptor cones from the Sci-Fi assortment.  Next I'll try different pod cones.  Whatever the case, I'm still not satisfied with the look, but it's a pretty decent performer, especially on a B6-4 here at the namesake field.

That said, on this day the Warlock left the pad looking strangely underpowered on the B6-4.  With the rod angled slightly away from me toward the hill in center field, it clearly struggled after leaving the pad.  The flight topped out at the 208' mark and ejection occurred long after it had tipped over, well under the 100' mark.  Despite this, the chute filled immediately and the rocket only suffered a cracked fin fillet.  Tougher than it looks.

I always liked the looks of the Estes Quasar, but to my knowledge never saw one on the pegs in my formative years.  Prices had risen to the point that it made little sense to buy one when I got back into the hobby in 2001, but when I saw the Estes Metallizer on the shelves I decided "close enough".  I switched out the foil body tube for one I could paint white, added a piece of foil tape and printed off a decal.  Like I said, close enough.

The Quasar XL flight was what I expected the Warlock flight to be.  It left the pad on the same flight path as the Warlock, but with noticeably more power.  While the flight paths were the same, the Quasar never suffered a dip like the Warlock, powering on to a 247' apogee.  It ejected just before it tipped over and the chute filled immediately, eventually landing 40' from the pad after a swinging recovery drift.

I've owned several Vector V kits over the years.  My first was a homemade one that I built using scrap parts.  It was one of the first rockets I brought to the field that stumped the band.  They thought I dreamt it up.  A few years later Carl released one and around the same time I found an opened Centuri kit on eBay complete except for decals.  Both are flying at this time, but this one is the Semroc version.

This would be an A8-3 flight with a tiny Centuri chute on recovery.  The V took off heading right off the pad and flew to 221'.  Ejection occurred at apogee and the chute immediately showed little to no interest in anything recovery related.  The rocket swapped the nose cone and tail section on the way down to the grass in short right field with me trying to employ body english to get the chute to fill.  No such luck.  The impact broke loose a fin, but it was an easy fix once I got home.

Heading back to B6-4s, the Centuri Stellar Hercules would be the next flight.  This poor bird is on the third trip through the paint booth.  I originally disliked the paint scheme I attempted, so I started over and disliked the orange that I chose for the project.  For attempt #3 the Hercules spent a couple of years in all white before recently meeting the dreaded neon orange.  I still need to paint a fin, but I'm kinda sick of the project and want it done and decaled, so this will be the final version.

I'm not sure if it was the hear or just me fat-fingering the iPhone controls, but something was decidedly off with the video for this flight.  The flight itself was dead straight off the pad to 245' with ejection at apogee almost right over my head in short center field.  Recovery drift took it back toward left field where things first looked slightly sketchy relative to US 27, but the drift eventually died out and it landed near the line in deep left field.  Things got weird when I got home and downloaded the video.  I'd set up near a crop of mushrooms, (lots of rain here recently,) and I was starting to think they were psychedelics.  The video was 1 minute, 16 seconds long for a flight that took maybe 25 seconds.  Long periods were spent focused on a cloud above the field, then I swung to the right and went sideways before heading back out toward left field and the eventual landing.  Turns out I'd accidentally chosen Slo-Mo.  I'd like to say that won't happen again, but two flights later it would rear its stoned head again.

It's rare that I drag out the Estes Converter, the last time being 2017.  I believe this was purchased because I liked the idea of being able to choose the configuration of the rocket from flight to flight, and because it was on sale.  While I can break the rocket down, I somehow managed to muck up the build so that it is only capable of flying in one configuration, the full stack.  Maybe reading those instructions could have been a good idea.  Wonder what happened to them.

The Converter was among the rockets in the tote I'd packed for eRockets Field, so instead of the B6-4 flight I was antici-pating, I got a C6-5.  Actually, that's not a bad choice here.  It's a fairly large, semi-RTF rocket and a cheap one at that.  Pro tip: when you're used to flying A8s and the occasional B6 at a field this size, a C6 is a real attention getter.  It left the pad leaning left toward the back corner of the field, deepest center where the terrace is.  It appeared to be flirting with Woodfill Avenue when the ejection charge fired at the 284' mark.  There are many hazards over that way, trees, the school, wires and the parking lot.  The Converter looked to be about to experience an asphalt landing on Woodfill Avenue but instead kept carrying to the bushes at the base of the parking lot wall.  This was literally the only safe area in the vicinity.  The Converter is apparently a lucky bird.

Earlier in the day I had decided to cut the flights off at 10 because of the heat, despite having more bullets in the bandolero.  The rocket I chose for flight #10 was an old favorite, the Semroc Ruskie, one of Carl's Groonie kits that was based on the original concepts for the Estes Goonybirds.  In my mind this was to be a B6-4 flight because I tried flying it here on an A8-3 once and was disappointed.  I'd had a lot on my plate over the previous week, spending my vacation mornings finishing some of my long neglected projects and prepping for a Saturday launch that wouldn't happen because of a pop-up airshow.  I may never know for sure, but I suspect that I prepped the Ruskie for an eRockets Field C6-5 flight.

As a death portrait, which this likely is, this serves pretty well.  Especially since the phone was set up in slo-mo mode for the flight, making it essentially useless.  There was trouble from the start of this flight.  Unlike the Converter, which left the pad heading to the left, the Ruskie left heading right.  Way right.  Like Ted Nugent.  It arced out over the Birdcage and popped the chute at 327', then began a lazy recovery drift toward US 27.  There was minimal traffic at the moment, so an asphalt landing may have been survivable, but it cleared the road with plenty to spare.  All I needed was for one more good gust to put it into the parking lot of the Apartment House of Horrors, but it never came.  The Ruskie now resides at the top of the last tree before the parking lot.

Not really the note I wanted to day to end on, but that's what happens when you're not born with attention to detail, and Amazon is out.  I left a lot on the table due to the heat, so I'm thinking I will be back to finish the rest of the tote sooner rather than later.  I'm also hoping for a club launch that doesn't get cancelled, and to meet the Easter Bunny.