Okay, to start I had no idea there was anything called Dolly Parton Day, but when I heard it on the radio on the way to The Grove it took me about .08 seconds to figure out the reason. I thought it was as good as any other reason to have a launch. I'm sure Dolly would be pleased. Not really, no.
Strange thing that I've noticed. I spend a couple of days down in the shop opening totes to decide what will be flying at the next launch. It seems like I'm dragging out dozens of dusty birds, but when I get to the field I find that it's only about a dozen, give or take. I also seem to be stuck in a Goony/Max rut. I need to work on that.
As promised, first on the pad today was the Fishhead Rocketry Spirochete. It's a nothing bird that I built to fit the name, nothing more. I'm surprised that this is the third flight for this bird. The first was on a carpet of fresh snow when it was in primer. I learned a couple of lessons that day, one of which was how hard it was to find a white bird on fresh snow, the other was that it needed a vent hole. Second flight got orange painted fins, which made it more visible on the B6-4 Field grass. Today would be the first flight in full livery. "Livery", like there were instructions. HA!
This would be an A3-4 flight, so essentially a fire and forget. Scrappers often elicit such a response from me. Rarely does one get emotionally attached to something that could have made its way to the trash can if I wasn't a messy individual. What I can tell you about the flight is that it left the pad heading right. I was surprised to see that I actually got pics of it leaving the pad. I expected a puff of smoke. By the time I tirned to watch there wasn't much to see, just a smoke trail, then nothing. I laughed, then scanned the field and listened for the telltale "whump" that sometimes was a clue to the landing area. Nothing. I laughed some more, yelled "Fire and forget" in a rueful fashion and began something of a search, which meant I looked around as I was walking to the tote to pick the next victim. Over behind my car I saw a strange orange flower, not a florist flower or a weed, but something garish you might see at Hobby Lobby or WalMart. Sure enough, it was the Spirochese, still in one piece with the nose buried in the kiddy soccer field. It actually took some pulling to get it out, and when it came out I started giggling. It looked like a bad exam at the proctologist. I thought about changing the name of the rocket to Muddy Turtle. Luckily I was alone. The Board would have had a field day with this.
The thirteen year old in me was still giggling as I pulled flight #2 from the tote. It would be another experiment in flying 24mm rocket on 18mm adapters, this time with the Semroc Cherokee D. By my count I've had four 1:1 Cherokee Ds over the years. In 2001 it was one of the simplest clone projects I could think of, which doesn't mean I didn't screw it up. Somehow, I convinced myself that the Cherokee D used the same nose cone as the Black Brant. Those cones were all over the place on the pegs at Johnny's Toys, so I naturally had a backlog. This was pointed out to me at a VOA launch, and the day was marked by my first ever CATO. A D12-7 detonated and took the whole motor tube with it. I never found the casing or the motor mount. but there was no other damage. The Estes E was just hitting stores, so I went home and installed a bigger motor mount. My first Cherokee D became a Cherokee E and left the park high, wide and handsome. It was so high when it cleared the fence that I never thought about chasing it. I subsequently obtained a Thrustline Cherokee D for review and lost that last year. The Semroc Cherokee D is my last surviving clone. Go ahead. We'll make more.
This would be a B6-4 flight, so no worries about losing it, right? Uh, maybe. It took off on a dead straight heading to 281'. Excellent flight. Iffy recovery. It looked like it was in trouble from the time the chute filled and you could hear in my on camera commentary that I thought it was a goner. I channeled Ralphy. "Oh, fuuuuuudge," and really said fudge, but meant the Queen Mother. The breeze appeared to be in a teasing mood because there were three separate instances where I thought it was a goner but it got past all three and landed on the kiddy field. I checked for green streaks on the fins from the leaves. It was that close.
Again firing and forgetting for flight #3, which would be my bronze Estes Wizard, something I thought was clever in 2002 when I was trying for my NARTREK Bronze. I knew from experience that the Wizard was a capable altitude bird, so I chose it for my NARTREK flights. This one would be on one of the B4-6 motors that I bought from an old flying bud.
Never saw a thing past it leaving the pad in a hurry. The launch went behind me toward Rt. 8 but all I saw was smoke trail. Never heard the pop of the ejection charge. Despite that, my finely tuned altitude sensors came up with a 472' flight. I'm thinking it was higher.
Next up was another 24mm to 18mm experiment, the Estes Goblin on a B6-4. This one isn't much of a stretch, the Gob being pretty much a Big Dawg size-wise. I'd adjusted the rod more to the left for this flight, not wanting a repeat of the Cherokee D recovery. As it was, the flight went to the left. No surprise there. It topped out at 369'. A perfect streamer brought it down through the sun and to the left as expected.
And what do you know? Look who I found while I was walking to recover the Goblin. I think I'm going to have to makes some adjustments in the recovery compartment. Everything was mushed together, so the failure to eject was on me.
For the fifth flight of the day I decided to keep things simple, so I went with the Estes Multi Roc. Yeah, nothing simple here, in fact, lots that can go wrong. I'll save you the suspense - it did.
The plan was to fly this on an A8-0/A8-5 combo, but that plan was scratched when it turned out that I had overestimated the number of A8-0 motors in my stash. I needed one. I had none. Not to be deterred, I grabbed a B6-0 out of the McCrate Stash. I knew it was likely overflying the field, but I had bought several Multi Rocs when they went on clearance a few years back and still had most of them. I was willing to take the chance. Things started out iffy at liftoff when the Multi Roc initially boosted straight, then headed to the right and behind me when it staged. I saw something in my peripheral vision around the time that it staged, and it seemed to be heading for the woods. I wrote off the glider right there. The sustainer headed for the old railyard and Rt. 8, but the A8-5 acted like a typical A8 and had only so much burn time. It was out over the trees that separate the railroad from Rt. 8, but the breeze from the river blew it back across the road after things topped out at 461'. The streamer recovery turned out to be a good choice because a chute may have carried into the woods. First, I walked the tree line to see if the glider had flown into the woods or if I'd lucked out. No joy there. Then I walked out to the landing spot that was just off of Rt. 8. There was the glider, still attached to the sustainer. I was puzzled. What had I seen gliding toward the woods? Did the booster have that kind of range? Turned out that it didn't, and if I had looked behind me before I started my Multi Roc quest I'd have seen that it had landed ten feet behind me.
The Custom Stealth Interceptor would be the rocket that would end the first half of the launch. My first one was a hobby store find on the way to NARAM 43 in 2001. For some reason I decided to build that one as a 24mm bird and flew it to death, but I liked it enough to track down another one.
No drama here. The Stealth Interceptor flight was perfect start to finish. The B6-4 flight left the pad heading slightly away toward the soccer field and topped out at 373'. Ejection occurred as it tipped over and the chute filled instantly and the SI recovered out near the soccer parking area. I dream of entire days of flights like this one.
The back half of today's dozen started with the lone C flight of the day, the Estes BLU 97B Cluster Bomb. This was part of the "Launchables" collection that I believe were supposed to be sold in big box stores. That tracks because I found this one on clearance in a local Meijer store for $.88. No way I could pass that up and I brought it home. And lost it. Not entirely my fault as we moved. I found the Hickory Farms box it was hidden in 2016, eleven years after the move. The box contained the Estes Little Joe I bought and tried to build with toddlers in the house, a stray Alpha, an Estes Hornet, (not the Hornet or the Hornet,) and the BLU 97B. The Little Joe remains the only unflown bird from that find. Hmmm. Maybe now that I'm retired........
This flight wound up in the same general area as the Stealth Interceptor but took a wildly different path getting there. The BLU 97B left the pad leaning slightly to the left, then banked aggressively to the right. This took it out over the parking area, and it topped out at 449'. The same breeze that brought the Multi Roc back out of the clutches of trouble caught hold of this one and took it to the very edge of the soccer parking area. It would be the longest recovery walk of the day, but still very manageable.
Oh boy. The last time we saw the Orange Max was in the midst of "The Most Interesting Flight of the Day". What a coincidence then that we're back here with another interesting flight from the same rocket on the same engine combination.
The last time this 2x18mm cluster attempted to fly on a 2xA8-3 load, but only one A8-3 lit. This was not quite enough for a successful flight, especially considering that the launch rod decided to come along for the ride. Today I was able to determine that both engines lit, which was great, but the rod appeared to have decided on unscheduled travel plans again, which was not. Things were fine until the 11' mark when my field of view became obscured by something orange. There was a whisper of propellant and a whiff of sulfur, then something hit the ground behind me. I managed to get a lot of the action on video, but I was unprepared for what came after the tracking smoke. The ejection charges fired in quick 1-2 succession, with both casings landing within feet of each other over by the pad. At this point I seemed to be expecting something else to happen as I swung the camera wildly between the crash site and the pad.
Post-mortem showed that not only had the launch lug hung up on the seam in the two-piece rod, it had completely ripped off and was nowhere to be found in the debris field. Then, when I was placing the rod back onto the pad, I found it. Still on the rod.
Am I done with this experiment? Not hardly. In the days after this launch I went and purchased a 3' piece of 1/8" rod. This should solve the issue with the lug catching the seam. A clustered Max will fly in The Grove before the snow falls.
The Semroc V-1.5 had the honor of following the ultimate showman. This was not an actual Semroc kit, but an extension of the Groonie line that Carl started with the Saki and Ruskie. These were actually taken from drawings for what the Estes Goons were supposed to be, which caused some friction. Rob Caswell posted the decal set for one of them at TRF, so I ordered everything from eRockets. Now the parts are out of stock and I need a replacement Ruskie cone.
As I expected, everything about this flight was perfect, dead straight off the pad to 384', ejection at apogee, a perfect chute and a landing 20' from where I stood watching. It didn't try to take the pad for a ride. It didn't chase me around The Grove. How boring is that?
I thought it had been a while since I flew the Semroc Vector V, but it turns out it made an appearance at B6-4 Field last summer. Apparently, my recordkeeping is flawed. No matter, it would fly this day on an A8-3.
The VV left the pad heading slightly right. It was a typical A8-3 flight, topping out at 283' and ejecting as it was still heading up. My original Centuri Vector V recovers with a streamer because I built it with the fiber fins set close to the body tube. I did the Semroc version with the fins more out in the way of recovery danger, so this flight was on a chute. It landed deep downrange near the left field line without damage.
Flight #11 would be the Estes D.A.R.T. This was picked up on the cheap via eBay. I was the only bidder and other than the fact that it's seldom seen, I'm not sure what made me bid on this. I think I called it the love child of the Cat in the Hat and a clown car. I had recently separated the nose cone and body with thoughts of building a clone of the Estes Scud, but I'm always hoping to find another on the eBay cheap.
We haven't had drama now for three flights, right? Ask the D.A.R.T. and ye shall receive. It's no secret that the only thing about this rocket that I care about is the nose cone. I actually had it set up with a new cone and had the Scud ready to go when I had a change of heart. I decided to go with the old look and figure another way to come up with the nose cone. The D.A.R.T. left the pad head to the right and away from me, topping out at 347'. It immediately looked like it was in trouble with the trees behind the recycling container and continued to look that way until the very end when it dropped into the gravel of the parking lot. WAY too close for my tastes.
You just know this wouldn't end well. The final flight of the day, and believe me I considered ending it at 11, was the Estes Jayhawk that I've nicknamed "Cousin Eddie". Eddie was garbage picked and presented to me several years ago as a potential reclamation project. The Jayhawk had been on my wish list for quite some time, but I never really entertained thoughts of owning one, so this was as close as I expected to come. Eddie had been built about as well as could be expected considering the limitations of the plastic parts and their tendency to react negatively to glue. Eddie was droopy in places, missing in others, and crushed eleswhere. The nose cone was very rough with the tip being cracked around the circumference and held in place by the clay load. To top it all off, it was to be powered by an Estes D12. Yep, nothing could go wrong here.
As you can see, Eddie has packed on the pounds over the years, but he was itching to strap on his Speedo and make a dive into the pool. The flight would be on a D12-3, one that I hoped would have closer to a D12-1 ejection charge. I tried to position him straight on the rod, but that only worked until the mighty D rolled on the power. Eddie left the rod heading right, clearly struggling for altitude and heading for my car. I was so cinched up that I walked funny the rest of the day. The flight topped out at a respectable 336' and never looked comfortable doing it. I was doing the three second math and based on the input I was receiving there was no way it was going to work out. It ejected as it was 50' off the ground and the rocket dove through the parachute before it could deploy. At this point I was happy that my sunroof was open. Not to fear. It was obviously behind my car and had plans to play the carom shot with the approaching ground. The back of one wing and the bottom raceway took the hit. Both shattered. The nose cone hit and rebroke the JB Weld repair on the tip, which I was surprised to find ten feet away. One shroud line remained on the parachute. Cousin Eddie said "It's a beaut". I had to agree.
And that was my big day. Despite a couple of very close calls, everything would be coming home with me. Some would be coming home in pieces. Some would be coming home retired. The twelve flights gave me 168 on the year, a testament to the wonders of retirement. It's my second highest total ever and gives me an outside shot at 200 on the year. Barring a historic run, the 242 flights I made in 2020 will stand as my personal best. As I finish, the tote is already packed downstairs, and Sunday is looking like it might be the next launch window, but there's always Monday. Or Tuesday.
