Redemption launch, 10-4-26

 I didn't head to the field on Sunday thinking of redemption.  Well, at least not on the surface.  I'd spent the previous week working on the blog post from 9-25 and prepping for what looked like launch weather in these parts.  Temps in the 70's.  Full sun.  Minimal winds.  Based on the Hi-Liter marks on the paper I was working from, I was doing a pretty decent job of getting through the mountain of rockets that had five or more years of dust on them.  At the same time, I kept running across rockets that had failed for one reason or another, often for reasons other than design.  There was a C5-3 CATO that killed the Sleestak.  The Cosmik Debris had wedged itself so that the launch lug couldn't travel freely up the rod.  Good for moving the entertainment needle, but flights like that stick in my craw.

No rocket stuck in that craw more than the Estes SDI Satellite.  It ticked a couple of boxes for this launch.  It last attempted a flight in 2021, so it filled the five year box, and that flight was a disaster, so it worked the redemption angle.  The problem was that the disastrous flight pretty well destroyed it, at least as far as I remembered.  On Saturday afternoon I noticed it on my list.  I hadn't seen it since that 2021 "flight" and had all but forgotten it.  When I found it, the damage was pretty bad, but all cosmetic.  It needed two fins and several of the external tubes needed work, but I began thinking of the stash of C5-3 motors I had and decided to either see if it would ever be flightworthy or finish it off.

You can pretty well see the battle scars here.  Like I said, this would be a C5-3 flight and I was willing to accept what the dice had in store for me.  When I laid in the final fillet on the new fins on Saturday, I knew it would be the leadoff flight on Sunday.  I couldn't have planned it better.  The C5-3 gave it the kick in the pants it needed to get off the pad.  The lack of wind allowed for a straight boost.  If a perfect SDI Satellite flight was possible, this was likely it.  It leaned to the right a bit as it left the pad, but the flight was more straight than not.  It topped out at 337', ejected as it tipped over and recovered about 30' to the left of the pad.  It was a great start to the day and I was pumped.

I chose the Estes Maxi Icarus to fly today as an 18mm convert, just to see if I could get away with it.  I've been doing it a lot lately and so far the results have been good.  I thought this would be a B6-4 flight as that was what I had bought at Hobby Lobby on Friday.  One way or another it didn't work out that way.

Long story short, the Maxi Icarus flies fine on 18mm motors.  I don't know about B6-4 motors in particular because this one turned out to be a C6-5.  Yep.  Plenty of motor there.  It left the pad heading left and promptly made a right turn as it accelerated, probably due to the extra Gumby weight up top.  From there it continued on the right, topping out at 483'.  It ejected just as it began to slow and came back to land in almost the exact spot that the SDI Satellite came to rest.  

You'll likely be seeing a lot of rockets like the next one in the future.  The FRW Shrapnel came about when I recently unearthed a long ago eBay purchase.  It had been advertised as an original stash of Canaroc cones and transitions.  The pics and price told a different story.  They're likely resin copies of actual Canaroc parts, but they suited my purposes nicely.  I built clones of the Maxi Challenger, Green Hornet and Eager Beaver and had two pieces left over.  One was an obvious Black Brant cone, but the other was a mystery transition.  Some thought it might have been a part of the Orbitron, a spidery futuristic offering Canaro had that I could see myself killing.  In the end they got tossed into a box, then paired with a set of fins from an Estes pattern sheet to become the FRW Shrapnel.

This would definitely be a B6-4 flight.  I know that because I took it just before I left home from another rocket that didn't fit the launch criteria.  (It had flown in 2024.)  I frequently talk about dead straight flights and this one was of that ilk, no lean right or left.  The B6-4 might have been a little light on power, but it got the job done, topping out at 262', then recovering in the same direction as the first two flights, but deeper in the field.

 

Speaking of parts box birds, the FRW Ossifrage was another recent build.  This has roots in a large collection of nose cones and transitions that I bought in a late night eBay raid.  All of them were painted, and they all seemed to be from different manufacturers.  In fact, some I could not trace to any company and I suspect they might be custom pieces.  The cone for the Ossifrage was one that was of indeterminate origin, but I left it as it was because I liked the yellow paint that they used.  (What can I say, I'm a sucker for neon.)

Until Friday, this was the only newly built bird that I had ready to fly today, but the Shrapnel came together that night and into Saturday.  The Ossifrage would be flying on an A3-4, so it was a potential fire and forget bird and when it left the pad, I gotta admit that was where my thoughts went.as it left the pad, but as I followed it skyward those thoughts disappeared quickly.  It had leaned slightly right off the pad and topped out at 724'.  I heard the ejection charge, but it wasn't much more than a suggestion of smoke at that point, so I couldn't tell if it was still moving up or had tipped over.  At any rate, my short recovery walks seemed to have ended as it recovered via streamer on the gravel over near the soccer fields.  And an Ossifrage is a prehistoric vulture that ate prey bones and all.  It's time they got their due.

Freshly decaled, the New Way Quad Goblin would be next on pad for my fifth flight of the morning.  It would be the second 24mm bird to fly with an 18mm adapter, and I was sure this one was a B6-4 load.  Remind me to delete this part.

The Quad Gob flight was as expected.  Despite being powered down it flew perfectly fine, heading back over my head to 286' and recovering via parawad just to my left.  Actually, the chute did pop part of the way at the end of the flight, but it would be to my advantage to fluff the chute before the flight on occasion.  As it was, it recovered without damage.

For a long time in the 2000's, the Pitsco Synergy was a rocket that could be had for a song on eBay.  My first one was $.99, cost more to ship than to buy, and what showed up was a nose cone, a long clear payload tube, and a wrapped piece of adhesive soaked paper.  The idea was that you soaked the paper, wrapped it tightly around the payload tube and let it dry.  What you wound up with was the roughest looking rocket outside of an aluminum foil tube.  Mine is still in the basement somewhere.  This one came with an actual length of BT-50, which I was much more comfortable working with.  No, the rocket is not called the Synergy, but I saw that somewhere in the instructions or product ad and now here we are.

I chose a B6-6 for this flight.  I just had a feeling that the extra two seconds would come in handy.  The Synergy left the pad with a pronounced lean to the right, topping out a 563' over the kiddie soccer field and ejecting while it was sideways.  It then came back toward the baseball field where I was launching, eventually dropping in fair territory right next to the left field foul pole.  Perfect recovery was handled by the Pitsco parachute.  I think I got ten of them for $1.

 

The last of my three Red River Rocketry birds to fly in The Grove would be the Starliner DST.  I went with a B6-6 for this flight as well.  I bought this at a long-ago NARCON and did a review on it for EMRR.  The A8-3 and B6-4 flights went well that day at VOA in 2006, but the C6-5 began chasing its tail as soon as it cleared the rod.  I wasn't anticipating any trouble out of the B6 this day.

The Starliner was quick off the pad.  I mean like RIGHT NOW.  I laughed as it cleared the rod because I hadn't been expecting it to move out like it did.  The flight followed the same path as the Synergy flight before it, heading right off the pad and topping out above the kiddie field at 542'.  It became another victim of the lack of a chute fluffer, parawading its way down to the edge of the grass in deep left.  I never could find it on the video.  It blended too well with the wispy white clouds.  I did see it bounce.

The Estes Honest John was one of my earliest eBay "rescue" rockets, so far back that I don't remember any details of the transaction.  The HoJo is an oldie, and well used at that.  The fin can had the structural integrity of fabric and the fins just wiggled around.  I wicked some thin CA into the area and shored things up as best I could, replaced the shock cord, and gave it some air time.  It doesn't fly often, this being the third flight since 2002.

Though a bit on the fragile side, the HoJo is still a decent flyer.  Issues in the past have been with damage to the upper shroud, which seems to get bent every flight.  Surprisingly quick off the pad, the B6-4 flight showed only the slightest lean to the right, topping out at 416' and appearing to eject as it was still ascending.  Perfect chute and recovery left of the pad at about the mid-point of left center field.  There was some damage to the shroud, but it was fixed with a flick of the finger.

Going with the white and black theme, the next flight would satisfy my Goony sweet tooth.  The Excelsior Nike-G would be making only its fourth flight in the 17 years since I've built it, mostly because it has a knack for being in the wrong tote.

The B6-4 flight was probably the straightest flight of the day.  I only had to point the camera up and was able to follow the whole thing.  After topping out at 274' it recovered right through the sun, one of several flights to do this on the day, but none quite as thoroughly as this.  It landed in almost the same spot as the HoJo had previously.  Depending on conditions, I think this might be a candidate for a C6-5 flight here in the future.  Conditions today would have been perfect for the upgrade.

We've all got rockets like the FRW Rumble Bee.  The Bee came about out of boredom.  I had just received an eBay lot of nose cones and was itching to build something out of one.  I found an Estes D.O.M. plan called the Bumble Bee at JimZ's site dom0180.pdf.  It was a BT-20 based mini-engine powered fire & forget bird, but in my mind I saw an 18mm BT-50 rocket.  A visit to the scrap heap later and I had a new B6-4 Field bird ready for the coming weekend.

Looking back, this was a mistake from the start.  This is a perfect A8-3 flyer, but plugging in a B6-4, while technically a possibility, is asking for trouble.  I asked and I received.  Unlike every other flight of the day, the Rumble Bee took an aggressive flight path back over my head toward Rt. 8.  I was so shocked that I lost camera function and missed most of the flight until just before the end.  It topped out at 391' and appeared to be over the old rail yard, then began streaming back toward me.  It looked hopeless, and ultimately was, but it came within a few feet of clearing the eventual tree and either landing on the road or on the edge of the field.  No matter.  There would be a blank spot in the post-flight lineup a few launches down the line.  The pink streamer marks the grave 25' above the road.  Maybe this winter someone will see a flash of pink as they drive under the leafless trees and wonder what the road crews marked that high above the road.

The Centuri Screaming Eagle would be next on the pad.  In the interest of safety and with a nod to the likelihood of it being 50+ years old, I opted for a more sedate A8-3 flight for this one.  Much as I should have for the previous one.  This is my second Eagle.  The first was from an Australian eBay win, one of my earliest auction wins.  It arrived with a broken fin and proceeded to break another.  This one was the replacement and was also an eBay refugee.

The Eagle got off the pad leaning slightly right and flew easily to 214', with the ejection charge firing as it was still ascending.  Recovery was handled by a heavily reefed vintage Estes chute, but I really need to hunt up one of my Centuri chutes for future flights.  The Eagle recovered 50' out in the field from the pad and survived the flight unscathed.

After that A8-3 respite it was back to B6-4 mayhem.  The Estes Stinger (the Stinger, not the Stinger,) is probably a tweener bird in The Grove, but for some reason I felt compelled to go with the bigger motor.  I did swap out the chute for a streamer, as I felt that might give it a better shot at recovery.

The Stinger (not the Stinger,) flight was far better than hoped.  The B6-4 didn't really overfly the field at all.  The flight left the pad with the usual slight lean right and topped out at 616'.  The parachute would have been a death sentence, so I was happy to see the streamer deploy.  It must have been cold up there because the streamer displayed significant shrinkage.  The Stinger initially looked to be coming back toward the pad, but eventually caught a breeze that took it to the edge of the baseball field toward the soccer parking lot.  When I arrived at the landing site I found spectators.  The lady wanted to know if I could rig them up to explode for the kids.  I told her I could blow them up without any special rigging, and all for my own amusement.

Speaking of overflying the field, the Estes Mighty Moe was up next on an A8-3.  This was a project that I had no particular interest in, but I did have the decal that came in a late night eBay Buy It Now raid.  I used to take Buy It Now as a command back then.

Even on an A8-3, Moe goes places.  And goes there fast.  The flight leaned slightly to the right off the pad, largely following the same path as the Stinger (not the Stinger,) and topping out at 384'.  It followed the Stinger (not the Stinger,) recovery path, but with a streamer that actually streamed.  It landed just off the grass in the parking lot, chewing up a couple of fins in the process.

The FRW ReneGoon was another rocket built when inspiration combined with Goony Fever.  I was trying to think of something that had never been goonied, then combined some leftover decals with a set of inkjets and a little bit of magic.  Every now and then I look at something and feel the urge to rush out an fins a Baby Bertha, but these days the urge isn't as powerful.

No problem with a B6-4 in this one.  I would have been comfortable with a C6-5 on a calm day like this, but it came to the field fully packed.  The ReneGoon left the pad without a hint of lean to a respectable 314' apogee.  It recovered over behind the infield after a long drift.  Best chute of the day.  A bit of strangeness during the recovery.  I don't remember saying it, but on the video I quoted Pwnnywise.  "We all float down here."  Not sure where that came from.

I've picked up three of the LOC/Precision mini kits over the years, not because I was a huge fan, but because the price was right.  Until just a few days before this launch, the only one I had that was completed was the Big Nuke Mini, but while searching for other decals I found that I had the sticker sheets and instructions in the same place at the same time.  It was a sign.  Today I brought both the Iris mini and the Hi-Tech Mini, but only the Iris would fly.

The Iris mini would fly on a B6-4, which tells me that I was wildly optimistic about my chances for success, or closer to the truth, that I wanted to see how they flew on something other than an A8-3.  The Iris took off leaning right and behind me, heading toward the rail yard and topping out at 519'.  At one point I mentioned that I hoped the spill hole was enough, and it definitely looked like the answer was not.  It crossed back over the field way higher than looked recoverable, and toward the end of the recovery drift I was writing it off until the very last second when it dropped in front of the trees and landed safely in the grass behind the soccer fence.

The next two flights had been attempted earlier in the morning when it was still breezy, but neither were able to sit on the rod without twisting at that time.  I had seriously considered calling it a day after the Iris mini, after all, fifteen flights is a pretty respectable day on the range.  Something made me grab the FRW Cosmik Debris for one more try.  This would be a C6-3 flight, and like the SDI Satellite, should have been a C5-3, but I was feeling dangerous.  They don't call it Debris for nothing.

Resplendent in a fresh coat of primer, the Cosmik Debris at first turned around so much on the rod that I was afraid I was going to have to pull it down again.  It eventually settled and, once the clips were attached, stopped moving altogether.  While the C6-3 lacked the kick off the pad that the C5-3 would have provided, it still worked well in the windless conditions.  The flight was straight until it topped out at 243' when it tipped to the left and ejected.  Recovery was perfect and it came down softly within 60' of the pad.  

Emboldened by the success of the Debris, I decided to retry the FRW Sleestak, which I had originally tried as the third flight of the day.  The Sleestak had to be completely rebuilt after the previous flight when the C5-3 detonated, destroyed the fin can, and blew the rocket in half at the mid-point.  It started out as shop scraps, and could have easily ended as trash, but I decided to see if I could at least get it flightworthy again.  This would also be a C6-3 flight.

Unlike the Cosmik Debris, there was no struggling off the pad for this one.  The flight was straight and unexpectedly high, enough so that it elicited a "Wow," from me as it climbed out, followed by an "Uh-oh," when I realized that the recovery angle looked wrong.  After topping out at 422', it ejected while still straight up, then began to drift toward the trees back next to the soccer field.  This same group of trees had claimed my Fat Boy-based Star Snoop back in 2001 and at one point I said "That could be all for the Sleestak."  Clearly, I was not optimistic about its chances for avoiding the trees.  Seconds later it shocked me by dropping to the grass well clear of the trees.  Clearly my depth perception is not what it once was.

 

At this point I had one rocket left in the box, the LOC/Precision Hi-Tech Mini, but it was loaded with a B6-4 and I didn't have the nerve to try it.  That means it leads off the next time out, which will likely be sometime later this week.  Despite the loss of the Rumble Bee, I'd have to consider any day where I rack up 17 flights a success.  I'm now at 185 on the year, which makes me almost a lock to reach 200 for the year.  This is especially surprising considering how late in the year this season started with my first flights (2) coming in April.  With Portugal looming for much of November, I don't see my personal best in jeopardy, but no matter what I'm pretty happy with 2026.