Yeah, still 2020. Hard to believe I stayed up until 3am to welcome this year in. That said, between club launches and social isolation launches, I've had a banner year from a rocketry standpoint. 136 flights with four months left to fly in the year. My personal best is 160 in 2013. Last month I thought I had an outside chance to top 200. Not sure I've got that in me anymore. I'm also nine flights from 1700. Clearly I've still got a lot to fly for from a personal standpoint.
Over the years I've collected a fairish size collection of Der Red Max rockets. It started innocently enough when I came across a PNC-60AH nose cone in 2002 and immediately began the process of putting the iconic rocket body underneath it. I had only recently started experimenting with making my own decals, and had actually had some decent success. My problem was that a big part of the Red Max decor is the white, and only an Alps printer could replicate that. To sidestep the issue, I bought a pack of white shelf paper, printed the decal on typing paper, and cut the white background out where it would show best, behind the skulls and crosses. From ten feet it looks great, and only the sharpest eye would catch the missing white areas. Considering the Goblin vs. Red Max thing going on over at Facebox, I think this 2002 photo shows that I was a seer, well ahead of my time.
Yeah, no. I just saw them as Estes classics. At least I got that much right.
Over the years my Max collection grew, usually by accident. I did some beta builds for Retro Rocketry, BT-20 sized Mini Red and Blue Maxes. Then came a Goony Max from Phred at Excelsior, a Baby Bertha based Red Max with custom decals. (Two, actually. I treed one on a review flight, so he sent me a new decal set.) Estes then reissued the Red Max, and I built a regular version and a Der Big Red Max version. Still, I had no clue of the mania taking hold. I built two more Excelsior birds, Der Fat Max, which used an Estes Fat Boy as a donor, and Der Grosser Vati, which really isn't gross at all and uses an Estes Big Daddy as a starting point. The real trigger was the Estes Mini Max, a BT-50 stroke of genius readily available at Hobby Lobby. Armed with my 40% off coupon and making several trips a week, I soon had myself in the habit of picking up a Mini Max when I felt like building something. Soon my Max collection had grown noticeably, so much so that I set them up for a family portrait.
At this point I couldn't really deny it. My fever had Maxed, and it would get worse.
By the time of our August 8, 2020 WSR launch at eRockets Field, I was up to 21 Maxes. I thought I was bringing them all with me, but two missed the bus, one that I left on my desk while trying to gin up a decal for it, the other because I felt like it was a stretch. (It had the paint, but nothing in the way of decals.) I'd prepped everything the night before, so all that was left to do was plug in an igniter and take them to the pad. Motors ran the gamut from 1/2A to G, missing F. (Had I thought about it, I'd have packed a 1/4A in the Miniscule Max and bought an F from Merlin Missiles for the Der Grosser Vati.) First, another family pic, (because not all would be able to pose for a post-launch photo.
The day was almost perfect for flying. Mid-80's, full sun, little to no humidity and an occasional breeze.. I had planned to go from small to large on the day, but found a crack in the fillet of the Miniscule Max, a BT-5 home built with Excelsior decals. Instead the first flight would be the Retro Rocketry Mini Blue Max. Fitting in a way. As I said earlier, Mini Blue was one of two rockets that I did a beta build on for Retro Rocketry. The first two rockets were to be the Mini Maxes, followed by a Mini Blue Bird Zero and Mini Wolverine. Something happened, likely Estes stepped in and stopped them. Not sure if any kits were ever offered for sale.
Sadly, this was all I got of the flight. Pad issues, then when I put down my phone, the LCO said "Let's try one more time." It worked. 1/2A3-4T flight because I couldn't find A3-4T motors anywhere. Straight off the pad. Decent altitude. Streamer recovery just to the right of the pads.
The Retro Rocketry Mini Red Max was next to the pad, also on a 1/2A3-4T.
Not surprisingly, the Mini Red Max had an almost identical flight to the Mini Blue Max. Mini Red left the pad leaning more to the right, but straightened out nicely to about the 300' mark. It landed within a few feet of the spot where Mini Blue landed. I picked it up and began walking back to the car, then saw that a fin was missing. I walked back and found it at the landing spot. It had been under the rocket body, so I hadn't noticed it. Easy repair, and it will fly again.
The next four flights would be Estes Mini Maxes, all different colors and all flying on A10-3T motors from the same pack, recently purchased at a local Hobby Lobby. The first in line would be the Mini Gold Max.
Unlike the two previous flights, Mini Gold left the pad angling to the left. When I say angling, I mean about three degrees. The flight was largely straight to the 400' mark and ejection occurred as it was tipping over. The streamer, having been balled up since I put the dog barf in earlier in the week, streamed lazily at best, but the recovery was still fairly gentle, landing in the grass, but missing the asphalt by only a few feet.
Flight #4 would be the big surprise on the day. I had been going over my flight logs in preparation for Max Saturday and noticed that I didn't have a red Mini Max listed. I knew I had one because I specifically bought it to replace the one I treed on the first flight at B6-4 Field. Sure enough, I found the red Mini Max in with the rest of the Maxes. When I checked it for flight evidence I found that the nose cone had never even been attached. Somehow I'd never managed to fly it over the years.
Looks great, doesn't it? The A10-3T motor was from the same pack as the others. (Which would cause a bit of tightening for the next two flights.) It was as normal as pumpkin pie. (Vague movie reference.) Pics come hot and heavy from this point.
Nothing about this ever looked like a normal flight. There was that telltale firecracker bang the instant the button was pushed. Luckily I kept my phone pointed in the right direction the whole time. The Mini Max lifted off the rod, but by the time it moved it was already chasing the nose cone and streamer. I was dimly aware of the flames exiting the top of the rocket, but you couldn't miss the smoke. Altitude was down on this flight to only 15' or so. After what seemed like an eternity the whole smoking mess crashed into the asphalt in front of the pad. Quite a show. I've been a CATO victim on a fairly regular basis over the years, mostly E9s, but several C11s, a B6-4 and a previous A10-3T. Most of the time all I need to do it take the rocket home, clean off some soot, and replace the shock cord. That wouldn't suffice this time. The Mini Max was incinerated internally. There are spots on the body tube that are being held together by the paint and decal, and crumble to the touch. The wrap decal at the top of the body tube is discolored, and a very definite line works its way down toward the launch lug. Under that line is ash, and not much else. The Kevlar had been tied in behind the forward centering ring. It burned through somewhere in front of that. But I got the whole flight on camera. Major cool points.
Back at the car the Lemon and Lime Mini Max twins cowered, neither wanting to be next in the game of A10 Roulette. Luck of the draw wound up pointing at the Mini Lemon Max.
Nary a hiccup for this one. It left the pad on the same flight path as Mini Gold two "flights" earlier, lightly arcing to the left and slightly behind the pad, the riding the light breeze back toward the asphalt. Like Mini Gold it came up just short. Other than the Mini Max, which really just dropped there, I only had one flight that found the asphalt on this day.
Last of the A10-3T pack would go in the Mini Lime Max. One of the giveaway kits from Carl McLawhorn of Semroc had been a reissue of the RDC Moon-Glo, a tiny spaceship that just begged for a metallic green paint job. Green was the color that my parents chose for a cars, so not a lot of my rockets wound up green, but I bought a can specially for the Moon Glo. That left me with a lot of leftover green paint, so one of my Mini Max projects was bound to turn up green. The decals showed up nicely against it, which was a bonus.
As with the rest of the Maxes on the day, the Mini Lime flight was relatively straight. Flight topped out around 400' and ejection occurred just as it tipped over. Breezes had kicked up slightly by this point, so recovery was deeper in the field, but still a textbook B6-4 Field flight had I been flying there.
The final Mini Max on the day would be the Hemi Max, so named because the paint I chose was Hemi Orange. If you're a kid who grew up worshipping Mopars the word HEMI means something, so I did away with the 13mm motor mount and went with an 18mm mount. (The Mega Mini Max that I left at home is a minimum diameter 24mm bird, but at the time I didn't think of trying something that nuts.)
Not sure why, but the Hemi Max was one of the rockets on the day that I failed to get an on pad glamour shot of. Admittedly lacking in the organizational skills, (see the fact that I forgot two rockets for a launch I'd prepped two days for,) I'm generally very good about the glamour shot, owing back to my EMRR days. Still, missed a couple on the day. I think the truth lies elsewhere. The bright sun, glareblind conditions and the phone screen may have combined to make me THINK I'd taken a picture when I actually hit just a few millimeters off. Whatever the case, the Hemi Mac flight was much like the others, straight up, this time to around 500'. The flight seemed noticeable calmer despite the large engine, topping out lower than I'd expected, but still nicely straight with ejection just as it reached apogee. Recovery was progressively deeper in the field, but still in the area of the previous flights, which meant I was back at the pads quickly.
The Mini Der Big Red Max was just a Mini Max with additional tube, kind of how the original Der Big Red Max was just a Der Red Max with a full length BT-60. If any of the Mini horde begged for more power, it was this one, but I built it true to form with a 13mm mount.
The Mini Big Red Max set a new standard for "straight up-straight down" flights on the day. In baseball they sometimes talk of elevator shaft pop-ups where the catcher barely has to move from his spot behind the plate to field a ball. That's exactly how this flight went. Altitude seemed slightly lower than the other Minis, but only slightly. Ejection occurred as it was still moving forward, but only slightly. At this point it was still almost directly over the pads and it fell like a streamered rock.
Okay, so it was the bank of pads to the right. Close counts in horseshoes, hand grenades and rocketry. CLOSEST TO A PAD!!! WOO-HOO!!!
By this point we were getting into the full size Maxes, the first being the one I cloned in 2002. Beaten and battered after landing on the access road at VOA many times, I came very close to throwing it out at one point, or at least recycling it. Then I remembered how much work went into the decals and changed my mind. As a result, one fin is more glue than balsa at one spot. Cool scar. It wears it proudly.
This was definitely a C6-5 field. No chance overflying it and the DRM is big enough to not lose sight of, something I often don't have the luxury of when flying at a field where an A8-3 might be too much. Nice to stretch my legs. Legs? Did I mention that mine were starting to question me? Scary thought when you think that I wasn't remotely close to finished for the day. Anyway, the Max flight was odd in that it left the pad and boosted toward the flightline. Ejection occurred directly above our heads and it recovered in the soccer field behind us. I didn't mind the short walk even a little.
