WSR beanfield launch, Cedarville, Ohio - 12/12/21

 To be honest, I wasn't 100% sure this launch was going to come off, and once it looked like it was going forward, I wasn't sure I was going to make it.  It takes the better part of an hour and a half to go from Fort Thomas, KY to Cedarville, OH, and I wasn't sure I had it in me.

Oh, who am I kidding.  Yeah, I was dragging a bit.  Yeah, I got off to a slow start and didn't hit the road until after 11.  No, I never seriously considered not going, even after having gotten my December flight checkmark the previous Saturday.  I had vacation time wedged in there and used a bit of it to finish a few projects I had going.  As usual, I had a box of rocket mixed between never flown and not flown in a long time.  First on the pad would be one of the long-timers, an Estes Sprint upscale that I built before they came out with their own Sprint XL.

This rocket was built in 2012 and last flew back in the spring of 2013 in what was planned to be the later paint scheme.  It was damaged on that flight and the Estes kit showed up that year and was the giveaway kit at NARAM, but I had a change of heart about the paint scheme.  That finally happened this past spring when I repaired and repainted my scratch build in Astron Sprint livery.  I even managed to use the Estes Powered eyeball decal.  

The Sprint XXL spent a lot of time on the pad for having only one flight.  There was one burnt igniter and one change of clips before it finally got launched.  The flight was an eye-opener, the kind of bird that really shows what an E12-6 flight could be like.  The Astron Sprint is known to be a high flying design, and experience tells me that the upscale is as well.  This flight seemed like it would never reach apogee, a burn that went on long past the point that you expected burnout.  The flight crossed the creek to our right and wound up deep in the beanfield.  I was feeling really good about my chance of a close recovery at this point, then came the ejection.  At first it looked to be recovering as I expected it would, then it stopped descending.  There was no chance of it being a thermal.  Temps were in the upper 30's at the time of the flight,  I was wearing gloves.  And a serious hat.  It was freaking cold.  Apparently the Sprint didn't read the forecast.  Once again, I felt like Fred Flintstone in the monster costume, "watching and waving, watching and waving".  My Astron Stinger was obviously lost earlier the previous week, but I thought I might stand a chance of recovering the big Sprint just based on the amount of space we were dealing with.  It cleared the driveway that led to the farmhouse, but by what appeared to be by only about 20 feet or so.  The combination of the mud and the fact that I had a ready-made parking space made the idea of walking after it idiotic.  

I drove up and down the driveway twice once I reached the house.  Saw nothing.  Then on my second pass the parachute caught my eye when a breeze blew it up.  It was WAY more than 20 feet in.  More like 200 feet, and the mud was very obviously bad.  I had my mud boots on, so I started in.  After several minutes of head-down slogging I looked up, expecting to be within a few feet, only to find that a) I was still 100 feet away, and b) slogging through mud is a killer workout.  My boots seemed to weigh 40 pounds each.  I felt like I was slogging uphill through the mud.  Stopping for even a moment began a definite trend toward middle earth, which only served to clot the mud higher up on my pants.  As my heart threatened mutiny, I kept the slog going forward.  Eventually I arrived, not quite at the rocket, but within a long stretch of a fin.  At least I knew to hold the body away from myself when I pulled the shock cord to unstick it from the mud.  I took the dry route back.  No.  There was nothing that resembled a dry route.  Back at the car I nearly broke a hip swinging my feet to loosen the mud.  Was I having fun yet?  Apparently I was.

Once I was done unclotting my boots, I picked the newly painted FRW Long Distance Voyager as mt second flight.  This is a BT70 upscale with 2xD12-5 power, so I was hoping that I'd be able to avoid another deep trip into the mud on recovery.  Turned out to be an excellent choice, but not for the reason that I initially expected it to be.

 

From the moment it cleared the launch rod it was obvious that something was wrong.  The Voyager was struggling to gain altitude, taking "slow, realistic take off" to a whole new level.  The flight was dead straight to 300' or so.  I had expected windcocking due to the big fin surfaces and had set the rod straight to cut down on the distance that it crossed the creek.  It never approached the creek.

This was far and away my straightest flight on the day, and as a result, the recovery drift was fairly deep into the beans.  When I reached the landing zone I found just what everyone had expected.  Only one of the D12-5 motors had lit.  All in all, it was a respectable flight for one D12.  

Since I had a ready to go D12-5, I picked the TLP Bolo to be my third flight of the day.  This one last flew in 2013 at NARAM, but when I was building it, I had grabbed the wrong nose cone.  I finally got around to repainting the correct nose cone back in the summer and it looks just like the face card again.

I guess it might have been a good idea to change out the igniter before I tried to reuse the motor because it sat through a round on the pad.  When I went out to switch to a new igniter, the launch lug pulled off as I slid it up the rod.  Looks like the second flight of the Bolo will have to wait for the next go-round in the beans on 1-1-22.

I subbed in a first flight rocket, the Semroc Hydra One, still in primer but recently finished and itching to get some airtime.  I spent several years on this build, my fault entirely because I tried to build it without the instructions.  At night on lunch break at my desk.  I got some of the fins glued on in the wrong places and had to peel them off, trying to salvage them as best as I could.  Did I mention that eRockets sells the fin set separately?

This was not quite ready for my previous launch at B6-4 Field where it would have flown on a B6-4.  Here the flight would be on a C6-5 with a bit less angle on the rod.  Despite this, the flight left the pad heading right at a fairly aggressive angle, pretty much the same as the Sprint XXL.  It topped out around the 600-700' point, popped the chute just as it tipped, and began heading back to the good side of the creek.  Two of the shroud lines ripped and the chute collapsed in on itself, so the recovery wasn't terribly deep in the beans, landing two steps in the mud just off the grass.  Since the rocket was still in primer, nature provided me with some extra fill & finish to sand off along the whole length of the rocket.  I wish I could say I was looking forward to painting this bird.

 I'll be honest.  The long recovery slog on flight #1 had taken a lot of the spring out of my step, so I made the decision to fly smaller birds the rest of the day.  I still had two first flight birds that I wanted to try, the Semroc Laser X being one of them.  This is an oldie, and was actually a low numbered kit that I picked up from Carl the minute he posted that it was available.  Construction was started soon after it arrived, but then stopped when my wife started making moving noises.  Parts got scattered in the move, and were only recently gathered together again.

I REALLY didn't want another slog through the mud, so this would be a B6-4 flight.  The flight followed the traditional route, over the creek with the wind to about 400-450', then a full chute drift downrange into one of the areas on the field with the most standing water.  I was walking that way with a teenage girl who was recovering an Alpha III and told her that her best bet would be to approach from behind the large puddle/small pond, but she headed off into the muck at a direct angle toward her Alpha.  Fifteen feet in she stopped to decide on a different route and sunk calf deep in the mud.  I waded out to get her unstuck and we both approached from behind the puddle.  As I walked down I noticed that the Laser X chute was still actively catching the breeze with every gust and bashing the upper section into the mud.  I had recently sanded, primed, fill & finished, sanded and primed it all at home, expecting to paint when I got home, but all the mud bashing has given it another coat of natural fill & finish to sand off.  Glad to finally get this one some flight time.

By the time I returned from the Laser X flight it was approaching 4:00pm, which meant that my next flight would likely be my last on the day.  I began prepping the Rocketarium Trident T117-13, a rare first flight bird in that it was completely painted.  I'd started construction on this and the Semroc Jupiter B last year around this time when I got stuck at our remote location for work and needed something to pass the long hours between actual things to do.  It turned out looking cool and I'm now trying to decide if I need to make the next purchase the 18 or 24mm version. 

I borrowed a clip whip from WSR prez Dave "Love Shack" Combs and hooked the three A3-4T motors up.  At liftoff it was obvious that something was off, which was confirmed at ejection when we heard two distinct ejection charges instead of three.  As with the earlier 2xD12-5 flight of the Voyager, I'd missed on one of the cluster motors.  Altitude was still respectable at 600' but the bonus on the flight was the landing; one step off the grass in the mud.  My legs would live to recover another day.

Muddy, but victorious, I stuck around to help strike the range and load everything out.  Normally a Sunday launch would have me rushing to get home because of work in the morning, but this launch had fallen during our December Christmas shopping vacation, so I was able to head home at my leisure, listening to the Bengals do everything in their power to gag a winnable game against the 49er's.  Some things just never change.

Hedging my bets - Getting in a December launch while the weather is being cooperative, 12-4-21

 I've been here before.  Back in the summer I passed on a perfect launch day in June, then suffered through rain outs and alternate plans to find myself at the end of the month without a flight.  I wound up making one launch on a miserable day just to put the month in the books.  No way I was going to take a chance at trying to get a flight in when the field was under two inches of water with sleet adding to the misery, so I packed my box and headed for B6-4 Field.

I took a little long to choose the birds, so I found the sun low on the horizon when I arrived at the field.  (This is my 59th daylight savings time.  You'd think I'd keep things like this in mind.)  First flight was a rarity, a completely painted bird on its first flight, the Semroc My Boid.  I picked a few of these up to keep in my range box as spectator give-aways, but the odd nose cone shape on one got the best of me and I built it one day when I was bored.

I'm now jaded to the point that stuff like this doesn't surprise me.  Yeah, that's not exactly true.  My wipers on delay surprise me every time.  The doorbell causes me to dive under furniture.  And dog farts?  I don't even want to talk about dog farts.  (Well, other than to laugh about them.)  Truth is, my B6-4 Field photo capture habits have become so ingrained that I try to keep the camera focused on the pad until well after the rocket has left.  This one kinda stuck around.

I guess that's a flight.  If nothing else, then at least an expended motor casing.  I had another 1/2A3-2T motor rattling around the box, so I earmarked that one for another Boid flight later in the afternoon.

The next flyer came about one day last week when I found all the parts on my desk and decided to turn them into something flyable.  Everything had been earmarked for another project at one time or another, but those projects fall through for some reason.  Separately they were just part of the general mish-mash of my computer loft desk.  Together they became the FRW Time Warp.

The flight would be on an A8-3, which would turn out to be a perfect first flight motor.  I don't scratch build a lot, but most of the time it's with an eye toward B6-4 Field performance.  The Time Warp left the pad and boosted straight up and out somewhat, then recovered out behind shortstop.  Now I just have to think up a paint scheme.  Frank N Furter, anyone?

Flight #3 would be my last first timer, an Estes Thor-Agena B that had its roots in a number of kits.  The fin can was initially a part of an Estes Beta Launch Vehicle, and since it was clear, I immediately set it aside for use on a scale clone.  (The Beta Launch Vehicle got a fin can from a currently available Estes Freefall kit and just missed being brought to the field today as another first time flyer.)  The rest of the Thor-Agena B came from eRockets.

Eh, I clearly didn't think this one out well.  I remember thinking that this might be a job for the mighty B6-4, but for some reason I grabbed an A8-3.  This became evident as soon as it struggled off the pad and clawed its way to the 100' mark.  It tipped over and began falling sideways back toward B6-4 Field as the tracking smoke trailed.  Disaster loomed, but thirty feet from disaster the ejection charge fired, the chute filled, and the cheeks unclenched.  Impact was anything but gentle, but the rocket survived, especially the clear fin can.

The Curvilinear was up next, and it was the rocket that had flown most recently, back in 2019.  I grandfathered it in because the first flight was in primer, while this one would be in full warpaint.  This is another rocket that's perfect for B6-4 Field, and could conceivably be considered a Goony.

 This will now and forever fly here on A10 and A3 motors.  Even on the big As, this doesn't come close to overflying my field.  This flight would be on an A10-3T and it left the pad heading straight and somewhat out over the field.  It climbed to 200' before firing the chute quickly and bringing things back safely.  Cheap thrills.

The Astron Stinger was up next.  This rocket has led an anything but charmed existence.  The nose cone was from a lot of old balsa cones I won on a late night eBay Buy It Now.  It was painted and ready to go, so I cut the fins one night before work, then took it in to work on it during lunch.  On the trip home in the morning the ready-for-primer Stinger fell from the back seat to the floor and broke a fin.  I cut and attached a new fin and flew it at B6-4 Field after NARAM in 2013.  This happened to be the day that I was joined by nine-year-old William.  William had watched the Stinger fly from the hill and was very impressed.  He and his Mom came down to watch a few flights and William, overcome with excitement over one particular flight, charged out to recover it and ran directly over the box that I was transporting my rockets in that day.  Damage was pretty awful, with the bulk of rockets in the box suffering a crushed fin or tube.  The Stinger broke a fin.  During my Covid quarantine earlier this year I finally got around to cutting a new fin for it.  I got it painted and decaled and was looking forward to flying it at some point during 2021.  It fell off of the piano bench and broke a fin.

You can see the break in the fin in this picture.  I was going to replace the fin after the flight, but that's no necessary now.  If I'd bothered to read my notes on the 2013 flight I'd have known that an A8-3 really got the Stinger up there.  I estimated 400' back then, which wouldn't have normally been a problem.  For this flight, I opted for a chute to protect the previously broken fin.  This would be a problem. 

The flight was high and straight.  400' would be a decent guess and in the fading light the flame was impressive.  At ejection, the powdered Semroc chute performed perfectly.  This was when I realized my mistake.  It immediately became obvious that the Stinger was not going to drop straight back to the field like I'd hoped.  It began floating south on the breeze.  At first I thought it would land on the school roof, then on the playground, but it cleared both by 100' or more.  I got a nostalgic twinge watching it float away as it reminded me of the first flight I made with the Jet Freak a few years back.  The recovery path was identical.  So were the results.

Another potential high flyer was next, an Estes Black Brant III, but with it not being a minimum diameter rocket, I felt like using a chute wasn't going to wind up with me watching the rocket drift into the sunset.  This was a clone I built using the nose cone from a CATOd Estes Skywriter and decals from Excelsior.

Turns out I was right about it not floating away.  It never floated at all.  The flight was as expected, fairly high and dead straight to around 300'.  This A8-3 ejection charge sounded like someone clearing their throat and wasn't quite enough to do much more than get the shoulder of the nose cone past the top of the body tube.  Eventually the whole recovery system pulled loose, but the chute never opened.  The whole mess recovered sideways and crashed to the ground to the left of the pad.  I was expecting the worst, but the fin that hit first buried itself in the soft, moist ground.  Mmmm.  Moist.

The Semroc Swift would fly next, for the first time since 2015.  Having learned my lesson with the Astron Stinger, I flew this one with streamer recovery on an A8-3.  This rocket has been along to many launches in the six years since it last flew, and the fins are showing a lot of hangar rash.  It's in dire need of a repaint, which is fine because the black nose cone and black cherry fin can don't have near enough contrast.

Not sure why this one has flown so infrequently, especially at B6-4 Field.  As an A8-3 streamer bird it's pretty much made for small fields like this one.  The flight was perfect, straight off the pad to 300' with ejection just before forward motion stopped.  It streamed back to the field and landed just out in front of the pad in the same spot as the next three rockets would land.

Next flight would be ugly.  In every way.  The Centuri Python Fighter was a Centuri product built with Estes parts in the last days before Damon made them one in the same.  This version was an original that came in an eBay lot that I've always planned to strip down and rebuild.  It shows definite signs of being built by a kid, from the lack of sanding on the fins to the runny paint and crooked decals.

For the second time in the day, the ejection charge played the bad guy, and not in the way you'd expect.  The flight topped out around 200', then what sounded like a half-hearted ejection charge barely got the chute out and everything got tangled in the fins.  The whole mess came to earth with a thud, surprisingly without damage.  From there it went straight to the paint booth.

The MPC/Round 2 Red Giant would be my big motor rocket of the day.  It's easy to fly ARTF rocket like this up at B6-4 Field because I don't care if I lose them.  It's a McRocket, picked up on the cheap and flown only on the occasion when I'm trying to get everything I have some flight time.

It's not a bad rocket, but there isn't anything to really get excited about.  It's a very generic sci-fi design that can also be had with cartoon characters, either KISS or Looney Tunes.  (Not that there's much difference between the two except that the Looney Tune songs are better.)  Decent flight on the B6-4 to 300', then a recovery in the same spot as the Swift and Python Fighter.  Next flight will be on a C6-5, just to see if I can.

Last flight on the day would be a redemption flight for the Semroc My Boid.

This was more along the lines of what I was hoping for, topping out at 250' after a largely straight flight.  Streamer recovery brought it down in the exact spot that three of the previous four landed in.  Apparently I'm a spot-landing prodigy.

 

That doesn't wrap up 2021 for me.  We have a club launch in the beans this weekend and I have vacation leading up to it.  This should give me a chance to get several rockets completely dressed before their first flight, the D.O,M. Argus II and my upscale FSI Voyager being the two that I'm concentrating on.  Temps in the 60's, so it's likely to be a matter of how much mud I can stand.