Back to the bean field, WSR launch, 11-6-21

October was a dud, not just for me, but also for WSR, with lousy weather plaguing us through the whole month.  Things got so bad that I wound up sneaking up to B6-4 Field for a low and slow launch, just to continue to be able to lay claim to flying in every month of 2021.  After our launch was nixed on the 30th, I doubt that anyone thought November would give us much to work with, but we dutifully bought motors and prepped just in case we got a usable launch window.

 I don't think any of us saw this coming.  For the second straight year we've been blessed with an almost perfect day to fly rockets in the corn/beans in November.  Last year we had a day when temps were around 70 all day, but with the typical Central Ohio cornfield breeze.  This year the temps were a tad lower, but the wind was almost non-existent, and the crowds showed up.  Parking stretched back to the curve of the field.  Kids chucked dirt clods.  It was almost a park-like setting.  Who do I see about making this permanent?

I brought a conservative mix with me for this launch, a lot of unflown birds and some that just haven't flown for a decade or so, and a couple that have been repaired since their last flight.  Not sure at what point in the day I made the decision, but somewhere along the line it became apparent that I was going to fly all first-timers, starting with the Estes S.D.I. Satellite.

This bird has been a long time coming for me.  I actually acquired the nose cone for this bird in an Estes Designer's Special back in 2001.  When I was a kid, the Designer's Special was a cool way to buy a lot of tubes and cones that could be used to create a bunch of old catalog birds.  I made the mistake of thinking it was still like that, only to find that in the years since I was last active in the hobby, the Designer's Special had become a disappointing mish-mash of whatever junk needed to be swept out of the storage bins at Estes.  I didn't mind the Greyhawk nose cone so much, but I kind of felt like this was stretching calling the S.D.I. Satellite stack a nose cone.  Twenty years on my curiosity got the better of me, and we know what happened to the cat.

I read over a bunch of reviews and flight logs at rocketreviews.com and all of them stressed the importance of using a C6-3 ONLY for this.  I remember thinking that it might benefit me to try it on a C5-3, but that thought never made it past the doors at work.  On Friday night I sprayed a fancy coat of white primer on the rocket, then grabbed a C6-3 on Saturday morning.  Big mistake.

The C6-3 struggled to get this tub off the pad.  It actually appeared to give up for a moment, which turned the tub to the right over the creek.  From there it was clearly fighting as it climbed out to the 300' mark.  It tipped over, fired the ejection charge, and an audible "THUNK" was heard on the ground.  The shock cord and parachute fouled on the rear fins and the whole mess landed in the beans on the other side of the creek with a splat, the sort of flight not seen in Cedarville since the forgettable R2Doo-Doo disaster of 2018.  

 Damage was fairly extreme, borderline broom and dustpan recovery.  Two of the rear fins detached, as did one of the tubes.  Another tube was crushed.  The idea of finding a dumpster had some definite appeal, but I'm determined to see the flight on a C5-3.  Plus the fact that I've already printed off the decals.  To be honest, the next flight might occur at B6-4 Field.  At least there my shame will be private.

Since the first flight was a steaming pile, I wanted to taste success on the second flight, so I chose the Semroc Magnum Sprint on a D12-5.  This bird was another one that had been coming to the field for multiple launches, so I was more than ready to see it fly.

I built this one stock, but I gave serious thought to changing out the D12 motor mount for an E12 mount.  I chose the D12 mount because the original Centuri Magnum birds were built with it in mind.  I've seen reviews that talked about using an 18mm adapter for this rocket, and I can see it being a possible B6-4 flight, but on a day like this I had no intention of flying with anything but a D12-5.  The flight was very straight, just slightly off to the left to about 800'.  

This would have been a perfect flight, but the landing was rough and the body bounced noticeably on impact.  Not surprisingly, I found a fin cracked and gouged, not much more than normal flight, but damaged still.  0 for 2 to start on what looked to be a perfect day to fly.  I needed a palate cleanser.

So, I chose a complicated cluster for my next flight.  I've built a Max or two over the years, 30 to be precise.  (I counted.  27 are in flight shape and three are pishing daisies like the Norwegian Blue, two by tree and one by CATO.)  I picked up another StickerShock decal set, Der Vader Max in this case.  Most of my Maxes have something unique about them, so I decided that this one would be a cluster.  

Definitely a candidate for flight of the day.  Arrow straight to 1000' or so feet with a rimshot ejection charge.  Pretty cool.  Recovery was deeper in the beans as it's a long trip down from that height and there was some breeze to deal with.  Finally on the board with my first undamaged bird of the day.

For flight #4, I'd stick with the Max theme.  With the Mini Max unfortunately OOP, I was forced to find another creative outlet for my Max fetish.  (Ooh, Der Fetish Max!  Gonna have to think about this one.)  I downsized a set of regular DRM decals to the approximate size of the Mini Max and printed them on white decal paper so that the white bits would show clearly.  Unfortunately, this would have meant a lot of tiny detail cutting which my eyes are no longer certified for, so Der Ghost Max it was!

I've built Mini Maxes with 13mm, 18mm and 24mm motor mounts, so I decided that the difference here would be limited to the paint.  It also helped make the trimming of decals a no brainer, which I'm well qualified for.  First flight for this one would be an A10-3T.  The flight was as you'd expect it to be in these conditions, a nice, straight shot to 300' or so followed by a streamer recovery.  It landed about 100' from the pad.  Now if I could just figure out how to make a GHOST MAX decal in that font......

 After two straight successful flights and conditions continuing to be stellar, I decided to take a chance with my TLP Exocet MM.40, one of the last TLP birds I was able to pick up before Hobbylinc ran out of stock.  Construction took FOREVER, but not because of anything TLP did.  My interest waxed and waned over the course of the project, but it all came together when I got stuck at home for Covid quarantine after an office mate came down with the virus.

Loaded with a pair of E12-6s and sporting more metal than bumper from a '52 Buick, I was fairly sure I had the balancing act conquered, and the conditions were never going to be better.  I was expecting a slow liftoff and I hoped the Exocet would get up to speed without getting hit with a rogue breeze, but there was none of that.  It left the pad quickly, WAY faster than I'd been expecting.  The flight was extremely straight and quite a bit higher than I'd expected.  I'd been worried about the six second delay, but it appeared to be a good choice as there were two distinct ejection charges heard in quick succession.  Recovery was handled by an 18" yellow nylon chute whose origins are a mystery.  It was in my car when I got home from a launch in the spring, the snap swivel bent and useless.  Recovery was inspiring as the Exocet hung straight down from the chute, slowly drifting back toward the beans.  I took pictures, none of which came out.  A video would have been better, but I was only thinking at half speed.  It touched down softly and the whole thing stretched itself out in the field in a straight line.  Very cool flight.  Now I'm pumped to get it painted.

When Estes reintroduced the name "Solar Warrior" on a larger, more powerful rocket, I wasn't thrilled.  It wasn't because of the design.  I just don't care for Estes reusing rocket names.  The new design was a sharp bird on its own, and it deserved to be known by a unique name.  That's all I'll say about that.  No, it isn't.  My first Solar Warrior v.2 was built just after it was released, but perished in an afternoon avalanche of poor decisions and lousy luck back in the spring of 2013.  I remember thinking that I'd build another one as I watched the first one drift away, but it wasn't until my brother in law bought me one during one of the Estes clearance sales that I had the chance.

I'd built my first version of the Solar Warrior to fly on E motors, so this one got the same treatment.  I still have most of the decals from the first one, so I made sure to use all of them on this one just in case it was also a one and done bird.  The flight wasn't as textbook as I'd hoped.  Despite the almost complete lack of breeze, the Solar Warrior kinked right off the pad and headed for the opposite side of the creek.  No skywriting, but the rocket topped out a lot lower than I thought it would.  I'm thinking that I might have to add a touch of nose weight before the next flight to compensate for the added weight in the read end from the E motor.  The flight wound up on the right (wrong) side of the creek, and was recovered by a kind soul that I never got to thank.  I found it on the ground next to one of the tables on the flight line.

At this point I was running out of time, so something low level was in order.  Back in 1994, the rocket that got me reinterested in the hobby was an Estes Ninja that I found in a hobby shop in Arlington, TX that was in the middle of a going out of business sale.  I got the Ninja and a pack of motors for a couple of bucks, figuring I could entertain the kids with a launch at some point during the week.  The original served its purpose, but got crushed by shifting luggage on the trip home.  All I had left was the decal.  After I got serious about flying in 2001, I bought the second gen Ninja, but this was the first time I built and painted one of the first gen birds in all black.

I had originally planned to fly the Ninja on an A10, but forgot that I switched it out for a 1/2A when I thought about flying it at B6-4 Field.  The flight was pretty much what you'd expect in the conditions we were flying under, leaving the rod heading slightly left and recovering a short walk into the beans after a perfect streamer recovery.  This should probably be flown with a small chute in the future as I built it with the fiber fins and not basswood like I did the earlier one.

It didn't occur to me until just now, but my final two flights on this day had something of a connection from 1994.  After I bought my Ninja that day, my brother in law came home from work and found me building it at the kitchen table.  He asked where it came from and I told him.  "Let's go!" was his answer.  He picked up a couple of kits and motors and our wives went back later to pick up stuff for us for Christmas.  I got a Super Vega and Greyhawk, both of which have flown multiple times over the years, and the Hornet, which I finally finished 27 years later.

My last flight of the day would be on a C6-5 and followed the flightpath of the Ninja as it left the pad.  It looked great as it was heading up, but at ejection there seemed to be an issue.  I thought I heard the sound of a collision, which to me meant a possible nose cone snapping back.  At the same time we saw something falling straight down while the rocket itself rode the chute down to the beans.  I was expecting to find a missing fin, after all, there are 10 of them, but it was apparently just the dog barf falling.  Everything was intact when I got to the landing site.

At this point it was just past 4:30.  The waiver closed at 5:00, at which time everyone was going for dinner before starting the night launch.  I still had one first flight bird in the box, my Semroc My Boid, but my feet were begging for Aleve and not to be walking through the beans again.  I listened to my feet.  At best I get home before dark.  At worst I have a leadoff flight ready to go for this weekend.