A taste of spring at B6-4 Field, 3-20-22

2022 has not been a kind year for weekends.  Seems that most of our severe or just plain lousy weather has always chosen to fall toward the end of the week around here, rendering Saturday and Sunday useless.  This held true for this particular weekend, with Friday and Saturday grey and drizzly.  However, the huge rains that were forecasted never materialized, leaving me with a sunny Sunday forecast with a potential need for muck boots on the field.  I had been packing up potential victims since early the previous week, so come Sunday afternoon I donned my muckers and headed for the field.  I found the field largely dry, which made the muckers unnecessary, but the winds slightly more robust than they'd appeared out my back window.  Oh, and goose crap.  Plenty of goose crap.

Things started off with a bang.  More like a bust.  Back in 2004, I built a Quest BrightHawk for an EMRR review.  All of the flights were made at B6-4 field and after I was done for the day, I gave it to the kid who'd done the recovery legwork for me.  It made it back to me last fall, and I planned to make it my leadoff flight on the day.  I'd loaded it with a B6-4 at home, then when I tried to install the ignitor at the field, the whole motor mount slid up inside the body tub and the fin can came off.  So much for my 18 year old glue job.  In its place I chose the eBay HoJo as my first flight of the day.

This would be the first flight for this rocket since 2015.  The first thing you might notice about it is the ugly factor.  It obviously started life as an Estes Honest John, but there appears to have been an attempt at some Big Daddy Roth-esque customization.  (That sound you're likely hearing is Big Daddy rolling in his grave.)  My first thought was to restore it to missile status, but some of the customization involved cutting away a good deal of the nose cone material.  It was left looking like a Christmas light.  From an ugly house.

This would be an A8-3 flight to test the winds.  Boy, did it test some winds.

For an A8-3 flight, this got some serious altitude, topping out around 400' over the outfield of the softball complex.  It windcocked so severely that my initial worry was that it would land on the softball field and be lost because my fence climbing days are about 30 years past.  That idea lasted until the chute popped after ejection.  The chute was an old Quest chute, no spill hole, that was rattling around the bottom of the box.  (I hadn't done much in the way of planning for this launch other than put dog barf and a motor in my intended victims.)  The old Quest chutes were notorious for their hit or miss performance, but this one popped and filled immediately, and the rocket started drifting toward US 27 at a rapid clip.  It actually cleared the road, but landed on the asphalt parking lot of the doctor's building, breaking a fin and delaminating the body tube when it hit.  It was an inauspicious start to the day, and I almost packed up and went home.

Almost.

I really don't know what made me stick it out, but after a pad adjustment, flight #2 would be the Space Plowboy, another of my shop scrap birds, on a B6-4.

Doug Sams and I got a laugh at this bird.  Turns out purple and yellow/gold were the school colors for his high school and one of mine.  Out local nickname was the Plow Pushers, and I was listening to a Steve Miller album while I built the rocket.  I changed Space Cowboy around a little and had my name.  Hopefully Steve Miller won't want royalties.  This is a fairly chunky bird, so I felt comfortable with it being a B6-4 flight.

Aaand, I over-corrected on the pad adjustment.  Nothing a simple rod adjustment wouldn't fix, but the Plowboy flew back over my head toward the trees at the top of the hill.  Had the flight recovered as normal, it may very well have drifted into the tree, but I got lucky with a parawad recovery that brought it down in dead center field.  Bounce recovery, but everything held together.

Flight #3 was supposed to be the Estes EAC Firecat that I cloned with one of the ubiquitous Mini HoJos from Wal-Mart.  It missed the last launch because I'd forgotten a launch lug, so I took care of that yesterday.  Today as I was attaching a parachute, the body tube slipped out of my hands and fell three feet to the ground.  It wasn't much, but it was enough to crack off one of the wingtip fins.  Instead, I pulled another of my shop scrap birds from the box.  The Skyway Star, another rocket named based on what song I was listening to when I thought it up, (Deep Purple, hence the fin color,) would pinch hit in the three slot.

I'd readjusted the rod again before this flight, and with it now set at a nice, neutral angle relative to the wind I loaded the Skyway Star with a B6-4 and figured for a mid-field recovery.  Missed it by this much.  

As typical of the day, the Skyway Star rode the breeze to the left as it departed the pad.  Nothing about the flight suggested it would take the recovery path that it did, but there was very little to show that the winds up high were causing the kind of havoc that they apparently were.  The SS popped the chute, one of the 10 for $1 chutes that I got from eBay 20 years ago and began drifting back across B6-4 Field.  It was then that I heard applause and turned around to find my wife and her friend watching.  I turned back to watch the rest of the recovery just in time to see the rocket catch the wire and hang itself next to one of the telephone poles that run up US 27.  Witchcraft.  I've long suspected it, but now I have proof.

I guess I can stop thinking up ideas for a decal.

At this point I really was planning to pack it in, but as I began putting the two flown rockets back in the box, I saw the Estes Bandito at the bottom.  It had come from the same guy as the Brighthawk, but was not originally one of my builds.  As such, someone had glued the engine retainer in place.  Nothing I tried could get it to twist off, so I got the multi-tool out and pried it off.  Now it's a friction fit bird.

This would be an A3-4T flight, because I wasn't of a mind to care.  It would also be nose blow recovery for the same reason.  Windcocked left as expected.  Altitude was impressive, around 400' well over the softball outfield.  I initially thought it was going to recover there, but it drifted back my way and came in fast on the baseball infield where it was recovered without damage.

Emboldened by the success of the Bandito, I decided to press my luck with the Estes Hi-Flier on an A8-3.  I've flown this combo several times here, with the last two going unstable as they left the pad.  That wasn't this bird, but another one that I'd built out of boredom.

Technical difficulties prevented me from getting a launch pic for this flight.  (The delicate phone/launcher balance underwent something of an anomaly.  Or I spazzed.  Even money on either.)  Whatever the case, this Hi-Flier turned in the typical great performance.  I think the difference in the two birds is a plastic nose cone on this one versus a balsa cone on the other.  Anyway, windcocked left, topped out over the softball field, then fell quickly back toward the baseball side, landing half on the outfield and half on the infield.  The nose cone stuck the landing.

With the Hi-Flier flight a success, I decided to further press my luck.  The next three flights would all have the same nose cone profile, starting with the Estes Chuter Two, one of the oddball bring backs from a few years back, but one I really liked.

I was pretty happy with how this one turned out, then it got an Estes dent on the first flight.  I kinda lost my enthusiasm after that, hence the almost eight years between flights.  It was handy today when I was packing up, so it got a second shot.  It kicked left off the pad on an A8-3 to about 300'.  Recovery was handled by a well powdered Estes drag chute that brought the rocket down on the pitcher's mound.  According to my notes it was the prettiest flight of the day.

Flight #7 was the Estes Crossfire ISX.  My buddy Zog claimed that he hated the Crossfire and tried to lose it by flying it at B6-4 Field on a C6-5 multiple times in a day.  In the end, both of us were impressed.  He kept his and I wound up buying one of my own.

This one would be an A8-3 flight.  While the Chuter Two may have been the prettiest flight of the day, the Crossfire was likely the best one of the day.  Like almost everything else I flew, it arced out over the softball outfield before drifting back to the baseball field and recovering at shortstop.  The only way I could have made the flight better was if I had bothered to clean the accumulated dust off of the fins.  Buy lots of these.  It's a very forgiving design.

Flight #8 would be the last flight of the day, and not because I had run out of rockets.  Off the top of my head, I still had the Estes Scrambler, D.O.M. Argus II, Semroc Javelin and Aerobee Hi in the box, prepped and flight-ready.  I grabbed the Estes Black Brant III out of all of them.

Yeah, I know.  Black Brants equal big air, even on an A8-3, but I thought I'd figured the winds out at this point.  Yeah, no.  It left the pad heading left, way out over the softball field and deeper into it than any other flight on the day.  Altitude appeared to be around 400' and ejection came just as it was tipping over.  Recovery began to look iffy from the moment that the chute filled.  It followed the same path as most of the others had on the day, but it was obviously not going to land on the field.  I spouted some rocket poetry, safed the launcher, and began a fast muck walk toward US 27.  It landed in the middle of the northbound lane when not a car was in sight.  That wouldn't last, and despite my muck jog, two cars drove over it before I could get to where it had by now blown down by the insurance building parking lot.  Either car could have flattened it, but both went out of their way to straddle it, and as a result, the only damage was a few paint chips.  Just as I was about to take a landing shot, more traffic appeared, so I concentrated on getting out of their way instead of photography.  I knew my day was done, and I was happy to only have lost one and had one damaged despite three leaving the field.

I considered an eight flight day worth my time.  A lot was left on the table, but that just means I'll have a head start on my next B6-4 Field launch.  Hopefully there will be a club launch before that happens, but the way my life is scheduled lately makes that an iffy prospect.  2022 is testing me, and I lost the syllabus.  Will this be on the final?

The Doug Sams Memorial, 2-27-22

This time of year is never easy for club launches, which means that I'm fortunate to have B6-4 Field as a backup flight option.  Occasionally even that option falls through when otherwise perfect flight days are plagued by winds too stout for anything but saucer flights, and sometimes I just don't want to take the easy way out.  That was the story of last week.  Nice days temp-wise, but when I open the door and hear the wind whistling in the trees, I call a build day pretty fast.

Sunday turned out to be a rocket day.  Cool and sunny, with some wind, but generally calm enough for A8-3s (and B6-4s on some of the girthier birds.)  I waited for mid-afternoon to let things warm up as much as possible, then donned the muck boots and braved the slop of the best fertilized launch site in Northern Kentucky.

First on the pad would be the Estes Chrome Dome that I inherited from a friend whose Boy Scout son lost interest in the hobby.  It's hard to get sentimental about an RTF bird, so it would serve as my wind gauge for the day.

Judging by the flags in front of the school, there was a fair amount of breeze.  I adjusted the rod angle to let the rocket chew on the wind a little, counted down, and.........nothing.  I readjusted the clips and tried again.  Still nothing.  I was puzzled.  The batteries were almost brand new.  That was when I noticed that I had two red wires instead of red and black.  I said some magic rocket words, swapped out a red lead for a black one, counted down again, and........success!

The B6-4 flight was perfect for getting an idea of what the winds were like.  What they were like was occasionally gusty on the ground, but steady above the level of the hill.  The flags at B6-4 School were getting a workout, so I knew rod angle would play a part on the day.

Back in 2001, I was buying parts whenever I found them.  One early purchase was a bag of four Estes PNC-55BB nose cones.  I was trying to recreate one of my favorites from the late 70's, the Satellite Interceptor, but the BT-50 nose cone was no longer available.  I wound up doing upscales of the SI and the Estes Rogue, and with one of the two leftover cones I decided to build a WAC Corporal.

I took it to NARAM 43 as part of my minimal flying circus.  I was prepping a rocket at the car when a guy stopped to look at my rockets.  He zeroed in on the WAC Corporal.  It was missing the raceway/conduit and the blue and gold paint job wasn't stock, both of which he picked up on and pointed out.  I explained that I had already painted the kit when I realized that I'd forgotten the conduit, and that the blue and gold paint were two colors I had on hand when I decided it was paint time.  This wasn't good enough for him, and he spent the next few minutes giving us a rundown on what would make it historically accurate.  All of this has nothing to do with 2022, but I think of that clueless guy whenever I drag this one out.

Today's flight, the first since 2012, was perfect for conditions.  A B6-4 flight, it windcocked to the left off the pad, ejected at apogee while over the softball field, and the chute immediately tangled.  On the launch lug.  The chute tried valiantly to deploy all the way down, but the shroud lines were stuck fast.  It all came down fast and landed in the right lane of US 27, directly in the path of an oncoming truck.  I dropped the launcher and actually started running, in muck boots, hoping to get to the road before the rocket got squashed.  I was surprised at two things; I run fairly well in muck boots, and I made it to the road before the rocket got squashed.  It hit hard, but the rocket showed no sign of being any worse for wear.

Flight #3 was the Semroc Scout, newly painted out of the Golden Scout livery that I never warmed up to.  The Scout was the first rocket I ever saw fly, from a neighbor's back yard in the summer of 1977.  I repainted it in the same scheme as I remember from that 1977 catalog, and this would be the first flight since the repaint.

Thinking back, I'm guessing that first flight might have been a B6-4, and I remember being wildly impressed with the altitude and the fact that we were able to track it to where it landed, way to the west end of our subdivision.  It had lost a fin when it hit the asphalt and wouldn't fly again that day, but every kid who saw it went to buy a rocket of their own that night after dinner.  I flew this rocket here on an A8-3 back in 2012 and it disappeared.  I got lucky and found it the next day, but I learned my lesson.  The flight today would be on a 1/2A6-2.

Even with the 1/2A load this flight almost teleported to another dimension.  Impressive altitude to around 300', straight out from the pad over the center of the field.  At ejection it actually began fluttering as it dropped, just as advertised.  That only lasted briefly, as it eventually straightened out and came in hard, straight down.  I kinda saw where it landed, but when I got to the spot, I began to worry that it had sunk deeper into the muck than I'd be able to find.  It took several minutes, but I did find it.

It doesn't look like it would be that hard to spot, but it blended in fairly well, and it was stuck deep.  The 1/2A6-2 motor casing was stuck fast into the top end of the rocket, likely from the impact.

The next flight would be the resurrection flight of my Moderately Deep Space Transport, a downscale of the Estes kit that I built several years back.  It had been crushed by a clumsy cable installer, and I recently got interested in rebuilding it.

For the most part, the whole aft end of the rocket had been crushed except for one fin.  I think all the Mini HoJo talk got me thinking about it again, and I got busy cutting replacement balsa.  It originally looked pretty nice and was midway through final sanding when it was crushed.

A8-3 flight, but as I noted, could easily have handled a B6-4.  It windcocked slightly to the left, topped out around 200', then popped the chute and recovered in short center field.

And surprisingly, it wouldn't be closest to the pad.

Flight #5 was my Centuri Sabre, freshly finished earlier in the morning and still smelling of paint.

This whole project came about when I was looking through the Centuri listings at RocketReviews.com.  I was looking for kits that didn't appear in the flight listings or galleries and noticed the Sabre.  I had to go look it up and liked what I saw.  It was one of the final year Centuri kits that were kitted using Estes parts.  I made a list of these kits many years ago, but this one obviously didn't stick with me.  Earl Cagle came through with an opened kit and scanned it all on YORF.  From there it was a simple matter of opening one of the Wizard kits I had stashed, finding the correct length of BT-20, and starting the build.

The A8-3 flight was pretty much as expected, just on the edge of appropriate for a breezy day at B6-4 Field.  It topped 400' with ease out toward the road, then popped the streamer and began chasing its tail while the streamer failed to stream.  At first it looked like it would land in foul territory of of the third base line, but as it continued with the tail-chasing, it began inching out toward the road.  In the end it completely avoided the grass and slammed into the sidewalk that edges the parking area.  I was expecting the worst when I saw it, but other than a scuff on a fin, there was no damage.

Feh.  Flight six was the MPC/Round 2 GTS-1.  If anything in my box should have been a wind bird, this was the kit.  I just can't get interested in these birds.

They fly fine, and my only quibbles with them are the ARTF feel and the here and gone company that pooped them on us.  This would be a B6-4 flight, and I would honestly be tempted to fly this and the Red Giant on a C6-5 here.

The flight was pretty perfect for conditions, arcing out to the left over the softball field, then dropping back toward the muddy infield of the little league field.  Touchdown was at home plate, the muddiest spot it possibly could have landed.  It also stuck the landing.  The expended engine casing immediately began slurping up water and swelled in the motor tube.  I got it out before it damaged anything.

Next on the pad was a homebuilt monstrosity that came together from parts scattered around my desk, the Crossfire Gunship.  The parts consisted of an Estes Crossfire kit from which I'd scavenged the nose cone, the PNC-50SP nose cone from the Sci-Fi nose cone assortment, and a bunch of tubes from Buster's poo bags and the remnants of a 13mm cluster I'd fiddled around with for a time.  It's also supposed to have sticks and cannons and pointy things, but I've been distracted lately by other projects.

This could take a while.  

When I first loaded it onto the pad, all seemed normal.  Normaler than normal, even.  Took the on-pad glamour shot.  Took it back off the pad to put in the igniter that I'd forgotten in my excitement over the glamour shot.  Once all that was taken care of, I hooked it up and stood back to let the mighty A8-3 thrust it to the awaiting heavens.

The good news is that I caught the whole flight on video.  The bad news is that the altitude was less than expected.  My first thought was that the engine hook had gotten snagged on the rod standoff, but the model had no engine hook.  When I went to take it off the rod to reload it, the whole pad lifted slightly when I tried to pick it up.  Turns out the back edge of the body tube had gotten pinched in the standoff.  I was kind of shocked at how much I had to yank on it to get it free.  I'd say live and learn, but two or three blogs down the road I'm sure it will happen again.

Luckily I had brought along other birds that were loaded with an A8-3, so I scavenged the motor from one of them and tried again.  This time nothing got pinched.  (I checked.)  

The flight was everything I'd hoped for and a double bean burrito, leaving the pad with a slight arc to the left and toward the road, then recovering safely in short left field after a flight north of 300'.  By this time the winds started kicking up noticeably, so I decided that the next flight would be the last.

Bringing up the rear would be the Quest Big Betty.  Betty had been loaded and reloaded for the past few months with C6-5's for possible cornfield action versus B6-4's for the home field.  To be honest, if the winds weren't kicking up, she'd be a potential candidate for a C6-5 here.  Not today.

Betty had been one of the survivors back in 2013 when I flew with my younger self, 9-year old William.  William had been fired up to see rockets fly, and dragged his Mom down to watch me one late summer day.  I should have seen it coming.  William was so intent on recovering a rocket for me that he charged out into the field, straight over the cardboard box that held the rockets I'd flown and planned to fly that day.  He and his mother were both expecting a different reaction than they got.  I could only laugh.  Like I said, my younger self would have likely done the same thing.  Betty flew three times that day, all B6-4 flights like this one.

With the rod angled into the wind, Betty initially flew out over the softball field before popping the chute just as she tipped over and riding the breeze back to the south.  Best flight of the day, I wrote after she had landed gently at third base.

All totaled, I managed nine flights on the day, even though I left the field convinced it had been ten.  If I'd been the thinking type, I'd have hunted down my Semroc Midget for a flight.  It's the model I identify most strongly with Doug Sams.  At any rate, I think he'd like the fact that I'm keeping the skies above his home state dangerous.  What I really need to do is get busy finishing that Squirrel Works Tuber that I bought a lifetime ago.  That's a definite beanfield bird, so maybe I can have it ready before the bean season starts again.  At any rate, peace, Billy Doug.