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.