As is my custom, I spent Friday night gathering and prepping the 20 or so birds I planned to take to Cedarville for the Saturday WSR launch. The list was heavy on rockets I'd yet to fly, and as has been the case of late, equally heavy on rockets I hadn't flown in several years, 21 years in one case. Shockingly, I got to the field late after a trip where I watched the gas mileage in my car rise from 36 to 39 mpg. It didn't register to me at the time that I had a killer tail wind. When I arrived at the field it hit me. Literally. Temps were in the upper 70's already, on their way to the low to mid 80's, so things were comfortable from a temperature standpoint, but the winds were pounding us from our right. Suddenly the E12-6 birds I'd packed seemed iffy at best.
C6-5's seemed perfect for conditions, though. My first one would be my newly "finished" Estes Design of the Month Nike Needle. This isn't a well-known D.O.M. kit and was only recently posted in a thread at YORF. (Okay, 2019. The pandemic has kind of compressed things.) I copied it off then and finally got around to ordering the parts from eRockets earlier in the spring.
I literally finished this one on Friday, gluing in the engine mount and spraying a coat of primer and olive drab to give an idea what the finished product would look like, and from ten feet the only thing that marks it different from the finished product is the lack of lettering and the unpainted launch lugs.
Launch lugs. It's always the launch lugs.
With the strong breeze coming from the right, I was expecting serious windcocking, so I didn't bother to adjust the pad into the wind. just a straight up flight that would immediately kick right and carry well across the creek before recovering in the beans near the pad. It wasn't my best laid plan, but I felt comfy with it. The flight was almost dead straight and if anything, tended to the left. It did cross the creek briefly, but nowhere near as much as expected. It recovered violently in the beans a good walk out toward the road, and I got a broken fin tip for my troubles.
My second flight of the day was one that was greatly anticipated by all. Or not. It was my Mary Kate and Ashley Estes Fat Girl rocket. Or not mine. It was the Estes Fat Boy that I built for my daughter in 2001 so she'd have something to fly at a family launch at Big Bone Lick State park. Yes, that's the name. Look it up. Sarah, seven at the time, wanted the rocket to be white so that she could decorate it herself to reflect the great esteem she felt for the Full House stars who may or may not resemble dashboard trolls.
I sent her this picture of it on the pad. She's now approaching 29 and quite proud of her masterpiece. Her reaction was "LOLOLOL" which I can't decode, although it's rumored to be embarrassed laughter. MK&A hadn't flown for almost 21 years, since a May, 2001 night launch at B6-4 Field. It disappeared over the trees at the top of the hill and we wrote it off. Later that night I got a phone call from a friend who lived behind the field. He found a rocket hanging from his chimney and wondered if it was mine. He also wondered why it was called Mary Kate and Ashley. At that moment I wished it hadn't been.
Now, almost 21 years later the Dashboard Troll made a triumphant return to the skies on a C6-3. Like the Nike Needle before it, the flight was largely straight despite the heavy breeze. Altitude was around 500' and it barely crossed the creek before popping the chute and riding the breeze back, coming very close to a car that may have been in the midst of a doctoral thesis. Or possibly just a Honda.
Flight #3 was the Estes Vindicator, a rocket I obtained through an eBay auction several years ago. It was a part of a lot of battered rockets that someone likely found while clearing out a garage somewhere. It was missing fins, but was fairly solid. The lot also included another Vindicator, this one folded in half and missing a nose cone, but with usable fins still attached. A couple of weeks back I decided that I was tired of the "patina" that this one had been saddled with and did a repaint. I didn't bother to check for the correct colors and went from memory. Oopsie.
I'd determined early on that a C6-5 would be the biggest engine that I could safely fly in the windy conditions, and that's what I loaded the Vindicator with. Winds had picked up slightly, to the point that the exhaust from ignition disappeared immediately upon appearing. The Vindicator windcocked some, but still not as much as expected. Altitude was down, topping out around 400' because of the somewhat horizontal flight path. At first the five second ejection charge seemed like a bad idea, but the ejection charge fired as it was pointing down and it cleared the creek easily to recover in the beans on our side. The recovery hit was hard, and right on the aft end, but I have to credit the builder. It survived without a scratch.
Of all the first flight rockets I bought to the field on this day, the old school Estes Scrambler was the only one that showed up with anything close to a catalog paint job. The plastic doesn't hold paint well, nor does it like model glue, but I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. Even the stickers stuck as hoped.
No egg for this flight, (now I'm hungry,) but like everything else to this point, the flight would be on a C6. As with the previous flight, the smoke from ignition was blown away to the left by the strong breeze. The flight path was fairly straight and arced back over the flightline. Altitude was impressive, especially considering the low level flight previous to this one. It topped out around 750', popped the chute as it began to tip over, and recovered in the beans off to our left.
Flight #5 was the Moonraker, a reader plan I found in the March, 1971 issue of Model Rocketry Magazine. Model_Rocketry_v03n06_03-71.pdf (ninfinger.org) I get tired of building the usual suspects, so I occasionally skulk the various plan sites at YORP, JimZ and the NAR publication archive. The good looks of the Moonraker caught my eye, so I ordered the parts from eRockets. I expected the finished product to be small, but I was shocked at just how small it turned out.
Upscale! That's what I thought when I finished the Moonraker. A BT-55 main tube to BT-50 upper tube seems like it would be perfect, and I'll lay odds on having one flying at some point this summer. Whatever the case, the Moonraker would fly on a 1/2A3-4T on this day. Loaded with a streamer, the Moonraker left the pad heading ever so slightly right, but enough so that it carried across the creek. It was a lightning quick flight to 300', so fast that I couldn't track it with my phone camera. I did finally catch up to it after ejection and caught the very tail end of the recovery process.
All in all, this is a perfect rocket for B6-4 Field on the 1/2A. Not too high as to overfly the field, and if I use brain one when setting up the pad, I should be able to keep it out of trouble. Nothing will help the next step, deciding on a color combination, although I think something bright might be in order.
Sticking with the unpainted/unflown theme, my sixth flight would be a clone of the Centuri Firebird. Calling this cheap and dirty might be an insult to cheap and dirty. The whole thing is a giant shop scrap, but it joins a large, proud club of rockets I've built "close enough". I think the fins on this one may be a bit large, but the overall effect is, as mentioned, "close enough".
The text for the Firebird in the 1983 Centuri catalog claims that 1000' flights are possible with a C motor. Motors must have been a lot more powerful 40 years ago, because this C6-5 flight didn't appear to have come close to the 1000' mark. I'm no altimeter, but I wrote down 750'. Maybe 750' is the new 1000'. Maybe I have fat shop scraps. Anyway, this was the straightest flight of the day. No noticeable turn toward the creek. No arc back over the LCO table. Ejection occurred just as it tipped over and someone mentioned that it would have been a perfect flight to use a streamer on. Unfortunately, I'd chosen a full chute, so I had a long walk almost to the road.
Ironically, the Rogue was at the pads with a correctly built Cherokee D. It would play a part in this story. It seems like I've been flying the Rogue forever, but according to my records, this is only the 11th flight. As expected, it ripped off the pad nicely, windcocking to the right across the creek, but like most of the flights on the day, nowhere near enough. It topped out short of 1000', popped the chute and began a fast run across to our side of the creek. Unfortunately, it didn't seem to be losing any altitude as it crossed over us. I watched it to touchdown but couldn't tell if it landed in the ditch on our side of the road, or in the corn on the other side of the road. As a result, I missed the Cherokee D launch.
As it turned out, it did cross the road, landing about 30 feet deep in what was left of the cornstalks, an easy find. The Cherokee D also hit the corn but wasn't so easily seen. We walked around for 30 minutes looking for any sign of it, but never saw a thing. After covering the bulk of the field, I went back to continue my mission, now two flights away.
Flight #8 was the only other new build other than the Scrambler to have a full paint job. I didn't get the decals on, but the by now ubiquitous Estes E.A.C. Firecat from a Wal-Mart HoJo still flew the colors proudly. Even if I did screw it up. (That's okay. I have two more tries. Didn't we all buy at least three?)
Apparently, this was meant to be an 18mm bird. I was under the impression that it was 13mm powered, probably because the E.A.C. Viper was. That was a biggish error, but for this flight I also made another. I had it prepped for a B6-4 Field flight and didn't swap out the 1/2A motor for the A. As a bonus, I also chose a 4 second delay. The bad news is that it was a really low-level flight. The good news is that we got to see the ejection up close and personal. Boy, did we.
I don't know, maybe 150'. That's just a guess, but I can tell you the ejection charge fired about 6'. I know that because I was looking it in the eye. Somehow it managed not to re-kit itself. It also was the closest to the pad.
My ninth flight on the day was a personal milestone, and for the occasion I had a special rocket. Back in July of 1977, on the 21st if my 14-year-old penmanship can be trusted, I strapped my spanking new, freshly painted Estes Beta onto my ten speed and rode with my friends out to a deserted parking lot at Northern Kentucky University. There we spent the afternoon launching our collective fleet, two Betas, several Mosquitos, a Rogue, a Javelin/Super Flea combo and a Scout. Almost 45 years later, I'd made 1999 flights, and I had an original pink tag Beta that I built just for the occasion of Flight #2000.
Yep, single stage. That's how I flew it every time in 1977, except it was a 1/2A3-2T back then. This would be a 1/2A3-4T, because it's a better choice for conditions and I had a bunch of them. The flight windcocked slightly right off the pad, tipped over at 250' and recovered via streamer in the beans to the left. In the 70's I never had a streamer bird until my first Estes Wizard, but let's just say I learned something in 45 years.
At this point, my day was fairly complete. I came hoping to get my nine flights I needed and could easily have spent the rest of the time before teardown socializing, but that E.A.C. Firecat flight nagged at me. I had an A10-3T motor in the range box, so I prepped the Firecat again for Part Deux.
Much better the second time around, but by now the winds had become constant, as you can tell by the smoke trail in the launch pics. The Firecat windcocked lightly to the right, crossed the creek, and popped the chute around the 300' level. It landed just left of the pad in a nice, soft spot of plowed ground. The next flight, a W-2 in honor of tax day, wiggled and blew around fairly violently on the rod. It leapt sideways as soon as it cleared the rod, and aside from a spool from the mid-power pads, our day was finished.
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