October wormhole launch, B6-4 Field - 12/15/24

 With my last vacation of the year coming to a close, something told me that I should take this opportunity to fly.  I dropped my wife and her friend at the airport early in the morning and on the way home, I decided to take a detour on the way to breakfast.  Yep, the siren call of Hobby Lobby waylaid me and forced upon me some rocket motors.  From there it was just choosing the victims.

I arrived at 2:30 to find the field empty and surprisingly sloppy.  (And even frozen in some of the shadier spots despite the 50 degree temps.)  Wind was blowing out of left field, but not the kind of wind that's a recovery hazard.  I set up on the line in deep left and trusted that the rest of the field would be my recovery zone.  Just behind me and to my right hung the Estes Rattler 7 that I lost a month back.  Nothing would come close to it on the day.  

Mostly.

This would be the third launch at B6-4 Field that I toted the Quest Tracer to.  I chose it as a wind test bird because I was tired of seeing it loaded and unflown, and who can think of a better wind tester?  This dated back to my first foray into Hobby Lobby when they were closing out Quest kits and cheesy foam kits from Fun Rockets.  (They were, indeed, fun.)

The Tracer flight couldn't have been less eventful.  I had the pad angled to the left to allow for some breeze and it headed left and out into the outfield in front of me.  The Tracer is something of a pig and it only got to 174', ejecting as it tipped over and coming down in left center with the Quest chute in parawad formation.  Nothing unusual.  I did note when I was repacking the chute that I'd used those cussed plastic shroud line mounts.  I think it was the one and only time I did that.  Most of the time I swap out a chute on my Quest flights.  This flight illustrated perfectly why I do that.

Flight #2 would be the long-suffering Centuri Jayhawk that I bought off eBay in 2002.  It was in okay shape then, but flight and hangar rash got it to the point that the cardstock was not salvageable.  A couple of weeks back I started removing all the bent cardstock and decided on 1/16" basswood as a replacement.  Yesterday I "finished" the repair project, (yeah, I know I'm missing the tiny front fins,) just in time to give it a first flight in 22 years.

I didn't learn enough from the first flight and left the launch rod in the same position.  It almost cost me.  The Jayhawk flew on an A8-3 and went quite a bit farther to the left than the Tracer had.  Altitude was quite a bit higher to 226' and, unlike the Tracer, the chute popped immediately.  The Jayhawk was well out over Woodfill Avenue, but quickly drifted over the outfield.  Just when it looked like all was well, it swung back toward the trees on the hill.  There was a moment when I thought it was lost, but by mere inches it cleared the outstretched branches and fell to the hillsjde.  There was much unclenching.

Enjoy this look at the Estes Sunbird because it's likely the last.  This was another "bottom of the box" birds from an eBay lot buy.  It was badly built, badly treated and just plain feh, but all the parts were there, so I felt obligated to glue it back together and fly it.  That flight resulted in a snapped shock cord and another trip to the bottom of a box.

The Sunbird flight was actually pretty decent from the ground.  The A8-3 flight topped out at 359' and ended with a massive shotgun ejection as it was still heading up.  On the video I commented on the volume and that maybe I should have gone with an A8-5.  It landed in the hole behind second and short and when I got to the landing site, I found the top of the rocket split open just above the shock cord mount.  I'll give one chance.  Two even.  Not thinking it's worth a third flight.

Next up was the Custom Razor.  Who doesn't love the Razor?  I'm not sure how many I've had.  For a while I kept them in my range box to hand out to interested bystanders at launches.  It's an entry level kit so easy even I couldn't screw it up.

Unfortunately, this is all I have of this flight.  Not sure what happened.  I do my "camera work" lefthanded and control the launcher with my right hand.  I'm always a little preoccupied with making sure I have continuity.  For this flight I went through all the motions and I swear I touched the go button on the phone screen.  The results speak differently.  Anyway, an A8-3 flight to 241' with a parawad recovery in straightaway center.

To be honest, I had no idea Estes ever kitted a rocket with a Dune movie tie-in.  I paid $1 to see it back 1984-85ish at the good ol' Village Cinema in Erlanger.  One of my friends was a huge Dune fan and was just incensed with the movie adaptation.  I had no idea what was going on, but I liked the sandworms and my date was hot.  A few years ago I stumbled upon a plan for this kit and threw it together in the days before a launch using a Generic E2X as a starting point.

Flight #5 would be a fifth straight A8-3 flight on the day.  The rod had been adjusted to a straight up orientation by this time and the Guild Heighliner flight was high and straight to 337'.  The ejection charge was another healthy one that got the neighborhood dogs talking, but the rocket handled it routinely.  Everything worked on this flight and the chute brought it down in shortest center field.

The FRW Eris would be the first flight of the day that deviated from the A8-3 lineup.  It was built with mini-motor power specifically to fly at B6-4 Field.  It was another rocket built using what I had on hand in the shop.  I know the payload bay came out of another eBay lot, this one of shop trash someone had laying around.  Nose cones, transitions, payload tubes, Nichrome wire and other assorted rocketry based ephemera.  Sadly, this flight also suffered from an Id10T error and this is all that exists of it.

The flight was on a 1/2A3-2T, a mistake I won't make again.  Even B6-4 Field has enough space for an A10 flight.  The Eris flight topped out at 217', not as low as the Tracer, but the Eris is a fairly slim and trim bird compared to the flying bovine that is the Tracer.  It was still on the way up at ejection, my mistake, so that likely cost it some altitude.  Streamer recovery brought it down in short left center field, almost right in front of me.

The MRN Moonraker was a design I came across when I was checking out the reader submissions to the Model Rocket News archive.  Loved the looks, so I placed an order for the parts with eRockets.  Wow was this thing tiny!  I was planning out the upscale while I was building it.

This is an excellent rocket for B6-4 Field.  Not only does the size cut down on altitude, but it also lends itself to nose blow recovery, so no messing around with a streamer or chute.  In this case the Moonraker was flying on a 1/2A3-4T that took it to 221' out over left center field.  It landed in almost the same spot as the Eris.  Both might be candidates for a full A next time I find myself pulling them off the spreadsheet for B6-4 Field service.  Could be a while.

The Wizard Mini is the smallest member of my Wizard family, at least until I get the urge to go MicroMaxx with the design.  The original Wizard was one of the formative rockets of the seventies for me, and when I became a BAR I was aghast to find that Estes had changed what I always considered a perfectly executed paint and decal combination.  I've bought a bunch of the blue nightmares, but every one has been painted in the original livery, from BT-5 to BT-80. 

The Wizard flight was on a 1/4A3-3T.  The rod was set up just as it had been for the previous two mini flights, but the Wizard forged its own flight path.  Instead of arcing out toward left center, the mini Wizard went dead straight off the pad.  This likely would have been a big problem had the flight gone as expected with the full recovery system clearing the body tube, but this didn't happen.  Apparently, I didn't put enough tape on the motor and it blew out the back of the rocket.  Before it left, it did clear the nose cone, and the rocket landed on the hill behind me, missing the tree limbs by mere inches but surviving the flight intact due to the soft grass landing.

Somehow I wound up with three of my four MRI birds in the box for this trip to the field.  One of them, the Lambda 8, didn't fly because when I went to install the igniter, the plug didn't fit.  It turned out that I had a B6-6 installed in it, which would have put it roughly in Latonia.  The Phobos had an A8-3, so I figured it would stand a chance of actually recovering on the field.  It really could have used an A8-5, but that could very well have been the end of it.

The Phobos flight was easily the most impressive of the day.  After the Wizard Mini landed behind me the previous flight I made an adjustment to the rod which proved to be a bit more than needed.  The Phobos WAY overflew the field and was easily the highest flight of the day at 418'.  This would have made for marginal recovery odds under calm circumstances, but the added angle to the rod meant that it was heading out across the field and would be in reach of the trees on the hill and the softball complex.  Somehow, I got lucky and split the difference, landing in the swampy mess of deep right field without damage other than mud and the poops of several indeterminate species of wildlife.  Lovely place, right field.

The Theta 37 was next, but if I'd realized that it had flown in 2023, I'd have switched the A8-3 in it to the RDC V-Max, which I'd also find loaded with a B6-6.  Nonetheless, the Theta 37 would be the 10th flight of the day.

I left the rod in the same position for the Theta 37 as it was for the Phobos.  While the motors are the same, the Theta has a bit more heft to it, so I didn't expect to have to chase it as far.  It followed the same flight path as the Phobos, but to a lower level, only attaining 325' and recovering in short center field.  

The Centuri Zebra II was next with another A8-3 flight and number 11 on the day.  This was one of the Centuri rockets from the early 80's that was made using Estes parts and was long on my cloning radar because of that.  This would only be the second flight since it was built, but not because I'm not a fan.  It's one of the better looking birds from that era.

This Zebra II flight was just like the first, a straight, stable shot out over the outfield to 264'.  Apparently I was tracking New Jersey drones because nothing after the actual launch appeared on the video until it was about to touch down in center field.  Old school rules, especially the 80's.

Continuing with the theme of eBay rescue rockets, some might question why I'd bother with this one.  I got two Estes Comets in an eBay lot, neither in great shape, neither exhibiting masterful craftsmanship, neither moving the needle on classic oldies kind of way.  One was at least painted in the catalog colors.  The other was this one.  It was missing a fin.  The remaining three had been glued in place with what looked like drooled on school glue.  It had the wrong nose cone.  Still, I felt a kinship with the craftsman in the "could've been me" kind of way.  I cut a new fin and got it flightworthy.

This would be the only B flight on the day.  I had brought the ESAM with me but forgot to pull a B4-2 from my stash.  The B6-4 would have to sate my lust for more power on the day, so to speak.  All in all, it didn't do a bad job of it.  Altitude was decent, topping out at 268', but the ejection charge was lacking.  The nose cone cleared the body tube but failed to push out the dog barf and parachute.  The Comet flight was much like its namesake, hurtling toward the slop of deep right center field where the ice chunks and muckety-muck resided.  I could feel as well as see the impact as the Comet buried itself in said muck.  I was expecting crippling damage, but other than some mud inside the body tube, there was nothing.  As I was walking out to the landing site, I saw one of the expended motor casings from an earlier flight and, good neighbor that I am, I bent to pick it up.  Little did I know that the casing was cleverly hiding a large pile of deer poop, which I skewered as I tried to make the pickup.  No good deed.....

If this turns out to be my last launch hurrah of 2024, I'll wind up the year with 136 flights, a fairly respectable showing considering how scarce things were early on.  My mathing skills were never going to make a living for me, but the way I algebra it out, I've made 111 flights since July.  I've got a batch of rockets that haven't seen flight since before 2020, so if the weather works in my favor I might have an outside shot at 150, something I thought would be impossible back in June.  

Cheers and happy holidays.

Now that's more like it, B6-4 Field launch - 12/8/24

 The first order of business today:

Yep, the Rattler 7 is still hanging around after three weeks.  I check every time I drive past.  The parachute seems to have freed itself, but the Rattler remains a fixture.

Saturday was the WSR club launch in the Cedarville corn.  Saturday also started out windy and in the 20's.  In my 40's wind and 20's didn't make or break a launch.  In my 60's I tend to prefer the 50's with a light breeze.  I had rockets prepped and ready to load, but one step out the door was all it took to convince me to wait a day.  Please graph that as a word problem.

First flight on this sunny Sunday would be an eBay refugee rocket that I've had for about ten years, a homebrewed bird I called the Cutlass.  This came along with an auction lot of other home brews, but this one had an issue clearing the streamer back in 2018 and nosed into the infield.  The top of the body tube was crushed, which necessitated removing and reinstalling the recovery system, which is what I did Saturday instead of freeze.

A8-3 flight, which would pretty much be the flavor of the day, although the flights would vary wildly from an altitude standpoint.  This one was on point.  I had the pad set straight up to test the breeze, which was again coming straight over the terrace in center field.  The Cutlass left the pad on an almost dead straight flight path, wiggling slightly because of the recent fin surgery.  At ejection the breeze caught up with it and began blowing it toward left field.  This is a very light, basic rocket, so I'd decided on nose blow recovery.  This turned out to be a good choice, although a streamer might have performed in similar fashion.  Wish I'd brought one.  The Cutlass landed in dead left field with a bounce and no new injury.

The Estes Nike Arrow dates back to my earliest days as a B.A.R.  I picked up a couple of easy to build rockets for my nieces and nephews to fly at an (illegal) family launch, the Good-Fly-day launch of 2001.  Turned out that the kids had no interest in flying "their" rocket.  They were happy to just see my brother in law and I fly whatever we'd brought, which we did.  After the launch, which occurred at Big Bone Lick State Park, a ranger told us we couldn't do what we just did, but he had waited until we were done to let us know.

The Nike Arrow flight was on a 1/2A3-4T and would also be nose blow recovery.  Still no streamer.  Still not an issue.  The rod had been adjusted by this time and the Nike Arrow flew out over right-center field.  It was a quick flight to 163' and recovery was equally as quick, coming to earth back in right-center and sticking the landing with the nose buried in the mud without damage.

My Semroc Satellite Killer has an interesting history.  The original was purchased from Carl at his last NARAM.  (My brother in law and I chatted with him for about a half hour and as we walked away Tony said "That was the guy who owns Semroc?  He's just like a normal guy."  Carl in a nutshell.)  I was building it in the computer loft when we changed internet/cable providers and the guy knocked a lamp over on the half completed Killer, killing it.  (No, he didn't tell me.  I found out later in the week when I went back to work on it some more.)  Randy owned Semroc by this point, and got wind of the killing.  He sent me a new one that week.  It was the one that flew today.

This would be a C6-3 flight, the only motor that is recommended, and a perfect combo for B6-4 Field.  The SK flight path was somewhat of a corkscrew, but overall straight up.  There was an issue with recovery, but that was my fault.  I hadn't repacked the chute after storing it since 2019 and at ejection it announced that it intended to only parawad in protest.  The recovery was quick, but seemed very survivable, so I was surprised to get to the left field landing spot and find that one of the legs had detached.  Simple fix, and it should be ready for flight glory ASAP.

The Esam 58 always surprises me when I dig it out of the tote.  My thoughts run all over the place.  It turned out nice.  It's still available at Hobby Lobby.  It has an 18mm screw-in motor retainer.  It has no business being an 18mm bird.  This one will have to be a B6-4 flyer at B6-4 Field.  Not really, no.

This is a fat bird and it was a pretty scary flight.  The B6 part was okay.  It left the pad heading out toward center field and was clearly struggling to gain altitude, topping out at 162'.  It turned over and began heading back toward the outfield.  This was the -4 part.  I knew it was in trouble when I saw the tracking smoke and it was nose down and picking up speed.  The ejection charge fired when it was under 100' and it somehow wound up recovering without any more damage than the slightest suggestion of a zipper.  Next time I'll give it a C6-3 flight, but that will have to be on a dead calm day. 

The next flight was another B6-4, the Challenger II.  This rocket came around because I was bored and wanted to build something.  I was picking up Estes Eliminators seemingly every time I went to Hobby Lobby, and I had a cabinet full of them.  One night while watching a ballgame I decided that I needed a new project, maybe a rocket for B6-4 Field.  Somehow I settled on the 18mm Challenger II.  These days I find myself wishing that I had more Eliminators in the cabinet, but the Challenger II is a decent flyer at B6-4 Field, so I've got that going for me.

Unlike the previous B6-4 flight, this one didn't have piggish weight to lift.  The altitude wasn't terribly impressive, but decent for field size and conditions.  The CII left the pad heading toward center field like the ESAM did, but in no way seemed to be struggling, topping out at 236'.  It was heading down as it recovered, and wound up with the same slight zipper that the ESAM did, but the extra altitude gave it some space to allow the parachute to do its job.  All in all, it was the most impressive flight on the day.

Next on the pad was another "feel like building something" inspired rocket, the FRW Mohawk.  It came about after the death of my father.  One night before work I was cleaning my shop desk and found a bunch of disparate parts laying around the desk.  They included a section of BT-50, a smaller section of BT-55, a 5055 transition and a BNC-55 nose cone.  Something about them spoke to me, so into my bag they went to seek inspiration on my lunch break that night.  The name came from a stack of old programs from a Cincinnati minor league hockey team of his youth, the Mohawks.  There was a significance to the fins, but I can't remember what it was.  They may have been rescued from the clutter of my desk as well.

Yeah, I really should learn.  The A8-3 Mohawk flight was marred by my inexcusable decision not to unfurl the chute after a four year flight layoff.  Other than the recovery drama, the flight was much like the previous two, heading toward right center off the pad to 226' with a recovery in straightaway center.  

I didn't plan this.  The Estes Goblin would be flight #7.  I can see you're thinking "A Goblin?  Is this guy nuts?!"  (Yes on both counts.)  This was another rocket that came about because I was in the mood to build something, specifically something to fly at B6-4 Field.  I had bought a bunch of marked down Goblins from Hobby Lobby and, while I'd built one previously as an E-powered bird, I'd never powered one down.  

Well, powered down it was.  I thought an A8-3 would be a reasonable choice here, but I was sorely disappointed in the choice.  The Goblin isn't a large bird or a heavy build, so I can only assume that the A8-3 that I chose for the flight was gutless, topping out at 183'.  The Gob was on the way down when the ejection charge fired.  Way down.  The chute filled and tragedy was averted, a perfect landing without a trace of a zipper.

The Estes Galactic Taxi was one of the rockets I picked up in an eBay lot back when old junk wasn't priced with an eye toward sending a kid to college.  It came along with three others, all of which I repaired and flew.  The Taxi had lived a rough life.  It showed signs of having spent time at the bottom of a box under something weighty.  No worries about squared up fins here.

The Taxi would be another A8-3 flight, and this one would be more of what I expected.  It left the pad leaning to the left out toward center field.  It topped out at 283', popped the chute just as it tipped over, and began racing back toward US 27.  For a moment I was envisioning it hanging 'round with the Rattler, but the winds didn't have that kind of push on this day.  It settled to the ground at deep third, just beyond the infield.

Flight #9 would be my first attempt at a Bo-Mar Spartan.  I say first attempt because there would be another after I realized I got the proportions off more than I was comfortable with.  I decided that the unfortunately squat rocket that I wound up with could be salvaged by grafting on another piece of ST-7.  Thinking back, I'm not sure why I just didn't cut the fins off and start over, but I made a whole other Spartan and left this one languish before dragging it out for this launch.  To be honest, I just really hated the idea of having another rocket on the spreadsheet that hadn't been flown in six years.

This would be another A8-3 flight, but being a minimum diameter rocket, I fully expected this one to scream.  It did an excellent impression.  Since this has never made it out of the "body in white" stage, I felt like I could fly it with abandon, which at B6-4 Field is an A8-3 in a rocket this size.  It left the pad heading in a similar direction as most of the previous flights, though not going as deep into the outfield.  My notes mentioned that it flirted with the softball complex, but I don't remember that being the case.  I remember it coming down on the infield along the first base line.  I also remember it core sampling slightly, but without damage.

By this point in the afternoon, my flying conditions had taken a turn for the worse.  Winds were steadier, the temps were dropping, and the once sunny sky was now full overcast.  My final flight would be the Cherokee B, another minimum diameter bird that would overfly the field on an A.  Despite knowing this, I still went on with the flight.  I've done the Cherokee family from A to F with A and B being the two hardest to track in flight, but I've always managed to find them.

The Cherokee B left the pad following the same flight path as the Spartan before it, heading straight away from the pad toward the softball complex.  Altitude was excellent to the point that it was difficult to track against the clouds, but I kept the camera pointed close to where I thought it would be.  It was like the old adage "Wherever you go, there you are!"  And there was the Cherokee B.  Altitude reached 379' and it appeared to be in the no-man's land between the fields when the ejection charge fired.  It landed on the infield in the bunting zone down the first base line, slightly core sampled, but undamaged.

I had more rockets, but I also had thin skin, dinner to start, and a sneaking feeling that I'd pushed my luck enough for the day.  Aside from the ten I flew, two MRI clones, the Phobos and Theta 37, made it to the pad only to suffer ignition failure.  There's something of a chance that between now and the end of the year the two of them with be the leadoff flights here, but as usual, that is weather and time dependent.  As for this launch, who wouldn't consider a ten flight day a success?