Having spent the last half of the previous week vacationing in the rocket lab, I was happy to see this launch come to fruition. I was off since Wednesday but couldn't drum up the enthusiasm to make a long drive into the willywags like I usually do in the fall. (I'd just returned from a long trip to Pennsylvania a couple of weeks before. Got some great pics and realized I'm not as young as I was.) I spent time repairing the damaged part of my fleet and painting a bunch of primed birds. Now I have several new rockets to repair on my next vacation in a couple of weeks.
I had a list of birds to excavate and fly, but I only found myself able to dig a few out. I still wound up with 18 rockets prepped and flight ready. The first rocket on the pad would be the Bo-Mar Spartan, only because I'd completed repairs on the badly chewed up nose cone. (More like I gave up. The Spartan will get a new nose cone the next time I make an eRockets order.) This would be an A8-3 flight, which meant it would be close to overflying the field, but I was out of 1/2A6-2s.
The nose cone went out on a high note. The flight was excellent and arced out slightly toward right center field to 403'. Ejection came as it tipped and it recovered on a Mylar streamer, coming to rest in left center field with a soft sideways landing. As a wind-test bird, it told me that the breezes were light above the bowl of B6-4 Field and shouldn't be much of a factor on the day.
Flight #2 would be the outlawed Estes X-15 on a B6-2. Apparently, there were problems with the nose cone not popping free because of escaping exhaust gases, so I fashioned a new motor mount and have flown it without issue, but not much. This would be flight #4 for the 19-year-old rocket, and the first one since 2018.
Anyone who owns one of these can attest that it's something of a pig, so it would be the first B6 flight of the day. The B6 is plenty of motor for this bird on this field. The X-15 left the pad with an arc toward the school to my left to 289'. It appeared to be over Woodfill Avenue at apogee, but the breeze was from the south, enough to bring it back toward me for a hillside landing.
Next up was the New Way Geometric, a second straight B6 flight. This is a recently finished project that I had scattered around the shop for a long time. Little by little I was able to collect everything I needed to finish it and once I had it all in one place, construction happened over a couple of days when I was marooned at a satellite office at work. I like how it finished up. Like the X-15, it's quite stout.
This flight left the pad heading right, the complete opposite of the X-15. I first thought it was going to head out over the softball complex as it tipped over and was heading for the fence, but the ejection charge fired early and the Geometric began a swinging descent to short right field. As initial flights go, it was a keeper.
The next two flight attempts fizzled. First was the Estes Spitfire SSI, which burned through two igniters without launching, then the downscale Cherokee B which only got one shot. I had nothing with me that could be used to scrape the throat of the A8-3s, so I pulled the LOC/Precision Big Nuke Mini as the next rocket up.
The Big Nuke Mini had no issues, launching immediately when I pressed the button. It arced out toward right field ejected as it tipped over, but something was immediately amiss. The ejection charge, which woke all the dogs in the neighborhood, was obviously healthy and the shock cord wasn't up to the task. The two pieces landed within twenty feet of each other, which is unusual because this kind of flight usually ends with the nose cone floating off. I'm sure the almost complete lack of breeze helped with this.
My Nova Scout Ship started out life as a Nova Star Ship that came in an eBay lot, but was too far gone to rebuild. I liked the lines of the Nova Scout Ship better, and with the help of Stickershock, I turned out a pretty decent looking clone. This would be the second flight overall, but the first one at B6-4 Field.
The Nova Scout Ship flight was the straightest flight of the day. Altitude topped out at 283' and ejection occurred as it tipped to the right over the infield and it recovered behind me on the dirt at third base.
Flight #6 would be the second New Way kit to fly on the day and the only mini-powered rocket on the day. It hadn't been on my initial list of rockets to fly, but I saw it when I was prepping on Saturday and decided that I needed a mini-motor flight on the day.
The A10 flight was surprising because of how quickly it left the pad, and how abruptly it ended. No low and slow here. It seemed that I was lining up the launch shot, then wondering where the rocket went, which is pretty much how the whole thing played out. The Check-It flight was as straight as the Nova Scout Ship, with a slight lean toward center field. It was still ascending when the ejection charge fired, which violently ended the flight. The recovery went off without a hitch and the Check-It descended to the field, landing less than 20 feet from where I stood.
I picked up the Estes Space Eagle during one of the holiday close-out sales Estes had a few years ago. It sat around until I got bored and chose it out of my stash as my next product. It turned out to be one of my favorite recent designs, helped greatly by the simple paint scheme and cool decals. Oddly, it doesn't get much airtime, but that is likely due to the sheer number of birds in my cage.
The flight was an oddity. The ejection event happened before I could get my camera pointed up from the launch shot. It was still heading up and there was something of a fireball. The chute deployed as expected and brought the Space Eagle back to the infield, but when it landed it was noticeably hot all up the body tube and felt thin in some places, as if the paint was all that was left of the structure.
Next up would be the MPC Pioneer 1. This rocket was built using old MPC/AVI/Quest parts and died the death of a warrior on the first flight. It streamed into the bed of the presidential pickup at a 2022 launch and turned into a cloud of plastic confetti. Only one of the three fins was still mostly intact, but even it had a crack. I looked for another source for the fin can when I got home, but it looks like I found the last one. I forgot about it until a couple of weeks ago when it turned up on a parts search, and I decided to replace all of the fins with basswood. From ten feet, you can't tell the difference. Well, I can't, but I know where not to look.
This would be an A8-3 flight, so another that would likely overfly the field. The good news was that I was a few flights away from the breeze picking up. (Not that I knew that.) The flight was almost straight-up, straight-down to 409' with a gentle arc out toward right as it coasted. Ejection happened as it was still in forward motion, and it rode the streamer to a landing in short right.
I didn't realize at this point, but I had crossed the halfway point on the day with the Pioneer 1 flight. Flight #8 would be my thrown together FRW Harpoon AGM84A, a best-guess downscale of a TLP kit. It had flown here in 2023 and the B6-4 flight showed a need for a touch of nose weight. And a couple of fins. I took care of both of those during my vacation, filling the nose with BBs and Gorilla Glue, which I left to dry overnight. This was obviously not enough because when I tried to pull the cone to check for the parachute, it wouldn't come off. A couple of wiggles later I found that some of the BBs had leaked into the body tube, on the shock cord, on the parachute......
The breeze once again cooperated by being elsewhere and the flight was a carbon copy of the Pioneer 1, a mostly straight boost with a slight arc toward the outfield during the coast phase. The Harpoon had tipped over when the ejection charge fired and the BB-encrusted chute brought the flight to a close in right center field.
Flight #9 would be the Centuri Viking, an Estes Viking with Excelsior decals. Once again, the A8-3 would be a bit much for the field, but the breezes were still cooperating, remaining elsewhere.
The Viking flight was straight off the pad to 330'. While the Space Eagle flight had something of a mini-CATO, the Viking had something more akin to an actual CATO. It happened at ejection and a decent sized fireball was noted heading toward the infield. The Viking fell straight back down and landed on the Kroger bags I use to take incidentals to the field. Like the Space Eagle, the body tube of the Viking was noticeably thinner when I went to pull the motor casing, which had surprisingly not ejected. Good thing I bought a bulk pack on clearance at Hobby Lobby a few years back.
#10 on the day would be the Bo-Mar Phoenix, another guess-your-best clone attempt from a greyscale catalog page, and another A8-3. This had flown previously at B6-4 Field back in the summer, but this would be the first flight in full warpaint, such as it was.
No more of the straight-up, straight-down stuff. The Phoenix flew out toward deep center field, high enough to make me wonder if the trees on the hill were in play. They weren't, thanks to the lack of breeze. Probably more of an A8-5 bird, the Phoenix was still heading up at ejection and began falling quickly, the streamer seeming to have little effect on the speed with which it came down. It hit hard in deep center field, out near the terrace. When I got to the landing site, two of the fins were laying detached next to the body tube. Easy fix.
The next flight was going to be the recently repaired Kopter Rotor Recovery Eagle, but as I was loading it on the rod, one of the large fins snapped off, damage that was obviously missed during the recent repairs. I pulled the A8-3 from it and installed it in the Estes Spitfire SSI, the rocket that had gone through two igniters earlier in the day. The Spitfire was one I bought from the estate of the late James Gartrell, a Texas rocketeer who I occasionally talked rocketry with back in my night shift days. The Spitfire was one of the kits that Estes produced in their mercifully short-lived "GO WILD" paint scheme days. Not sure why they went with this idea. Kids typically painted with whatever was on hand, so ugly was usually a natural occurrence. The Spitfire suffers from ugly sticker decals and an equally ugly suggested paint scheme, so what could have been a fairly decent looking futuristic ship turns out looking like a cartoon. Strange days indeed.
Not much to say about this flight other than it took a flight path similar to the Phoenix, a gently arc out toward center field and a recovery near the terrace. I attempted to get a video of the flight, but my normally sure-fingered attempt to press the start button with my left hand while I was one handing the launcher with my right hand. Long story short, I whiffed. I noted the altitude as 225' and that the chute worked well despite the long layoff. Fair winds, James.
I was starting to see the bottom of the rocket tote, which made choosing the next rocket fairly easy. Flight #12 would be the Estes Astron Mark II, a very early clone built with Balsa Machining Service parts and a JimZ decal that he threw in with my Condor decal purchase. Despite it first flying in 2002, this would only be its fifth flight, so it doesn't get out much.
I saw nothing of this flight. I was so intent on getting the video for the liftoff that I couldn't pick it up when I looked for it. It didn't help that at this time of day I was looking into the sun. I listened for the sound of it landing but heard nothing. I took off across the field into the outfield, scanning the grass for the gold and black rocket, then began walking back toward the pad. Two skate dudes were crossing 27 at this point and yelled that it had come down back that way. Sure enough, there it was, slightly behind the pad and no more than 20 feet away from where I stood to launch it.
At this point I began to notice a group of neighborhood kids gathered in the parking lot of the school, trying to get up the nerve to approach me. I waved, which broke the ice, and they rode their bikes down to see what the noise and smoke were about. Turns out that one of them had been part of the class that had been on a field trip outside the school and had done a countdown for me back in August. They wanted to know if they could do a countdown for me again, so I grabbed the Estes Scrambler.
I've always had a soft spot for egg-lofters, despite the fact that I've flown a grand total of one egg in 2200 flights. I can think of at least five that I own, with the only one that has lofted being a Quest Courier. I'd like to report that the Scrambler wowed the countdown crew, but at least it didn't embarrass me by spitting the igniter. After a loud countdown that got the dogs interested again, the Scrambler took off for a perfect flight toward center field. It was only at ejection that the problems surfaced. The shock cord fouled on the launch lug standoffs and the whole mess crashed to the ground. For my troubles, I got a broken fin, but the kids enjoyed it, then took off to play ball tag, which sounds painful.
The Countdown Crew. Flawless from T minus 5.
In hindsight, I should have stopped here. The breezes had picked up somewhat and were now coming from the south. I'd made 14 flights, which should have been enough, but I had to push it. The last flight of the day would be the freshly painted Bo-Mar Alpha-1, just because it would look good on the pad.
The flight was unlike everything else on the day. It headed to the right off the pad and went way out over the softball complex, which was where it was when the ejection charge fired. From there it began racing across US 27 high enough that being crushed by traffic was never a fear. It appeared to be heading for an asphalt landing in the large parking lot of the 880 building, then it looked like it was going to hit the building. About the time that I was processing this possibility it disappeared onto the roof. I was stunned. Of all the hazards that flight had to contend with, it was the one I hadn't considered. I walked over to see it anything could be done to reach it, but based on the angle of entry it's got to be close to the middle of the roof. I think I lost a Holverson Tangent that same way about ten years ago.
So, losing the Alpha-1 stings, but fifteen flights seemed like a pretty decent trade-off. I've got another possible launch this coming weekend, the initial cornfield launch of the high-power season. I don't have anything that can really be considered high-power, but I have some mid-power birds that like the wide-open spaces of the corn.
And Fabu? It's what I've discovered I have to put into the "Launch Site" box to get Fabulous B6-4 Field to come up. Fabu. It's what all the cool kids call B6-4 Field. Not.
