I unofficially kicked summer, 2025 to the curb on Labor Day with a late morning (Almost) All Semroc launch at B6-4 Field. It was an absolutely beautiful day with full sun and no clouds to speak of. Temps were in the low 70s and for the first time in memory I set up on the actual infield on the baseball field, kind of between the mound and shortstop. No science to my choice. It just felt like the best place to set up. Rocketry activity usually gets the local dogs interested but they may have been nursing a fireworks hangover from the previous night. Not a peep was heard out of them until the next to last flight. I could hear kids squealing at the country club and YMCA pools, but far fewer than usual. In short, it was a quiet day that I was happy to shake things up with some mighty Estes A8s.
First on the pad would be the Semroc Recruiter. It's almost the perfect A8-3 bird for B6-4 Field due to the size and the fact that it's on its third paint job. It's phat. The flags were barely showing movement, so I set the pad dead straight.
The Recruiter flight could not have been better. It left the pad heading toward right field, but only barely out over the grass, topping out at 214'. I'd recently found an original Semroc parachute that I'd built several years back, and it handled all of the parachute recovery duties on the day. Recovery was perfect, coming down on the dirt near second base.
The Semroc Penetrator was next. Like the Recruiter, the Penetrator is another rocket that is very comfortable here on an A8-3. I was always happy with how well this turned out, but the paint has turned out to be less than durable.
The Penetrator flight was almost a carbon copy of the Recruiter. It left the pad heading toward right-center and topped out at 236', slightly higher than the Recruiter, and slightly deeper into the outfield. It ejected just before apogee and landed in the grass just behind second base.
Flight #3 would be the Semroc Taurus, fresh out of repair after having been blown up, repaired and damaged on its second flight. It was not exactly a Semroc kit, but something I built using Semroc parts before Carl released the kit. I had hollowed out the transitions hoping to find more room for the recovery system. Apparently, I took too much material out and compromised the structural integrity of the transition.
It's been a long time since I flew the Taurus, and in the ensuing years I forgot that it really isn't an A8-3 bird, nor is it a B6-4 bird here. I think I called it a 'tweener". I was reminded of this when it struggled off the pad and topped out at 136', clawing the whole way for altitude. By the time I began to pan up with the camera the ejection had already happened, and it was already coming down on the infield at shortstop.
My wife stranded me at home on Friday to go to a concert with a friend, with only a ball game, an Estes D.O.M. plan and an Estes Viking from the bulk pack that I picked up when Hobby Lobby was still worth visiting. The plan was the D.O.M. Aero-Fin, a minimum diameter bird based on a BT-30, but I was going with a BT-20.
The Aero-Fin flight shouldn't have surprised me like it did. I have plenty of history flying Wizards, Vikings and other minimum diameter rockets at B6-4 Field, not to mention numerous other rocket that have festively decorated the surrounding trees, but my astonishment was obvious when watching the video. "Hol......" I said, clearly shocked at the altitude but not wanting to complete the thought on camera. I then laughed nervously, anticipating the rocket drifting in the tree. It was the first flight on the day that clearly overflew the field, but the flight was straight up and straight down, so while quite high, it was never in danger of becoming decorative. It ejected at apogee, spitting the motor casing far to my left, but the Aero-Fin recovered as straight as it had flown, falling on the streamer to the grass just behind second base. After collecting the Aero-Fin, I walked the field in deep center looking for the missing motor casing. Never found it. It was the only one that didn't leave the field for the trash bin.
Back to Semroc, the next flight would be the XK-23, one that I like because it was a Semroc original, kind of the Semroc version of the Alpha. Mine has lived a hard life, being partially crushed when an elephant got loose in my shop and stepped into the box that the XK-23 was stored in. In my defense, the shop was a mess, and I've never danced well.
The XK-23 flight followed the same path as the Aero-Fin, at least on the way up. The flight was largely straight to 224' and ejected before forward motion stopped, likely robbing it of additional altitude. At ejection it popped the chute, caught the light breeze and rode it to the foul line in right field, definitely unusual on the day.
Flight #6 would be the Semroc ThunderBee. I'm a fan of the Thunder-series, having built and damaged no less than four of their number over the years. In fact, I flew the ThunderRoc as my leadoff flight at my most recent club launch, and for the first time that I remember, I didn't break a fin on landing. I feel cheated.
The ThunderBee was the second flight on the day to overfly the comfort level of B6-4 Field. I was again caught off guard by this as the flight was on a 1/2A3-4T motor. For this flight my comment was "Ho-lee mackeral." and then something about it chasing it's posterior during recovery. A valid observation, as after the flight topped out at 487' it ejected as it was still moving forward. At ejection the elderly crepe paper streamer failed to deploy, and the rocket chased its tail the whole way back to the field. Surely this would cause some damage, right? Nope. Despite a hard hit at the end of the recovery, all fins were present and accounted for, and in the correct location. Also, the balled-up crepe paper streamer was also in attendance, balled up just as it was when I put it in the rocket minutes earlier. BT-5 rockets are tough to figure when it comes to recovery.
Back to not overflying the field, the next flight was the Lil' Ivan. The Ivan is the kind of rocket that should be a fixture here, giving decent altitude on an A8-3 unlike the larger rockets. The Ivan is interesting in that after I bought it, another fan contacted me to sell it to him. I likely would have done the deal, but it had arrived that afternoon and I was almost done with the construction by the time he contacted me. That said, this isn't a rocket often seen on the pads.
There was some weirdness to this flight. When I was setting it up, I pulled the nose cone to check if it was a chute or streamer inside. The streamer, again a crepe paper one, was neatly folded on top of the shock cord, so I tried to put the nose cone back on. It wouldn't stay down. This was not my first rodeo, so I made it stay down by better seating the shock cord. The A8-3 flight arced gently out toward right center field to 171' and appeared to eject just as it was about to tip over. The streamer never streamed, which I figured was because it just hadn't unfolded. I figured wrong. When I reached the landing site in right center there was no streamer at all. Apparently, it had slipped away without me noticing at ejection. This was only the second flight for Ivan, so I know it wasn't due to overuse. I looked whenever I walked the field for the rest of the day, but no trace of the streamer was ever found.
This would also be flight #2 for the Texas Firefly, but the first as a single stage. I remember reading on the instruction sheet that a single stage flight was possible, but it never occurred to me to check which motors were recommended. A little known fact is that the A8-3 is not mentioned. How strange.
Ol' Tex did fine on the A8-3. There were a few anxious moments as it left the pad heading straight out toward the trees, but without enough altitude to bring them into play. The hillside, with its weedy overgrowth, did look to be potentially in play, but Tex got more lateral movement south than west, and it landed in deepest center at the base of the hill.
Next up was the Semroc Lil' Centauri, a rocket that I've been sanding on for over six months, drawing it out as long as possible because I LOVE SANDING!!! If you have one of these and are considering building it, I'd give serious thought to doing the filling and finishing before you attach them to the body tube. Let's not even talk about the paint scheme. I like to think that somewhere Carl is having a laugh at our expense. I'm not amused.
The Lil' Centauri flight was surprising in that it topped out at 186', slightly higher than the Lil' Ivan in the Lil' flyoff. It leaned toward short right field and ejected after it tipped over. It then rode the Semroc chute back across the field to short center. The winds had woken.
When I was picking out the Semroc birds for this launch I had a list, but I was also relying on my memory as to which rockets had flown recently. I tried to pick rockets that hadn't flown since 2020. Surely the IQSY Tomahawk had been a long time between trips to the pad, right? Nope. I flew this here in 2025, in what I believe was my first launch of the year. Must not have made a big impression.
The flight was pretty much as expected, a quick jaunt to 274' that leaned to the right and recovered quickly on a streamer. It was actually still going up at ejection, so future flights might be better off with an A8-5. Definitely felt like some altitude was left on the table with this one. It ejected over first base, then streamed quickly down to the infield. I was anticipating some damage due to how fast it fell, but there was none despite a hard hit. Some passersby that I hadn't noticed mentioned that my parachute needed work, so I explained that it was a streamer. I don't think they were interested in that kind of streaming.
I was getting toward the bottom of the tote and for flight 11 I chose the Red Eye. It was one of the last kits I bought from Carl at the Aurora, OH NARAM in 2013. I may have told the story before, but my brother-in-law and I spent a half hour talking to him about rocketry and the generalities of life. As we walked away Tony said "That was the guy who owns Semroc? He's just like a normal guy." That kind of summed up Carl in a nutshell.
This turned out to be another example of overflying B6-4 Field. It last flew in 2020 at one of my socially distant launches and I thought I remembered being disappointed at the performance on a 1/2A. Because of this I chose an A10-3T for this flight. Straight up this wouldn't have been a problem, but this flight was anything but straight. It cleared the rod and boosted left heavily, heading out toward deep center at a worrisome speed. All I could do was watch as it climbed the hill and ejected. The pod dropped into the weeds on the hill while the rocket itself continued out toward Woodfill Avenue. While I was walking over, I saw two cars pass and knew that the chances were good that if it had landed in the street, one of them could have crushed it. It's tiny and spidery, not something most drivers would notice. To my great shock the Red Eye had landed on the sidewalk, completely out of harm's way. Because of the thick weeds, I had my doubt about finding the pod, even with the orange streamer, but I waded into the weeds anyway. I was wearing shorts and cheap gym shoes, so I basically was holding myself up by grabbing the weeds in one hand and clearing them with the other. The hill and the lack of purchase my cheap gym shoes gave me worked against me the whole time and I saw nothing. I decided that I'd have a better view from the Garman's side yard, so I pulled myself through the heavy growth and stepped out to find the pod sitting in the mowed grass at the top of the hill. If I had just glanced to the right when I'd picked up the rocket, I'd have easily seen the pod. Far be it for me to take the easy road. Wish I knew what poison ivy looked like.
I didn't realize it at the time, but the Semroc Swift flight would be the last of the day. The Swift is one of my very early surviving Semroc kits and has been through at last three, possibly four, paint schemes over the years. Happily, this one seems to have stuck.
The Swift left the pad extremely quickly, so much so that I forgot that I was supposed to be filming it for a few seconds. The almost instant altitude was what unplugged me and my phone scanned the field behind me for a longer period than I'm comfortable admitting. When I finally came back to my senses I mentioned that the rocket was right on top of me, but it was a long time before I actually picked it up. This was definitely a potential A8-5 flight, or even better, a 1/2A6-2. It landed hard behind shortstop, winding up with a broken fin sue to the hard hit. With the last two rocket in the tote, the BatRok and Micron, being this size or smaller, I made the executive decision to call it a day.
I had several larger Semroc birds at home that needed flights, but when I went to check for motors for them, all I could find was A or C motors. When I'd hit Hobby Lobby the previous day, I cleaned out their selection of A8-3 motors, but someone else had hit before me and got all the B motors. Had I been able to pick up a pack, chances are the Centurion and Vega would have been along. I've since excavated more of my Semroc collection, so I'm close to having a group large enough for a second Semroc launch, but I doubt it will be as perfect a day as this.
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