Date: April 10, 2010
Location: Green’s Sod Farm, Samson AL
Author: Russ Roberts
The weather was perfect and the winds weren’t too bad. We only had 10 flyers, but we made 51 flights. All flights were recovered on field. We flew motors ranging from A to L with everything in-between. D motors were the most popular because there weren’t many small rockets flying C motors.
The monthly event was Peep lofting with 18 spot landing attempts. Peeps were skewered on Snitch landing gear. Peeps were ejected from Cluster Bombs with some being lightly toasted before they could bailout. Ben White used his Estes Omloid to safely transport Peeps in an enclosed capsule. Roy Houchin made the flight of the day with an excellent Booster Vision launch recording a Peep flight. Look for the video to be posted soon. I lost track of who landed closest to the target, but Greg won the random prize draw. It was a bad day for Peeps; those that survived their flight were devoured by hungry rocketeers.
It was a great day for mid and high powered rockets. Greg Lane’s unfinished Firestorm 54 is transparent which makes it easy to check for recovery devices before liftoff. Plenty of BP made sure that the chute was deployed for a soft landing. John Hansel’s Ultimate Endeavor was late with its deployment events, but responded to his voice commands for a perfect flight. Marty Wiggin’s Thunderbird launched with lightning speed on a high impulse Blue Thunder motor. Randy Wiggin’s Arrow 4 had trouble lighting the Green Gorilla motor, but a sliver of Blue Thunder added to the igniter gave it the extra kick that it needed. My upscale Orbital Transport put on a great show, but the mother-ship suffered a hard landing at the flightline. It will go back to the hangar for repairs and a chute upgrade. Rick Gutkvecht’s flying disk had an unstable flight that was quite interesting. Eldon Triggs dialed in the Tuskegee Univ USLI rocket getting closer to the 1 mile altitude goal.
Keith Stewart took the frequent flyer award with 11 successful launches. He has a beautiful fleet of classic clones and upscales. These are all finished to catalog perfection with the correct paint scheme and decals. His X-15 was the first that I have ever seen make a stable flight.
Thanks to John Hansel, we now have another upgrade to our GSE. He built a large clipboard with 20 clips that correspond to the launch pads. Now we place our flight cards on the clip that matches the location where our rocket is sitting, which makes the LCO’s job easier. Come on out to our next launch, and see if we can fill up the clipboard.
