CMASS Amesbury Launch, July 27

[ClusterNut]

The weather reports look pretty good for the launch. Are there any issues with nesting birds or haying?

I'm going to try to get there early enough to help set up.

 

[bobkrech]

City Permit in Hand. Farmer George says the field was hayed. Fire Chief approval obtained. Waiver in place. Weather looks ok. I'd say at present we're set to launch on Saturday unless the weather forecast changes drastically.

 

[Sully]

The weather reports look pretty good for the launch. Are there any issues with nesting birds or haying?

I'm pretty sure the nesting birds will clear out soon after the launching starts. :wink:

 

[KennB]

I'm pretty sure the nesting birds will clear out soon after the launching starts. :wink:

Somehow my fellow tree-huggers didn't raise a fuss about the bobolinks this year. Either the birds nested and fledged early in the calendar with the warm weather or the person who lead the charge passed or moved on. Either way, the haying has started. Our area should be okay but there may still be lots of cut grass around and about. Be very watchful of anything that might ignite the hay. :hot:

 

[billspad]

Be very watchful of anything that might ignite the hay. :hot:

So I guess I shouldn't fly any of my old E12's. Looking at the pictures from Acton, I'm surprised we didn't have any problems. I guess the humidity is good for something.

 

[azzie]

So I guess I shouldn't fly any of my old E12's

Build a cluster with all E12's and hold it for a rainy day Or perhaps they should be good for an underwater launch?

Acton flight that cato'd mid-flight and sent a few fireballs far into the field would make a great addition to Alan's fire training presentation...


-Alex

 

[ClusterNut]

Be very watchful of anything that might ignite the hay. :hot:

I plan on trying my 4-engine 2-stage design again. Only 3 of the 4 engines in the booster ignited at Berwick and it hung up on the pad. And then staged...on the pad. :eyepop: I doubt that this would have started a fire since nothing "hot" hit the turf but since CMASS has relays at the 1/4" pad, I expect all 4 to ignite this time. :grin: This was the first time in a very long time I have not had all engines in a cluster ignite and I suspect that there just wasn't enough juice without a relay.

 

[jflis]

Should be a great day to fly. Hope to debut our starter sets, so stop by the booth

 

[ClusterNut]

Should be a great day to fly. Hope to debut our starter sets, so stop by the booth

I plan to fly my Corona 2-stage. Jim, I'll let you display the original NEMROC kit if you promise not to sell it. :lol:

I guess we won't have to worry too much about fires with the downpours we had over the past 18 hours or so!

 

[jflis]

What a great day to fly! We had a nice crowd on hand and, if I remember correctly, 296 flights on the day.

I got my photo album up. You can view it here: https://fliskits.com/photo_album/2013/cmass_july_ames/index.htm

Enjoy! Now I'm off to Deerfield to fly with the Boy Scouts

 

[ClusterNut]

Nice shots, Jim. As usual. That was my V2 that you got in flight. The picture of me coming out of the grass with my booster would have looked nicer if I had been carrying the upper stage too. It was my clustered two stage (4 Cs to 4 Cs) that had a great flight until it landed somewhere in the deep grass on the other side of the hill. I had a line on it but couldn't spot it after a long search. I'll be putting together an order for parts from you to build a replacement so there is a silver lining for someone in every cloud.

 

[KennB]

Nice shots, Jim. As usual. That was my V2 that you got in flight. The picture of me coming out of the grass with my booster would have looked nicer if I had been carrying the upper stage too. It was my clustered two stage (4 Cs to 4 Cs) that had a great flight until it landed somewhere in the deep grass on the other side of the hill. I had a line on it but couldn't spot it after a long search. I'll be putting together an order for parts from you to build a replacement so there is a silver lining for someone in every cloud.

Mike, Go ahead and order the parts from Jim; I wouldn't want to take food out of Mr. Flis' well toothed mouth. However, you'll be building a spare upper stage as Boris brought your original up to the safety check station later in the day. I fobbed it off to Jim Moe figuring his "new" van would be a better transport for it than my car. If you're at Berwick this Saturday, you can get it then; if not, I'll bring it along to Acton in two weeks. BTW, two of the sustainers on one side didn't fire so that probably threw the flight off axis. Were there two lug on the upper? It looks like something got torn off.

 

[ClusterNut]

Wow, that's great. Boris must have better eyes than me. I should be at the MMMSC launch on Saturday and can pick it up. I'm thinking of some improvements so Jim will get business anyway.

I was watching the upper stage and it didn't seem to veer off at all. I was too conservative on the chute and it came down too quickly. If I had gone with a larger chute it probably would have drifted over the pads and dropped in the shorter grass on the other side of the field. There was only one lug on the upper stage so there isn't one missing. I'll have to look at it to see what damage may have occurred. All good data for a re-design.

Thanks Boris!

 

[r1dermon]

Fire Ball

 

[kmf04040]

Jim has a nice shot of my x-wing leaving the pad on the fliskits site. I modified the kit by making fins from lexan rather than the kit balsa. I added a few bbs to the nose to help offset the mass increase of the new fins. The flight was great, but the stock 'chute was undersized and she came down fast. Damaged two of the fake thruster/ fin assemblies, but should be an easy fix. BTW, there also is a photo of a pre-built, all plastic x-wing going up. Maybe an x-wing drag race in the future?

I also want to thank Bill S. for witnessing my successful lvl 1 cert flight of my PML Amraam 3 on a CTI H125cl.

 

[r1dermon]

whoever had the CATO in the orange candystripe rocket on highpower B, i got a decent pic of the mishap. you can clearly see the exhaust gasses exiting the side of the fincan (it seems).

https://www.flickr.com/photos/lconole/9564706331/lightbox/

here's the original size, if you really want to zoom right in. nice green flame. what was the motor?
https://www.flickr.com/photos/lconole/9564706331/sizes/o/