OK, a little more detailed report:
First off, Gerald and Alex - GREAT shots and video, guys; thanks for posting em.
So, how did it go for stealth6? Well, I found myself responding to everyone who asked, "how ya doing?" with "great! I'm having a sweet time". But then I thought, "wait a minute, if I look at my results I should be having a terrible time!" That's the nature of these launches - you can be having all kinds of bad luck, lousy flights, lots of loss and damage, and STILL be having a great time. It's THAT cool to be out on the lakebed with all the rest of the fine folk there.
Not that I had ALL bad flights. In particular, my rocket "Fioravante" (which is a slightly kit-bashed Formula98) had some perfect flights that were really sweet. Both were on Gorilla motors - the first a K222 WhiteCloud, and the second a VERY sweet J450 BlackLightning. Both of these can be seen in Alex's and Gerald's pics and video. And of course there were tons of really great flights from everyone else - including a bunch of (mostly succesful) L3 cert flights, and large percentage of M motors. Some really great rockets came out to fly this weekend.
But my bad flights? hmmmmm. Well first, I flew my carbon stubby "LacSar" on a long burn RedLightning that had a bit of a squirrely boost. And then we all lost sight of it, with seemingly no "events". I spent a bunch of time searching for it with no luck (more on this later though). So it seemed like I lost a nice rocket, along with electronics, a tracker (which lost signal), my chutes, a CableCutter, the motor case, etc. Dang. The weird thing is that I "lost" this same rocket at the same place with the same motor last fall, but I did eventually find it (all intact) that time.
And then there was my brand new, first flight, Punisher - named "barborahanzalova". The motor was a really nice CTI I-165 CStar longburner. Boost was absolutely perfect (again, it's in the video). But then, again, everyone lost it. But this time we all "found" it right away as it came in VERY ballistic and "the earth got in the way" resulting in a very deep lake stake. Ouch. Took a lot of digging (with a lot of help from other folks - thanks everyone), but I eventually pulled it out of the ground - total destruction. Check the pictures to see the damage. Lost = nice new rocket, AV bay components, Raven, BRB900 GPS, etc, etc. Mega dang.
Yes, that first photo is my BRB900 GPS tracker.
To top it all off, while digging out the lake-embedded Punisher, I managed to catch my hand on a very sharp edged fin and really sliced it good. LOTS of blood loss.
I'm not the only one who suffered loss and damage. As always, there were a few "less than optimal" flights that resulted in destroyed or lost rockets, heartbreak and injury. Of particular note was fyrwrx's rear window of his vehicle which took a hit from
a soft foam pool toy! Regardless, that cute little toy still managed to smash the window right out. You can see the "rocket" and the damage here:
BUT, there are still heros in this world, and there is still hope. Alex (Aksrockets) managed to find my lost carbon stubby (which did indeed obviously come in ballistic), after I gave up and left for the long drive home. And all is not lost. While the rocket itself is toast, it looks like he managed to save my motor case, a bunch of hardware, my chutes and harness, my CableCutter, and MAYBE my altimeter and tracker.
THANKS SO MUCH ALEX!! See pic of Alex in full triumphant mode here:
Again though, for all this, I still had a great time at a fine launch. Thanks to all the TRA Vegas folk for putting this whole thing on, thanks to all the fine TRF folks (and others) who attended - I hope to make it out in October. Maybe I'll have better personal luck then!
s6
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