It was not too bad yesterday. Pretty windy which kept many of the higher flights on the ground. When I was there, 1 L, a few I-K and a bunch of mid to low power. Still had fun. Only three christmas trees for the drag race and only two went up. The third had an igniter issue, but I left before it went up.
I was the one L, and boy was that a mistake. After my X-Celerator sat in tree for three months, and I spent $300 to have it recovered, and then bought a new main chute, some quick-links, and a Slimline retainer ring, I decided to launch it on the L935 Saturday morning.
The sky was clear, the winds were probably at about 15 mph, but it is a heavy rocket even after burnout, and I thought it would be okay.
The flight was excellent -- did exactly what I hoped. But then after the apogee event, everyone lost sight of it. I had by BRB900 transmitter in it, so I plugged the coordinates into my navigator and took off to find it. I drove nearly a mile and a half, walked around a good bit, but never saw it. Later that afternoon, I walked back out there, this time entirely on foot. After walking for over an hour, it got dark and I gave up. I still had to walk back in the dark.
It's so frustrating, because I know it is out there on the ground somewhere. It has my $200 transmitter in it, a $55 altimeter, a CTI 6GXL case and rear closure, plus the chutes, hardware, and the rocket itself. I know I have about $800 lying on a farm out there.
Next month, I am going to devote more time and energy into finding it. If the landowners haven't thrown it in the garbage by then.
