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- Mar 27, 2013
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You win the best photo prize. Never seen a lawn dart in a pond.
Wouldn't that be a "pawnd dart"?
You win the best photo prize. Never seen a lawn dart in a pond.
Wouldn't that be a "pawnd dart"?
You win the best photo prize. Never seen a lawn dart in a pond.
Hey..if a "creek dart" was good enough for Homer Hickam and the Rocket Boys, I see nothing wrong with an occasional pond dart....
I hear those tat fly at Bong, often wear waders to the launch.
You mean like this:
Not my rocket. Happened a year ago September. My water recovery was MUCH deeper. Armpit deep in lovely swamp water. :smile:
Adrian
Did this decoy attract more rockets? How was the hunting?
The decoy didn't attract rockets, but Adrian does.
Ouch... That hurt. In more ways than one.... :blush:
How's that leg, anyway?
Healed nicely. Thanks for asking. I do have a nice remembrance in the form of a 2"x2" > on my shin. It must mean my left leg is greater than my right leg... :dark:
or it's pointing to the limb that's next?
Isn't there a club that does a special launch in Manitowoc WI where they launch HPR on the jetty and land them in Lake Michigan? The Coast Guard are out in rubber boats to retrieve them.
Hey Folks, it happened to me twice in one day. First, it was a newly built LOC 4, the flight was perfect but it drifted into a pond and worst of all I had an Eggfinder from Eggtimer Rocketry on it. Needless to say, the Eggfinder didn’t work right after that but the rocket was fine and the Eggfinder gave the exact location before it got wet. Then, an Estes Expedition rocket landed almost right in the same spot in the pond. It was a very hard build and not constructed for the water at all. Well, I went rocket fishing twice that day. Thanks for setting this up so we could tell our stories. God bless.
Not a problem... Thank for sharing!
Flight 5: Estes Hi-Flier XL on a D12-5. I learned something incredibly important about this rocket on this flight: it floats!
It’s also large enough that I could see the fins a few hundred feet out in the water. I went swimming for it, and there was a canoeing team that was kind enough to scoop it up and meet me about halfway. This is the first time I’ve actually gone swimming to retrieve a rocket; all others were just too small or too far out to see.
Much to my dismay, the motor had taken on enough water to expand and get stuck in the motor mount. I took it home and left it to dry for a day before removing it, but it was still stuck enough that I ended up pulling out the entire motor mount.
View attachment 485129
That’s it, lying next to my Goblin decal sheet. Now I’ve got a hairdryer pointing at it and going full-blast.
I should have left it longer. The forward centering ring is still a little damp, no way were the forward end of the motor and the D-to-E adapter ring ready to come out.
That was the last flight of the day. Not too many overall, but certainly plenty of excitement and learning opportunities in that time.
Two days after splashing down with my Hi-Flier XL, the spent D12-5 motor remains as firmly stuck in the motor mount as ever. Thus far my attempts to remove it have only managed to remove the entire motor mount from the rest of the airframe, and I’d like to avoid damaging the mount if I can. Gripping the spent casing with pliers, either just on one edge or two, has failed to budge it.
So far I’ve left it to dry until the forward centering ring was stiff again. The adapter ring appears to be dry as well.
Is there something I’m missing, a trick to it, perhaps? Could the forward end of the motor still be damp and swollen and I just can’t see it? Is it possible that some of the adhesives holding the paper layers together have leached out and glued the motor to the mount tube and I’ll end up having to cut it/toss it regardless?
I’ve never managed to recover a water landing before so this is all new to me.
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