BattlePark - December 10 & 11

Handeman said:

I'll be there early. I'm hoping to get my order from Ken too. I can hold onto yours too.

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Excellent. I'll place my order tomorrow!

kcobbva said:

Well I planned to be better prepared and ordered an Aerotech combo 54mm set for BF. The only thing I ordered due to price. Got an email today they were sold out, so got the refund. Nice I got that, but now I still have a Tomach I cannot fly (i bought last black friday) and still stuck with CTI loads for now. bummer.

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Call me tomorrow, I might have your problem solved., 703four,oh, seven, 9972, Dave

Dave A said:

Call me tomorrow, I might have your problem solved., 703four,oh, seven, 9972, Dave

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Thanks Dave. Will do.

Looked at the weather forecast this weekend, looks cold. But Saturday should be a great day for a Level 2 certification launch. This will be my first really cold launch. Are there any special tips/tricks you guys can suggest for cold weather launches?

tHoagland said:

Looked at the weather forecast this weekend, looks cold. But Saturday should be a great day for a Level 2 certification launch. This will be my first really cold launch. Are there any special tips/tricks you guys can suggest for cold weather launches?

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A lot of the cautionary advice I've seen for launching in cold weather revolves around BP motors (increased CATO potential) and Estes plastic chutes.
Need to keep both warm. Quantum tube from PML is a problem due to contraction of the airframe and couplers.

Otherwise - I think it is a human factor thing...dress appropriately for recovery and prep in harsh conditions.

Weather forecast for Saturday looks great; sunny and very low winds so temps in the 30s won't feel too cold. I will be flying my Formula 150 sometime in the afternoon.

When it's cold like this, I'll add a little extra BP to my charges.

Drag race still on?

Ben

waiting for my hall pass. But I think it's gonna work out, so I'm in for the drag race (as long as the wind is right! Do we have a high flier to show off the upper winds before we start! ?

kcobbva said:

Do we have a high flier to show off the upper winds before we start! ?

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Heheh.....I think I know where you're coming from.

Any more info from Kevin on attending Saturday? All my flights depend upon his being there.

Kevin will be there Saturday but not Sunday.

I don't know, I never got a chance to mix up any motors. I've got a 54/1706 K motor I could use. I think it's a Dark Matter.

ben said:

When it's cold like this, I'll add a little extra BP to my charges.

Drag race still on?

Ben

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So I might be in a holding pattern. Was getting things ready this evening and realized my 54mm retainer on my 54mm 6 grain cesaroni tube is missing. I have searched everywhere to no avail. I emailed Ken to see if he might be dropping anything off on his way to Novaar, as he has one listed on his site. Kevin has 0 listed available. So, depending upon Ken's response I either will be there Saturday, or will not be there Saturday. I'll keep looking tomorrow, but not sure where else to look at this time.

Good to go. Ken has them!! Will be there.

kcobbva said:

Well I planned to be better prepared and ordered an Aerotech combo 54mm set for BF. The only thing I ordered due to price. Got an email today they were sold out, so got the refund. Nice I got that, but now I still have a Tomach I cannot fly (i bought last black friday) and still stuck with CTI loads for now. bummer.

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I have 38mm AT hardware (through 38/720) that you are also welcome to borrow.

I heard from Kevin (Wildman VA). He will be at the launch Saturday.

If you are only coming on Sunday, and order by Friday noon, he will send a PayPal receipt and leave your order with the launch crew for Sunday pickup.

See you guys in the am

How did it go today?

I saw a few good flights and a few mishaps today and it wasn't as cold as I thought it would be. Here's a picture of Kevin and his Saturn V and of the start of the drag race.

I'm not sure what the criteria was on the drag race. Kevin's rocket was definitely the first of the pad, but, I think Jeff had the highest flight (correct me if I'm wrong folks). Also, my tracker worked as expected. I'll provide more details later in my tracker thread.

Amazing day! I'll post more later. Ken thanks for the great pics and also congrats on the successful test!! Well done!

Ken, thanks for the pics. Kevin was the first off the pad because he was using a CTI motor with the BP pellet. Ben and I thought he should be docked about 500 ft for that!

Kevin got 6358? feet and went the highest. Ben and I left the pad almost at the same time on our EX motors. I'm not sure what Ben used as an igniter, I know it wasn't thermite, but mine was one from the last batch I made. Grapeshot made it to 6,205 ft at 609 mph according to the Stratologger CF on it's 36th flight. Ben and I didn't land quite as close together as last month, probably 400 ft apart this time, but we didn't have to crawl across the creek like Kevin did to get Rumble Bee.

All in all, it was a very cool K motor drag race!

Saturday turned out to be a very good day. Light to no winds most of the day. They did pick up from about 1 PM to 3 PM, but it was almost dead calm after that. Even the upper levels.

Kevin's, Godspeed John Glenn flight of his Saturn 5 was a great tribute to a great man. He used large chutes and got everything back intact right near the pads after a very good flight.

Here are some pics from the K motor drag race. Kevin beat Ben and Jeff so bad that I didn't even get pictures of their rockets in flight. Eventually they got off the pad, a few seconds later . . .

What an outstanding day! Great friends, Great weather, and Great flights! and a "few" switchboxes left off!

So here's a few shots I took from the day:
My Apogee Saturn V brushed off and cleaned up after a 13 year storage. A tribute to John Glenn as Jeff and Ken stated:


Then the drag race between Jeff, Ben, and I. Yes, I used a CTI. Haven't learned to build my own yet. Flight ended up 6,362 ft. Man that was fun, but I left my darned camera at home. I'd have had great video of Jeff and Ben coming up behind me! Nuts!!


[video=youtube;SEibhFpGgRc]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=/SEibhFpGgRc[/video]

A shot of the Black Max on a G76



Then we had a very nice Level 2 Certification Launch by Tim Hoagland! Congratulations Tim!

[video=youtube;n_cZ2lcKVqY]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=/n_cZ2lcKVqY[/video]


Finally Nathan ended the day with a really cool flight with his Formula 500. Very nice rocket and the best paint job around!

Nice pictures and congrats to Tim on the Level 2.

It was a great day and fun was had by all! Now we do it again tomorrow!

Sure wish I could. Hope yall have another awesome day!

Nathan said:

Here are some pics from the K motor drag race. Kevin beat Ben and Jeff so bad that I didn't even get pictures of their rockets in flight. Eventually they got off the pad, a few seconds later . . .

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So, the fastest igniter won?

Kevin - you are the "baddest in the land" as they say at MDRA.
I take it you split the difference between the cow pasture and the trees as well......................

What did the Saturn V fly on?...looked nice.

Congratulations to Tim and his Level 2, and Nathan, really great looking rocket, as usual.
Sorry I had to miss it, but duty calls.

MaxQ said:

So, the fastest igniter won?

Kevin - you are the "baddest in the land" as they say at MDRA.
I take it you split the difference between the cow pasture and the trees as well......................

What did the Saturn V fly on?...looked nice.

Congratulations to Tim and his Level 2, and Nathan, really great looking rocket, as usual.
Sorry I had to miss it, but duty calls.

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Luckiest maybe...but not sure about the "Baddest". The Saturn flew on a G138. It had a 14 second delay that I drilled to a 6 and it was still too long. The original file called for a G80-4. Since G's were reformulated, I picked up a new one from Ken but my drill doesn't work on that type of Aerotech, so I opted for a G138 I picked up from Kevin and could drill. She was on her way down when deployment occurred, but it came apart nicely and was a very slow and tender landing.

As for the "Split the Difference". I started heading for the pines/cornfield again; but this time just made it over the creek and landed about 5-10 foot away. Ben and Jeff were much smarter and placed theirs on OUR side of the fence and in the field..easily found. I need to learn some of their playbook pages!

Kevin, Thanks for recording and sharing my L2 flight. It was a great flight.

As always, the Battlepark group was a great help and a pleasure to fly with. I'm looking forward to a couple of new rockets for the January launch.