I'm leaning towards posting an ad on craigslist.
I'm leaning towards posting an ad on craigslist.
Then what will you do if you know that person has (or intended to) steal it?
So all this has me thinking that anything that I fly that goes out of sight (regardless of tracker) should have one of those stainless steel dog tags that you get from the machine at Wal Mart on it somewhere.
I'm not sure that's a good idea. If someone has it, they have your contact info anyway. And, if your ad encourages someone to look for it, they'll probably want more than you're offering as a reward if they find it.
Someone already mentioned that the locals know who to contact when they find a rocket, so I'd recommend having someone from the local club let people in the area know to be on the lookout for it.
That worked for me when I had a rocket drift far away under the main at apogee. My rocket was found by a local couple out hunting hogs during their honeymoon!
-- Roger
I'd love to say I have my name in giant font on the outside of the rocket, but unfortunately, this managed to slip my mind. My name and number is written on the tube that the tracker is in, which is attached to the shock cord.
My rocket was found by a local couple out hunting hogs during their honeymoon!
-- Roger
...My rocket was found by a local couple out hunting hogs during their honeymoon!
-- Roger
This is why it's beneficial to put radioactive type stickers all over your rocket. It's like writing "food experiment- do not eat" on your lunch bag in the office refrigerator. No one is willing to take the chance
Blackbrandt- wish I was closer by- I'd help out with the search if I could.
This it?
https://www.facebook.com/groups/43152234703/?fref=nf
See the latest post from William Cook.
Not a problem! Thanks for alerting me to it.Ok, just want to make sure you were seeing the Facebook stuff. Sometimes the FB crowd doesn't always cross paths with the TRF crowd. Some people use the one and not the other.
I hope you find your rocket
Yeah, I think a lot of folks are rooting for Matt. Question: Were there any lakes or ponds in the area of any significant size? Reason I ask is if there is the possibility it landed in a body of deep water that could be an explanation if it's never found.
All of the streams I saw were 5 feet deep or less.
I don't wish to be a doom-sayer but you'll have to make a determination if you move on or do another build either the same or a different project. 7000' is a nice moderate altitude for an L3 certification on such a large rocket.
Considering if one is limited to a 4" diameter rocket even a baby M is going to get close to punching it up to a 5 figure altitude so tracking becomes even more important as does the venue where the attempt is taken.
Probably the same size rocket. I might move down to 6" and build it like an absolute tank to keep it low. I'm not going to do another high altitude flight until I can be super comfortable with a tracker on low flights.
If Matt's rocket isn't found in the near future by a farmer/landowner, I believe the next milestone time is the Fall season when the vegetation dies off and Winter if the rocket is up in a tree. Anyone who is out hiking or hunting might come across it and if it's up in a tree, with the leaves down, it will be more easily seen. If the rocket is on the ground, it could get covered in snow and go out of sight till Spring.
According to someone in the area, my next luck will probably be some farmer running it over with a planter.
Best case is if it came down in a farm field and in that situation would be found by a farmer readying to plant the field. Would have to hope they would make an attempt to ID the rocket or turn it over to the local club as opposed to just tossing it in
a barn/shed and forgetting about it. Some landowners can get nasty about stuff found on their ground.
Yup, and that's my nightmare. I'm really hoping this gets found. Kurt
I've flown multiple flights with my Eggfinder. All were successful until now. My normal setup is running an LCD screen to be portable, plus a USB dongle hooked to my laptop for the coordinate stream. For some reason, I decided to change things right before my flight. Yet another symptom of go-fever.Get some small rockets flown with some Eggfinders and gain some experience either with "GPS Rocket Locator" or manually inputting the last known lat/long into a mapping system to know where to go. If you had done that before this attempt you
would have discovered the battery situation long beforehand.
"According to someone in the area, my next luck will probably be some farmer running it over with a planter." I respectfully beg to differ on this (in your favor mind you). In a tilled or no-till field and the fact that farmers don't want to drive
over something foreign to wreck their machinery, I think your intact rocket would be found, picked up, put outside of the field and dealt with later. If most of the landowners around there know that HPR is done in that area they might be
sympathetic to any rockets they find and have a tendency to turn them into MDRA. My only concern is a crotchety, paranoid and borderline demented old guy who doesn't give a darn about anything or anybody else.
Five foot deep body of water could hide a rocket if it hits right but good chance a fair amount of the rocket would be outside of the water on the shore especially if it's a stream.
The batteries of your rocket are likely long dead by now so it's not a risk to anyone plus all the charges might have fired and are spent. Can't hurt anyone. Kurt
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