Well. . . .
After the Kloudbuster Air Force flew its recon mission over the Rocket Pasture and surrounding fields yesterday, it was time to send in the ground forces today. Actually, "ground forces" isn't exactly correct, it was more like "ground force". Everyone else being busy, I jumped in my car and headed down to "ground zero" to see if I could find the three targets we spotted from the air.
As it turns out, the three targets turned out to be two targets with two of them being the same rocket separated by a long shock cord.
The first rocket I found was RocketRob's Mini Mag. The GPS coordinates from flying over and pushing the button when I thought I was over it turned out to be off by 180'. Now that doesn't sound like much but the search took almost 30 minutes to locate the rocket. The rocket it's self is in great condition. I believe Lance has contacted the owner. If not drop me a PM and we will figure out how to get the rocket to you.
The next rocket I found took a loooong time to find. It was no where near the coordinates I had! I remembered where they were in relation to each other and wondered off that direction. An hour and a half later, I stumbled upon kruland's orange G3. This was the rocket with the long shock cord! It too is in excellent shape.
After two hours of wandering in a bean fields looking for rockets I called it quits! Those of you who have done it know the drudgery of searching for your rocket in the crops. It's less fun looking for someone else's rocket!
PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT!!!!!
Folks, go get a Sharpie right now! I'll wait.
Got it, good! Now, go write your name or your TRA number on your rockets in a couple of conspicuous spots. After a big launch, we always have a rocket or two turn up that we can't identify who the owner is. With this simple step, your chances of getting your rocket back after losing it at a big launch really goes up. It makes our lives easier as well.
Bob