Weirdest Landing??

[Silverleaf]

The 34 mile chase...

True story that happened with my original Juno rocket on her maiden voyage, some 4 months after the kit came out from Estes.

We had launched on my Grandfather's property - as I still do to this day, and on that particular launch, the wind gusted up above the tree line just at launch, which seemed to spell doom for the rocket. She popped her chute and was gone, down the lane, out onto the road, and into the back of a 1971 pickup truck - puke green in color - which was speeding by.

My Grandfather wasn't home, but one of the neighbors from across the road was watching the launch, and came flying up the lane on his old hog, yelled for me to jump in and off we went. Chased this truck all the way into town, up onto the interstate and caught him near Canton - almost 35 miles away on the highway.

I kept thinking - great, the chutes gonna inflate and boom, she'll be gone. Only had a ding on the nosecone and 2 torn shroud lines and the guy never knew it was in there.

 

[jraice]

Havent had many really weird ones, last XPRS we had a rental SUV and tent setup. First a rocket landed right on top of the tent, then another landed about 5' away. Then to end it all a rocket landed over the car (harness went over the car). It would have been horrible explaining to the rental place about a rocket landing on our car while out in the desert (when driving on the desert has a $150 fine).

 

[AstronMike]

Well, not so much as a wierd landing, but back in 1994 I flew my old Astron SST HPR Glider on an I motor, perfect flight as usual, but it ended up leaving the site and landed in someones yard.

When I went to retrieve it, a rather gnarly looking lady still in her nightrobe comes out, looks the big ole glider sitting 10ft from her door, then at little ole me, and then *laughs* before going back inside.


Also had my even more powerful Astron DeLuxe glider glide directly into a concrete post, and this thing was a darn fast ship too, guess I dont have to hit the ground to get a crash!!


One more weird landing event was back in '92, when my large flexie RG landed in an adjoining cow pasture, and for some reason the cows were *attracted* to it!! Like a dozen of em, took a while for them to finally leave, but not before trampling the main wing spars as well as the center splines!!

 

[Garnaralf]

Not weird, but maybe worst.

We were flying at Silver sands State Park in Milford, CT. Which is down the street, litterally, from me.

A Quest Full Moon had drifted over into the marsh.

Ok, I decided to go get it. A little mud, but not bad.

Came up on what I thought was a drainage ditch. Ok, I'll hop the ditch and go get it.

BIG MISTAKE!!!

Landed IN the ditch, and immediately sank up to my armpits (I'm 6'5" tall) in the worst smelling muck I have ever smelled. It smelled of low tide and diesel fuel. A brand new white wizard tshirt had turned black. Got out of the ditch. Got the rocket. Now I had to come back across the ditch. Found a spot not as wide, and made the jump. Sank into the mud on the other side up to my hips. And found the broken glass pile. Ripped up my legs something awful. After getting back, and with my wife holding her nose, we walked down to the beach and I dunked myself for about 45 minutes. At least it got rid of some of the smell.

Unfortunately, one of the cuts on my leg got infected, and I spent this summer limping quite a bit. Its ok now though.

Rocket: 7 bucks or so.

Tshirt: 26 bucks.
Emergency Room cost for infection: 462.85
Followups with own Dr. : 300 bucks.

Total loss : 781.85

But I got the rocket back!

~Bob

 

[jimn]

Years ago I launched some rockets from my parent's back yard. One of them landed on a neighbors roof. He had a tower next to his house for his TV antenna that he said I could climb and try to reach the rocket, but it was not close enough to be able to grab the rocket. So I thought about other ways to get the rocket back. I got my parent's step ladder and a yard stick. I took these over to the house, climbed up the step ladder and used the yard stick to hook the shock cord. Crossing the street going back home another neighbor saw me and gave me a strange look. Probably looked pretty strange to be crossing the street with a model rocket, a yard stick and a step ladder.

 

[Donaldsrockets]

Originally posted by phaar

Back to the question though! What is the weirdest place you have had to recover your rocket from?

From a filthy, dirty, muddy canal, my friend Matt's Estes Stormcaster landed smack dab in the middle of one at our club launch.

We or rather I should say I (he wimped out ) got it out using a retrieval pole while up past my knees in nasty, muddy water while feeling myself sinking into the mud.

In a way, the water rocket gods didn't really want to give it up but I'm fearless.

I emerged soaked to the nines and my legs coated with a slimey thin film of mud. Matt, you owe me!!!:kill:

Unfortunately, we twisted the entire MMT tube out of the rocket trying to remove the saturated motor from the mount. Should be a fairly simple repair.

 

[blackjack2564]

When I was around 15-16 I lived on a beach.....being young and stupid, we decided to luanch our alphas on a much too windy day.....it drifted about a mile down the beach ...behind a fenced in area...private beach....so we knocked on the door to get permisson to retrieve...imagine the shock and suprise us young guys got when we entered in the middle of a bunch of nudists having their annual beach party!!!!!

 

[brianc]

Didn't happen to me, but just this past weekend at the ROCK section 622 launch...

https://www.r-o-c-k.org/launch_recap.htm

A Shuttle Express dropped BOTH gliders nose first into two fresh cow pies. What are the
odds of that?

 

[metalwizard]

It may not be a good recovery, but at a launch in lucerene a g64 pushed its way through it mount through the rocket and whent spinning across the flightline like a groung blooming flower, then it caught some air hit an umbrella wich curved it right into the back of the LCO's escort wagon...

a small fire, a few burned rockets, and melted carpet but everything was "O.K." of course the rocket was still sitting on the pad, if it wasnt for the missing nosecone, youd never know.

 

[Ray Dunakin]

Originally posted by blackjack2564
When I was around 15-16 I lived on a beach.....being young and stupid, we decided to luanch our alphas on a much too windy day.....it drifted about a mile down the beach ...behind a fenced in area...private beach....so we knocked on the door to get permisson to retrieve...imagine the shock and suprise us young guys got when we entered in the middle of a bunch of nudists having their annual beach party!!!!!

The problem with nudists is that usually they are the very last people you'd ever want to see naked.

 

[Gus]

I recently landed an Estes SkyWinder on Sandman.

Sandman trying to kick my rocket to smithereens.

 

[Ray Dunakin]

Years ago, I sent up a 4" diameter rocket on a J125. Great flight, landed a fair distance away. I started out after it, along with another guy who was already in the field and closer to it than I was. He got to it first, and from a distance I could see him stomping on my rocket!

Turns out that the tail end had been smoldering during descent, and after landing it caught fire. The entire fin can had burned and the guy was trying to put it out before the rest of the rocket was consumed.