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boatgeek

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Accomplished one of this year's goals over the weekend, with progress toward another and an unexpected bonus goal.

I took advantage of our high school students doing a test launch for the NASA Student Launch program, and got my L2 on a 2.6" Madcow Arcas fiberglass kit on a CTI 38mm J285 with dual deploy under a Chute Release. It was a beautiful flight, also putting me one step closer to flying every one of CTI's propellants (still missing Vmax, Imax, and C-star). The launch was 4 hours' drive from home in Seattle in chilly Eastern Washington where there was 4-8" of snow on the ground and occasional holes to the knee. The bonus goal was a new recovery method--snowshoe!

IMG_0920.jpgIMG_0931.jpg
 
Congrats ! That's some dedicated steely-eyed missile man stuff right there. :) I'll bet you caught some serious air with the J285 in that model. And a cardio workout bonus.
 
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Congrats ! That's some dedicated steely-eyed missile man stuff right there. :) I'll bet you caught some serious air with the J285 in that model. And a cardio workout bonus.

Yeah, several people at work were making McMurdo jokes! Altitude around 6000'. Other than falling through the crust every so often, it was actually really easy to launch and recover in the snow. It really cushioned the landing and it was easy to find the rocket with a red chute among all that white.

Congratulations! That launch site looks amazing. (I say sitting comfortably inside)

It wasn't too cold, right around freezing, and the visibility was amazing. The 4" SLI rocket to 5300' was clearly visible the entire flight. We lost this one in the blue for a while, but picked it up again at a few thousand feet. This launch site is great. Very few trees and a couple of small ponds, but otherwise nothing but sagebrush and dryland wheat for a few miles in any direction. The waiver is to 14,000' AGL. A few miles the other side of town is another site with even fewer hazards and a waiver to 26,000' AGL.
 
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Yeah, several people at work were making McMurdo jokes! Altitude around 6000'. Other than falling through the crust every so often, it was actually really easy to launch and recover in the snow. It really cushioned the landing and it was easy to find the rocket with a red chute among all that white.



It wasn't too cold, right around freezing, and the visibility was amazing. The 4" SLI rocket to 5300' was clearly visible the entire flight. We lost this one in the blue for a while, but picked it up again at a few thousand feet. This launch site is great. Very few trees and a couple of small ponds, but otherwise nothing but sagebrush and dryland wheat for a few miles in any direction. The waiver is to 14,000' AGL. A few miles the other side of town is another site with even fewer hazards and a waiver to 26,000' AGL.

Nothing like wide open spaces. 6k on that combo is serious enough for me, for a cert flight anyway. A day to remember, thanks for sharing the pics.
 
Awesome flight and launch site. I like rocketeers that don't wimp out in the winter months! What club are you flying with in eastern Washington?
 
Awesome flight and launch site. I like rocketeers that don't wimp out in the winter months! What club are you flying with in eastern Washington?

Eastern Washington has 3 active clubs and one Western Washington club has a launch site in Central/ Eastern Wa, which is Washington Aerospace Club aka WAC at Mansfield, WA.
The other clubs are SPARC ( Spokane Area Rocket Club) in Spokane, WA, Blue Mountain Rocketeers (BMR ) near Dayton, WA, and Tri-Cities Rocketeers (TCR) Pasco/Kennewick/Richland, WA.
 
Congratulations on the Level 2 cert. I took my test in Saturday and will do my flight in March.

Steve
 
Awesome flight and launch site. I like rocketeers that don't wimp out in the winter months! What club are you flying with in eastern Washington?

We were using the Washington Aerospace Club's waiver and GSE, but this was a special launch for the SLI test flight. I just tagged my flight on so I have one more thing out of the way before the big launch in Mansfield on Memorial Day weekend. If you're in the neighborhood, it's a whole lot of fun!

Now that L2's out of the way, you can get back to a certain square rocket......

Progress is being made on that, but I do need to get back to that. It won't fly until the aforementioned Memorial Day weekend, so I have some time.

Thank you to everyone who offered well wishes!
 
Eastern Washington has 3 active clubs and one Western Washington club has a launch site in Central/ Eastern Wa, which is Washington Aerospace Club aka WAC at Mansfield, WA.
The other clubs are SPARC ( Spokane Area Rocket Club) in Spokane, WA, Blue Mountain Rocketeers (BMR ) near Dayton, WA, and Tri-Cities Rocketeers (TCR) Pasco/Kennewick/Richland, WA.

Hopefully Tri-Cities will see another L2 attempt at their March or April launch. :)
 
Hopefully Tri-Cities will see another L2 attempt at their March or April launch. :)


March launch is only a few weeks away (first weekend of March iirc), a few of us went out last Saturday and flew a couple of FAR101 flights, but the field was still 4 or so inches deep in snow and the road in and out pretty messy, should be good to go by next month as long as the snow stays away.
 
Congrats! Welcome to the club. I just joined two weeks ago.
 
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