LDRS 40; your experience?

[fyrwrxz]

It's just not all about High Power. I almost left with a B6-4 to my credit. I'll let other chime in and fill in some more stories later today. I'm late for work and I got vendors coming in. Tired and sore, but happy in a cool way.

 

[fyrwrxz]

Wow! Judging by the sterling response, I have permission to be a thread hog. You poor sods.....

 

[SDramstad]

No one else has recovered well enough to respond.......

 

[fyrwrxz]

No one else has recovered well enough to respond.......

Amen, brother!

 

[SkyFire]

 

[Neutronium95]

LDRS 40 was a mixed bag for me. I had a great time hanging out with people that I mostly know online and rarely see in person, and had a few great flights. Unfortunately, I also had a CATO on my L3 attempt that really put a damper on the experience.

 

[fyrwrxz]

I can't express enough appreciation to the Rocketry of California club salvaging LDRS 40 as a milestone. Sure, Oregon may (?) have been better, but these chaps are a well oiled machine that pulled this off in a compressed time frame. Gary, this is for you and your peeps (and your wonderful wife!) for all they did. No, there cannot be any fault or shame for the weather conditions, but they gave all the brave souls the opportunity to let us fly. Major kudos to all that worked both boots on the ground and the TON of admin works that were required. Happy with my yellow shirt and a big shout out for the purple youth shirt, just happens to be my favourite 4 year old's favourite colour. Can you say "Rocstock"? I'll be baaackkk!

 

[kelltym88]

For me, it was great. Hadn't been to a launch in 6 years. It was a much needed get away as I have pretty much been working like crazy or spending more time in my other hobby as a bassist for a cover band here in So Cal. You asked for pics, you got 'em. This is pretty much what I launched at LDRS 40. Everything flew great, all my engine choices were the right ones, and I only broke one small fin. Even nailed a landing. I also was a volunteer and helped out were I could, even learned to be Pad Manager. Sorry for the tiny video, but you get the idea. The wind really put a damper on things, but at least it wasn't constant, except Saturday, but there were still lots of launches. BTW, the second rocket pictured, my Estes Der V-3, is 34 years old. Flew it on a Q-jet E26-4. Those are great motors. And kudos to ROC!!! And thank you Fudd, you know why.

 

[Johnly]

I can't express enough appreciation to the Rocketry of California club salvaging LDRS 40 as a milestone. Sure, Oregon may (?) have been better, but these chaps are a well oiled machine that pulled this off in a compressed time frame. Gary, this is for you and your peeps (and your wonderful wife!) for all they did. No, there cannot be any fault or shame for the weather conditions, but they gave all the brave souls the opportunity to let us fly. Major kudos to all that worked both boots on the ground and the TON of admin works that were required. Happy with my yellow shirt and a big shout out for the purple youth shirt, just happens to be my favourite 4 year old's favourite colour. Can you say "Rocstock"? I'll be baaackkk!

When all is said and done, we're lucky that the launch was moved to sunny California.
Last weekend the weather was rain, wind, and clouds in Brothers.

 

[caveduck]

I had a great time too! At 105 it was hot but not horrible if you're used to dealing with desert rocketry. Didn't get my 14,000 ft flight off due to damaged electronics but got in a motor deploy flight, went around to see a lot of friends, did a dawn scene for the Harringtons' documentary, did some shopping, discovered what might be the best restaurant in the Victorville area, got some long-tele photos of the ill-fated TRASD Trident flight, got to hang out with Kenrico and Eggman Cris. @fyrwrxz Not sure how I managed to miss you. If I'd kidnapped Warner and brought him along we'd have had most of the old guard.

Next up, NARAM and AirFest.

 

[AllDigital]

LDRS was a great event for us. My son got his L3 on Saturday and it was great to see so many people and vendors out in Lucern Valley. We are local to SoCal, so we really appreciate everyone traveling in. Sorry it was so hot and the W was insane when we left Saturday afternoon, but the mornings were great.

Thank you to everyone that coordinated. The online registration and onsite pick-up was super easy and the ROC guys really know how to organize big events.

Here is my son's L3, "8d6" -- It went to 9800 feet and landed perfectly square in the middle of highway 247. Luckily another rocketeer was close and relocated it before cars came through.


... and in other news, my "old faithful" 3" rocket went to 10K feet, drogue failed to deploy, and when the main opened at 300fps+ it snapped the shock cord and went full lawn dart into the playa. Amazingly, the upper airframe took all the impact and the electronics were still beeping. I've got over 40 flights on this rocket. After buffing out the scratch, she will fly again

 

[KenRico]

I can't express enough appreciation to the Rocketry of California club salvaging LDRS 40 as a milestone. Sure, Oregon may (?) have been better, but these chaps are a well oiled machine that pulled this off in a compressed time frame. Gary, this is for you and your peeps (and your wonderful wife!) for all they did. No, there cannot be any fault or shame for the weather conditions, but they gave all the brave souls the opportunity to let us fly. Major kudos to all that worked both boots on the ground and the TON of admin works that were required. Happy with my yellow shirt and a big shout out for the purple youth shirt, just happens to be my favourite 4 year old's favourite colour. Can you say "Rocstock"? I'll be baaackkk!

we want the 'Pimp child' , we want the ' Pimp Child ' ! ! !

Good to see you - we need mo FyrWrxz in our lives !

Kenny

 

[jimn]

Great time, especially Thursday and Friday mornings. Burned a J and a couple of Is. Then the wind and the heat, but those are the breaks. Hats off to ROC.

 

[fyrwrxz]

Aww, Kenny, missed hanging out with any of the old school! It was touch and go after my (unplanned) surgery and I was pissed they scheduled it before the launch. I didn't want to commit and then bail. It was all about my son's 4 yo daughter and kinda a reunion with Chris where we rebonded after the last LDRS there after he got out of the Army. It had been a few years. That's where the OG crew met him and he still remembers Eggtimer Cris' mylar 'Dude'. He really wanted time with Dad in the desert and the Viking Princess had to come to a hot, nasty launch because the little tweaker was gonna be there. No plans I had worked and got rescheduled at the last minute. I figured because things were sooo fubared, everybody already flew and left. I missed 99% of the people I was supposed to meet, not just from the club. Saw Bryce driving back from registratration and got a great big Kenrico style hug from him, made me feel good! He hadn't forgotten the good old days. Got more hugs from Ruby at Discount. I just needed to get souvenir T shirts and caught up with Gary, asked about Stickershock, turned around and there you and Cris were! I was stunned to see you, thinking you maybe hung up your track shoes. My bad, my fault for not getting back to you. Gary and I joked about Vegas and the infamous rear window lawn dart and I promised him I wouldn't be a stranger to ROC anymore. Of course, they don't come any stranger than me! I got prolly the last two flights on Sunday; a B6-4 and I212(by request) . More posting with pics later. ROCstock if I have to crawl.

 

[fyrwrxz]

I had a great time too! At 105 it was hot but not horrible if you're used to dealing with desert rocketry. Didn't get my 14,000 ft flight off due to damaged electronics but got in a motor deploy flight, went around to see a lot of friends, did a dawn scene for the Harringtons' documentary, did some shopping, discovered what might be the best restaurant in the Victorville area, got some long-tele photos of the ill-fated TRASD Trident flight, got to hang out with Kenrico and Eggman Cris. @fyrwrxz Not sure how I managed to miss you. If I'd kidnapped Warner and brought him along we'd have had most of the old guard.

Next up, NARAM and AirFest.

Dave, so sorry I missed you! Post pics! I missed James and Derek with the F100's (I have stories) Paul and crew with the Trident (did John come out? ) and anything Val did and feel bad about all that. Keep me in the loop and let's fly together again. Much respect and miss you. I did hook up with Cris and he said he saw you. He was delayed and camped about 100 ft from me! After everybody bailed, I strolled over, got a couple of things and we talked while he packed. Cool little trailer!

 

[Jeff Lassahn]

I only fly LPR stuff, but we had plans to be in the neighborhood so we dropped in Friday and Saturday just to watch. Great to see everyone fly!
Night flying was cool, is that a thing lots of events do? I might have to build something for the next one of those.

 

[kelltym88]

I probably walked past or interacted with all you guys and didnt even realize it....lol

 

[smstachwick]

Things that went well:

• Lots of cool flights, especially the HPR guys. Seeing the AeroTech H13 in action was neat, 15 seconds means something different when you see it with your own eyes instead of just reading the stat.
• Excellent work by AMW-ProX in ensuring I got a good deal on a substitution for an order that fell through. Definitely will buy from them again, I just might call first and see if they have the stock I want.
• Chris’ Rocketry Supplies was kind enough to give me a couple big handfuls of dog barf so I could fly when my Estes TP ran out. I also bought the reloads I was originally looking for at AMW-ProX, as well as a few Estes motors.
• Met and identified another forum member who was gracious beyond anything I would expect from anyone in fielding my questions and requests for assistance.
• Got flights on 3 of the 4 airframes I brought. My Star Orbiter will fly with DART when my flying season kicks off in July.
• Had a fifth airframe returned to me after losing it at DART. Another one for the repair pile.
• Racked up a couple volunteer hours LCOing and pad managing.
• Won a cool prize in the banquet drawing. I won’t be able to use it but I’m hoping to sell it soon.

Things that didn’t go well:

• Shade tent blowing away in the wind and being completely ruined. Lesson learned, my fault.
• Met a bunch of people but did not identify as many forum members as I had hoped. Conditions kept me off the range in ideal meetup times. Extenuating circumstances, nobody’s fault.
• Maybe try a different hotel for the banquet if/when LDRS comes back to Lucerne? The place was either overbooked or understaffed, and unprepared either way. I’d put that on hotel management, not ROC or Tripoli or anyone else.

 

[MClark]

I just had another good experience from the launch. I bought a kit from Tim at Wildman, it wasn’t in the trailer but he would ship for free.
Just got a text saying it has been shipped. Way quicker than I was expecting.
Thanks Tim!

Mark

 

[b.wieting]

Excellent time, ROC people are great! I've never seen conditions so calm (if a bit warm) as Friday morning. Flew my stretched dual deploy MegaMagg on K550, recovered it up a couple dozen feet NE of the pad.
It was sad (and unusual) to see the number of failures that occurred.

 

[fyrwrxz]

Things that went well:

• Lots of cool flights, especially the HPR guys. Seeing the AeroTech H13 in action was neat, 15 seconds means something different when you see it with your own eyes instead of just reading the stat.
• Excellent work by AMW-ProX in ensuring I got a good deal on a substitution for an order that fell through. Definitely will buy from them again, I just might call first and see if they have the stock I want.
• Chris’ Rocketry Supplies was kind enough to give me a couple big handfuls of dog barf so I could fly when my Estes TP ran out. I also bought the reloads I was originally looking for at AMW-ProX, as well as a few Estes motors.
• Met and identified another forum member who was gracious beyond anything I would expect from anyone in fielding my questions and requests for assistance.
• Got flights on 3 of the 4 airframes I brought. My Star Orbiter will fly with DART when my flying season kicks off in July.
• Had a fifth airframe returned to me after losing it at DART. Another one for the repair pile.
• Racked up a couple volunteer hours LCOing and pad managing.
• Won a cool prize in the banquet drawing. I won’t be able to use it but I’m hoping to sell it soon.

Things that didn’t go well:

• Shade tent blowing away in the wind and being completely ruined. Lesson learned, my fault.
• Met a bunch of people but did not identify as many forum members as I had hoped. Conditions kept me off the range in ideal meetup times. Extenuating circumstances, nobody’s fault.
• Maybe try a different hotel for the banquet if/when LDRS comes back to Lucerne? The place was either overbooked or understaffed, and unprepared either way. I’d put that on hotel management, not ROC or Tripoli or anyone else.

Shane- email me. interested in what you won at the raffle!

 

[smstachwick]

Shane- email me. interested in what you won at the raffle!

I did. Your username at gmail.com. If that’s not correct you may want to send me a DM.

Otherwise check your other folders?

 

[burkefj]

I had a great time, almost didn't go but glad I did, got to talk to a lot of great people, put up several flights of my big gliders, most people seemed to really enjoy them, you are right H-13's are really neat in person Great bbq and milkshakes at Cafe247, well run, hardly any lines, nothing to fix when I got home, just a super experience for me.

 

[prfesser]

I hated every minute of LDRS 40. Because I was here, not there. But looking forward to next year!

 

[fyrwrxz]

My bigely huge earthshattering, record breaking, envelope pushing, beyond state-of-the-art aerodynamic extravaganza powered by 212 dark minions in a 38 case to 3k. Answers for the peanut gallery (okay, 3 chaps looking over my shoulder) and the promised breakdown for the RSO (sorry I didn't get your name or forgot if I did) to come later. Spike is a bullet proof tank surviving a poorly reefed chute, but still landing on the range during the hurricane. Never seen him bounce before! No damage.
Huge shout out to Jim Wilkerson, this is the only known photo of 'Spike' in the stretched version. Seriously, I don't waste time on photos. Most of my life is undocumented, but I have cool stories with no proof. Kinda sad, but IRDC.

 

[fyrwrxz]

The good, the, bad, the ugly....part uno
I hardly post pics, but had to do this one.
The ugly is me on the left with 'Spike' ( more about him later)
The good is the venerable 'Viking Princess', my wife, in the middle. Those who have been here a while know the joke, those who don't dm me.
The bad is the little tweaker on the right, the whole reason to be out here. Jeesh, where do 4 year olds get the energy? (she stuffed her pockets with dog barf when I wasn't looking, Mommy would have killed me laundry day). 'Aurora' (named after the Merc capsule) has her first rocket at her first launch! Yeah, I'm an enabler. Or maybe just a sadomasochistic (sp?) child abuser who prefers tender young ladies boiled alive and dried like beef jerky.

 

[smstachwick]

The good, the, bad, the ugly....part uno
I hardly post pics, but had to do this one.
The ugly is me on the left with 'Spike' ( more about him later)
The good is the venerable 'Viking Princess', my wife, in the middle. Those who have been here a while know the joke, those who don't dm me.
The bad is the little tweaker on the right, the whole reason to be out here. Jeesh, where do 4 year olds get the energy? (she stuffed her pockets with dog barf when I wasn't looking, Mommy would have killed me laundry day). 'Aurora' (named after the Merc capsule) has her first rocket at her first launch! Yeah, I'm an enabler. Or maybe just a sadomasochistic (sp?) child abuser who prefers tender young ladies boiled alive and dried like beef jerky.

I can’t help but notice that your profile photo is a pretty good likeness, as weird as that may sound.

 

[fyrwrxz]

The perfect 'grrrl power' shot. She doesn't get to play with squirt guns often, but it was soo frickin hot, why not? Grumpa is a bad influence. She went everywhere that day with it. Even to her first launch! Success!
(yes, I bought her the hat, no comment)

 

[fyrwrxz]

I can’t help but notice that your profile photo is a pretty good likeness, as weird as that may sound.

Shane, totally deliberate. Had to do the "Plants vs Zombies" thing because it was so perfect back in the day. It's why the camp flag is a jolly roger. Other guys change the bio pic almost daily, this has been it for years. Not ever gonna change it. Even after the witness protection and plastic surgery kick in.

 

[fyrwrxz]

The start of the end. Almost done with this thread. I'll go back to drooling in the corner while I airfoil fins for the next bird.
Two of the (few) happy campers below:
Left; little miss 'I stole your dog barf' Aurora and
Right; Chris, my middle son. This was a reunion of sorts as he had just gotten out of the Army bring posted in Korea all 6 years. He missed Desert Storm despite being a Bradley driver and other 50 cal quals we don't talk about. His entire platoon deployed without him, for which I am eternally thankful. We met up at the last LDRS here after not seeing each other for years. We camped right behind Wayco and Hardline, who immediately liked him. I suspect Wayne could sense an unspoken bond. The SDTRA guys were in KenRico's motor home with Eggtimer Cris along and we all had a great time! I was so happy spending time with him I never launched and wouldn't trade a minute of it or do anything different. I present the last two victims of LDRS 40: