Best Rocketry Experience of the Year

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Wow-
It is really great to see so many good times shared on this thread. This thread was a GREAT idea!
I did my L2 flight many years ago and it went 6179 feet. Since then I have never launched any higher than that. A friend of mine calls me "Mr. Play It Safe" (my Tripoli Club is full of altitude junkies). Anyway, in November I decided to "go out of my comfort zone" a little and I put a 54mm 4 grain EX motor in my 4" Mac-Performance Scorpion. A friend of mine loaned me a tracker and I even put a video camera on it (the camera died). Anyway....it went 6464 feet and had a perfect recovery that landed just about 75 yards from the pad! So I got to best my personal record. It also went 721 mph (which is kind of cool I think). The day was great, the flights were good and it is certainly a great memory for 2019.

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What a great thread!

My best experience this year has to be building the 1:100 Estes 1969 Saturn V with my son who has turned into quite the early manned missions space nut. He helped build every part of it and it really helped shaping his love of rockets and space flight (he now prefers documentaries on the Apollo missions over any other TV shows he’s allowed to watch).

Here he is showing off our work.

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And he loves this photo to show approximate scale on how massive the Saturn V really was (it’s on an HO scale table which is 1:87 for anyone not in the know)

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I'm going to go with recovering my Darkstar Jr. I got the "go fever" at MARS, loaded an I 364 in it and watched it fly out of sight. I thought it was gone for good. I got a call about a week later that it had been recovered from a tree on the University campus. Now it's outfitted with an Eggfinder Mini.MVIMG_20190608_172757.jpg
 
This is a great idea, thanks John and Joe! Fun to see everyone's awesome and varied experiences. 2019 was a good year for rocketry and it was hard to narrow it down to just a couple experiences.

After a picture perfect J510W retirement flight it was an honor to have our Blue Angels DX3 rocket autographed by all 6 demonstration pilots from the 2019 U.S. Navy Blue Angels team. This was my L1 and L2 rocket and had flown on every big 38mm J motor that AeroTech makes, twice on the J510W and J570W.

This is awesome! I love this so much
 
I don't have pictures right now, but the best part of 2019 for me was attending LDRS 38 and helping Wildman fly his Mega Darkstar two stage.
 
I guess I can narrow it down to two. NARCON was totally awesome, but second would be the conversation at a Boy Scout meeting that led to our club obtaining a new launch field only five miles from my house. Score!
 
I would have to say going to my first MDRA Launch was the best. I got my L1 at that launch. That was January. Haven’t missed a launch there since. Red Glare was my first experience with a large regional launch and was a great time. Already planning for all three days this coming year.
 
Please indulge me with two ...

#1 - Guiding a team of volunteers, community participants and equipment in hosting LDRS 38 at Argonia. The unselfish dedication of our club and all the rocket people who chipped-in was awe-inspiring.

#2 - Building and launching a LOC Precision Saturn V for the Apollo 11 50th Anniversary with two of my best rocket buddies and two of the most dedicated and hard-working people on the planet - Jim Cooper and Jay Bailey. That was so rewarding! Thank you, guys!
 
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It has to be watching the biggest motor I've made cranking out 74,000 Ns over 8 seconds.
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That, or the rush of just managing to find my 5" Patriot right as a huge storm rolled over at URRG back in August.
 
I can think of two standouts. Difficult to pick a single winner:

#1 The team from University of Sydney (that I mentor) took out first place at the Spaceport America Cup in their 10k' COTS category. They also had the highest points total if all the teams that attended from around the world. Go USYD Rocketry team:).

#2 Seeing the second stage light, after a 15 second delay, on my O3400-M2020 flight at Thunda.

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The USYD Team also did a great job of ground support for me on that flight.
 
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The first rocket boost of my Mars Lander Quadcopter. Boost on a D12, burnout, no noise, then "Whizzzzz", as the onboard flight controller automatically activated the electric motors at apogee and I heard it as the props stabilized the model in a hover. The most excited I've been for one flight in a long time. About 60 seconds into this video.

Project thread: https://www.rocketryforum.com/threads/mars-lander-rocket-quadcopter-project.151995/#post-1887376
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Flying an Australian K altitude record at Thunda 2019.
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Slightly shortened version of Madcow Go Devil 54 kit, went to 6138m (20138 ft) on a CTI K300 classic longburn.
 
Gathering in the parking lot of our hotel at NARCON at quarter-to-three in the morning to watch the launch of the Dragon Crew capsule was the best. Being able to see the second stage ignition and the booster reentry burn was icing on the cake.
 
Running the Fly-It/Take-It booth at Hellfire 24! Over the three days I was there we gave out almost 50 LPR rockets to kids that hadn't flown rockets before. And, one of my neighbors in the next tent over was someone who had received a rocket from the FI/TI booth the previous year, and had come back with his grandfather to do some serious flying this year!

And special thanks to Tom and Maria Ha, who have run the FI/TI booth at NARAM for many years, and inspired us to emulate them.
 
Seeing the static fire of a full P motor, almost 13 second burn time.

I also flew my L1 and L2 birds on bigger motors and recovered them.

Spaceball One on a CTI 29mm H160c-12 to 4400'

Lead Sled on a CTI 38mm J530 imax to 5600'

~John
 

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Best? Any rocket launch I went to
Worst? Leaving METRA for the last time of the year :<
 
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Getting this big L1000W shipped to my door. Totally excited about L2 cert next week on a 54mm MD. Professor calling me about a university flight that exceeded 18700 ft on L1 motors.

But probably the highlight of this year was with Nytrunner landing in a neighborhood and this old granny lady bringing my rocket back after I thought I lost it. And seeing Pete get his L1 in person. Year ain’t over yet darnit and I want L2 cert to happen.
 
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