First of all: Bob, nice meeting you at NARAM. Enjoyed the Initiator and Ventris flights after the fuse issue was resolved! Hope you don't mind me posting a bit of our adventure on your thread. Best of luck with all your flights the remainder of the week!
Here's a quick tale of our trip to Muskegon for NARAM 54. Formally, the trip began Friday evening shortly after 6 when we headed south from Manitowoc, WI (home). We stopped briefly in Milwaukee to pick up the almighty Gouda Wooshka, the Woosh club rocket, from Chad Rogers (thanks Chad!!!
). After looping around the south shore of Lake Michigan, we arrived about 6 hours later in Hudsonville, MI where we crashed for the night. Up early the next morning and to the field for setup and some sport flying!
Upon arrival at the field, we found the Muskegon Wastewater facility to be huge! Miles in every direction with occasional clumps of trees and one rather large liquid hazard (I was going to say "water hazard, but that wouldn't be quite accurate:eyepop
. No complaints here, this is a nice field for flying rockets!
Unload the truck, erect the EZ-UP, and assemble a few Tomahawks. My Dad (Tom) likes IQSY Tomahawks, and has a few in his fleet. After looking at my kit stash, his parts stash, and Stickershock 23's decal stash, we resolved to assemble a few new Tomahawks for the event. All together we ended up with 12 Tomahawks at NARAM. Here's a photo and a listing of the models:
From left to right: Back row: 4" scratch built 'glass IQSY, 3" Performance Rocketry IQSY, 2.6" scratch cardboard IQSY, 2.25" scratch cardboard IQSY, 1.9" Aerotech IQSY, 1.6" scratch cardboard IQSY, 1.8" Estes D-Region, 3"-1.6" Estes-Rocketarium Nike-Tomahawk.
Front Row (little guys): Semroc .9" IQSY, Centuri .9" IQSY, scratch/Quest Sandia, scratch/Quest Nike-Tomahawk.
We even had a few non-Tomahawks on hand, including but not limited to: Tarantula, Loc Magnum, Gouda Wooshka, Semroc SLS Javelin (which the McLawhorns signed...thanks!), and an Estes Ranger clone in case I ran into the Estes' (didn't see them before we left Sunday pm).
Tomahawk Tom was first to the pads with the smallest of his IQSY's; the 1.6" version flew well on an F29 Imax and recovered easily on the field.
...and a link to a liftoff photo posted on NARAMLive.com:
https://www.naramlive.com/naramlive-2012/naramlive/02saturday/images/CIMG4145.JPG
Now, day 1 had what I considered to be a light wind; probably 6-10mph out of the North. Only problem with this light wind is that a wind out of the North blows directly to the hazard on the South end of the field "
THE BIG ICKY". More on that later. Anyway, after determining that with a bit of angling, a properly sized drogue, and maybe a bit of luck, my favorite Magnum should make it through the day dry, I set out to fly the bird on a CTI L851 White. After a bit of smoking on the pad while coming up to pressure, the Magnum shot off the pad, stayed on a true flight path, and topped out at 9225'/9188' before deploying the reefed drogue. The main deployed on cue at 900' AGL, backup was seen at 600', and the big bird landed softly in the alfalfa about 500' East of us, 300' off the road. A great flight that started and ended well, yeah!
Sorry no photos, but Tom from New Mexico took oodles of photos, so maybe they'll appear somewhere.
Next up was Gouda Wooshka (GW), a rocket that a team of Woosh members assembled, prepped for flight, and was RSO'd in 7 minutes and 57 seconds at NSL 2009. Now the "club rocket", GW has now flown 17 times, at 10 different locations in 6 different states, at 14 different events by 9
different (that's for sure) flyers on 5 different manufacturer's motors. GW flew on a CTI H400 Vmax this time around; after a quick boost, she recovered gently near the contest range. Here's static photo and a really blurry liftoff photo; with Tom's 2.25" IQSY Tomahawk awaiting a ride on a G78 Blue Streak on pad 5:
Gaining confidence that we were conquering the "
THE BIG ICKY", we finished out the day by flying another pair.
Tomahawk Tom flew his next largest IQSY on the next alphabetical letter; a 2.56" model with an Aerotech H123W. After finding the right "ignitor that could", the IQSY flew straight and true and yet again recovered uneventfully Southeast of the range, several hundred feet shy of "
THE BIG ICKY".
My old Level 1 and Level 2 bird from y2k turned in it's second-to-last flight. The old bird has flown all of the Aerotech 38-480 and 600 loads, along with several of the 240,360, and 720 loads as well. It's also lofted on AMW, Loki, Kosdon, CTI, Sconnie, and now Gorilla loads. Michigan is its 6th state in which it has flown over. Anyway, the Gorilla I324 Red Twister was the motive power and the pretty red flame boosted "
Gateway" to about 2000' before deploying the chute and descending over the contest range. Here she is on the pad, and then at the edge of the contest range looking out towards the sport range, vendor row, and tent city.
That's all the flying we did on Day 1. Also did a little shopping, visiting, and eating! Altough we were tempted to stay for the evening activities, we were more tempted by the nearby Berlin Raceway. On the way, we stopped for gas; while there, a praying mantis sized me up for supper.
Berlin Raceway in Marne, MI was entertaining and interesting: it has no wall/fence on the back-stretch, and is more of a slightly squashed circle than an oval. The straights aren't long at all, but the turns are wide enough that plently of speed is carried through them. Among the classes, the outlaw late models were the fastest (pictured in the photo). Celebrating their 62nd Anniversary that night, Berlin Raceway was offering $1 beer and $1 hot dogs....good deal!:flyingpig:
Back to the Holiday Inn Muskegon for a few hours of rest!
-Eric-
