Thursday, 9/19: Balls setup & Hamster Dance
This was a big day; lots of places to visit and work to be done. Fortunately, there was less driving involved. For the first time in two days, we headed a direction other than West. Turning North on 447, we pulled off for a moment to take a photo of the eroded Truckee River Valley in the early morning. Purdy
Continuing on, we stopped to visit Snoopy. Awestruck moment number one of the trip: there was a complete lack of sound here. No cars for miles, no wildlife for perceivable distance, no wind; there was a complete lack of sound
.until someone started peeing on the roadside shoulder.
Arriving in Empire, we were disappointed to see that the Welcome to Nowhere sign accompanied by the Monsters, Inc. artwork was gone. We tried to stop at the Empire Store for a few last minute supplies, but found they were closed (not permanently). Furthermore, we explored the new ghost town status of Empire. The entire town is surrounded by a chain link Company fence; which was secured by not one, but three locks at the gate to the city. Aside from the store, there is absolutely nothing available for use in Empire. At the bar at Brunos later in the weekend, I met the oldest inhabitant of Empire, learning that the only people still living in Empire are him and the family that runs the Empire Store
.thats it! Sad, really.
Down the hill, across the tailings of the playa, and around the bend into Gerlach, we arrived at Brunos to check in. We met Bruno, negotiated pricing for a case of bottled water, and unloaded a few items into our dorm room styled accommodations. Then out to the Black Rock playa for the first time! The Burners were in their final stages of cleaning up the playa, and thus detoured playa traffic further out once pulled onto the 12 mile entrance. We found the flightline without issue (great markings guys!), and set up near on East end of the line alongside Jim and Gloria Jarvis. After a few greetings and a quick unloading of chairs and tables, we headed out to set up our tower and launch pad about ½ mile out. I took a moment to breathe in the environment. Yes, finally arrived!
Enough looking around, back to work! We assembled the pad and tower. Then we tweaked the tower; we took too long tweaking the tower and were late for the Tripoli Gerlach sponsored
Hamster Dance! Nevertheless, off one playa, onto 447 North towards Cali, then onto the gravelly Smoke Creek Road and back onto another playa via a ridiculously deteriorated washed out access road. Arriving late but determined, we quickly set up camp and put some rockets on the pad. Quick rules recap for the launch: all motors must be single use, non-metal cased; rockets must weigh under 5 lbs ready to fly.
First on the pad for the Sconnies was Marc with his Jart. 29-3G XX phenolic cased 150-G60. The nozzle fractured and spit out at ignition. Out of 136 Sconnie motors, this is the second to fail, the first in a public setting
.could this be a sign of things to come over the long weekend at Black Rock
.they do say that the place has a way of humbling you! Sorry Marc, the motor static tested just fine; fractured nozzle
really? I was/am flabbergasted! No damage to the Jart at least.
Tom loaded up his 2.27 Wildman Jr. while I loaded up
ISPy. Toms rocket sought the award for heaviest rocket flown (while staying under the 5 lb max); unfortunately the scale wasnt available after our late arrival. Nevertheless, the 4.9 pounder took to the skies on a 38-5G baby J186. A solid boost to respectable altitude was foiled by separation at apogee.
As soon as Toms Wildman landed,
ISPy ripped off the pad angling slightly to the East. Here she is on the pad before flight.
Gerald caught a picture of it, but I'm not smart enough to post a direct link to Picasaweb.:eyepop: I had a solid signal from the Com-Spec Transmitter throughout the flight; even had a decent, but reduced signal after touchdown to the East of the launch site. More on that later.
Tom Blazanin called last call for any last flights, so I quickly grabbed the
Alpha Hamster, while Ken Good grabbed his 3 stage rack rocket. Kens rocket popped the chute on the pad (magnetic switch issue?) and so the Alpha was to be the last (and smallest/lightest) flight of the launch. The little 19mm F38 spit its igniter and thus didnt light; it wasnt given a chance to recycle and
Hamster Dance was called complete. We cleaned up while they took care of a gallon of tannerite. Now, launch was over, of the four rockets we attempted to fly, two were out on the range someone, one in separate pieces, and two failed to launch
.one spit nozzle and one spit igniter. I am not used to this kind of lousy performance!:confused2:
Now to track down
ISPy and the Wildman Jr. I turned on my receiver, waved the yagi around, turned up the volume, and received nothing but static. Huh, thats weird. We drove East on the playa in hopes of seeing
ISPy layed out. The Smoke Creek playa was a bit softer than Black Rock with some major cracks in the surface, so we turned around after ½ mile or so; not wanting to get stranded alone, since everyone had left by now. Disappointed, we drove out to Smoke Creek Road in search of Wildman parts. Tom picked up a good signal on his rocket, but it was well East of where we thought it had landed. I turned on my receiver and was pleasantly surprised to find that the signal from the tracker had returned! We drove along Smoke Creek Road until we honed in and found Toms Wildman Jr. payload. The 1/8 tubular Kevlar severed as well as the 3/16 quick link bent into a funny shape causing the separation and subsequent loss of the booster section. On down the road we went until I was at a right angle to ISPys signal, where I decided to take a walk. Equipped with a 2 way radio, several bottles of water, and the tracking receiver/antenna, off I trotted into the rolling hills toward the playa. After walking for a while, I heard a baby rattle, which I took as a warning from a rattler to stay away. Changing directions, I continued on until I heard another rattle. This continued until I had walked the ~1 mile trek from Smoke Creek Rd. back onto the playa on an Easterly heading. Finally, I spotted
ISPy lying out on the playa. Other than melting the drogue streamer and main chute (no room for wadding and couldnt find the nomex on Wednesday night), she was in good working order. The Adept 22 beeped out 13,030; good enough for the highest altitude at
Hamster Dance! The lower airframe showed some obvious signs of heat resultant of both high speed and a linerless motor! The graphite filled epoxy nose tip also melted and slumped over
.sorry the camera focused on the wrong thing..it is definitely bent however!
Since I had walked from the base of the mountain in the background onto the playa, dodging rattles, man eating jackrabbits, and ferocious field mice along the way, I put a call in to the home base fighter van who came to my rescue. Interestingly, van tracks from the earlier playa drive in search of ISPy came within ¼ mile of the rockets landing site
turning around 30 seconds later wouldve saved an hour of searching
oh well: hindsight!
We learned that the moisture in the alkali playa makes the surface somewhat conductive, therefore absorbing RF signals once the rockets are on the ground. Smoke Creek Road was at the foothills of the surrounding mountains, therefore was elevated above the playa, and somewhat allowed for successful signal transmission. I was warned of this and had GPS tracking capabilities on the Balls projects, but no room in the small HamsterDance airframes. Interesting phenomena; keep this in mind if youre attempting RF tracking on the playa!!!
We returned to Brunos for supper and some rocket prepping before calling it a night. Initial impression of Brunos restaurant: very well done! For a place in the remote location of Gerlach, there is little-to-no competition, yet the food and service was quite good!
To be continued...
Here we are a month after Balls, and I need to put this beast to bed! I just couldn't turn the page to the end of the chapter until I had some sort of closure on what went wrong at Balls; I think I have the answer(s) now.
with a desert motif.
