Arizona Isolation launch

The Rocketry Forum

Help Support The Rocketry Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Wayco

Desert Rat Rocketeer
TRF Supporter
Joined
Mar 23, 2011
Messages
4,327
Reaction score
2,089
Location
Goodyear, AZ
During our second two weeks of self isolation, we got a bit antsy and decided to fly some rockets. Sharon hit it hard in the office to get her work out, and I prepped some rockets and packed the trailer.
We drove out to an old abandoned airport in the desert for a little launch by ourselves.
Left on Friday afternoon with the truck and trailer and set up camp early enough to fly a couple of rockets.
First flight was my Chrome Dome on a C6-5 and Sharon's Blue High flier on an E12-6.
DSCF1486.jpg


Both flights went off great, so we kicked back and watched the sunset.
IMG_4573.jpg


Saturday, we woke up to perfect flying conditions:
42BA8331-14C2-47AE-A64F-EC79CBD528E0.jpg


Started off with my Jolly Green on another C6-5, which had a deployment failure and ballistic return. Good news is that it was a paper rocket that only weighed 95 grams:
DSCF1491.jpg




Not too much damage....


Sharon flew next with her Magician with another E12-6. This was it's 33rd flight and it flew to 1028 ft. It was a bit breezy, so we had a long walk for recovery.

DSCF1492.jpg


Next up was my Savage two stage on a D12-0/C6-5, and another long recovery for the sustainer, which reached 1145 ft.
DSCF1493.jpg


Sharon flew another E12-6 in her Blue Ninja, which has been repaired several times but still counting 43 flights! I think all the repairs has made this rocket a bit overweight, so it only went to 749 ft.

My turn was next with Salvage One which is a Apogee Aspire clone that has been repaired many, maannnyy times. This was its 20th (and final) flight to 1972' before the F10 motor exploded.....

DSCF1499.jpg



Sharon's turn and she flew her Eliminator XL on a E12-8 to 1105' so I then flew my regular Eliminator on a E9-8 to 1056' and had a "tree landing"

IMG_2586.jpg


Not a lot of trees out here......

Sharon's next flight was her Highflyer XL on an AT E18-7 reload for it's 31st flight to 1333'

IMG_4580.jpg


I followed with my Kick Aspire on a CTI G106. This is another Apogee Aspire clone using Blue Tube and fiberglass fins. It went a whopping 4532' and landed a looooonnnng ways away. Got our 10,000 steps for the day!

DSCF1502.jpg


Next up for Sharon was her Wildman Wildchild on a CTI G125 but don't know how high since the 102'/sec launch speed destroyed the Estes Altimeter. Sim's say it would go to 3000' and it looked like it did. (Note to self: don't use Estes altimeters on high G flights...)

IMG_4581.jpg


I flew my "Light My Fire" Estes Executioner with a Sticker Shock wrap that we somehow didn't get a picture of but by this time after all the recovery we were getting a little tired. It flew to 1352' but got a little zipper. Sharon quit flying at that point and headed for the box wine but I wasn't done yet.

My next flight was my new built Star Orbiter. Had difficulty getting a paint job on it for some reason but it came out pretty good.
IMG_4583.jpg


However the flight didn't go all that great and I lost the nose cone at apogee at 1815' never to be seen again. After recovery I noticed that the 3-D printed rail buttons were missing. Sharon found them on the rail

IMG_4584.jpg


Oops.

Then I decided to follow up that show with my Viper 3 for it's 19th flight with 3XE12-8's and my first use of a chute release set at 400'. After a great flight and apogee at 1194' the chute release worked perfectly but scared the heck out of me when the burrito didn't unfold until about 50' off the ground. Note to self: set release higher when using a burrito.....

I quit for the day after that and we grilled steaks with baked potatoes and my favorite roasted Brussels sprouts. Beautiful sunset rounded out our evening.

Today we got up and after breakfast had a visit from the BLM ranger looking for a couple lost in the desert. Wasn't us. Had a couple of airplanes check us out too and give us a fly by



After the sightseers flew off I flew my Estes Majestic that I modified with a RRC3 in the nose cone with a cable cutter. It flew on a CIT G-80 Skidmark. We totally forgot to take photos of it. Also totally forgot to document the altitude. And we are morning people so I don't know what happened....

Sharon then flew her Mammmoth on a CTI F59-9 to 1360'

DSCF1506.jpg


We were pretty much done by then so our last flight was my Dual Deploy Argent on a H115 (juusstt under the legal weight and grams). Moved the pad back to 100' and launched it to 2302' and a recovery just behind the pad.

DSCF1508.jpg


So there it is folks - 18 rockets between the two of us with only a couple of mishaps. We headed home and unloaded the trailer for the summer (summer is NOT a flying season in Arizona). Hope you enjoyed the story.
 
I have a bunch of low/mid power kits I have not flown in years. Might have to dust them off after seeing your launch report, looks like a great time out in the desert. Unfortunately here in the DFW area, it's a bit harder to find an isolated place to fly.

Hopefully BALLS will still be held this year. If we are still socially isolating by then, I don't want to even think about what that would mean.

Thanks for the report.


Tony
 
Nice! Glad to see people are still committing ROCKETRY! Been looking around for a good class 1 launch area locally.
 
Glad you had some fun. You know your true rocketeers when no matter how far a guys go up the ladder in the hobby it's still fun to fly model rockets.
 
Glad you had some fun. You know your true rocketeers when no matter how far a guys go up the ladder in the hobby it's still fun to fly model rockets.

Sharon kept saying how much easier it is to fly an "M" in a fiberglass rocket. These little paper rockets can be challenging! Even using Thrustcurve, getting the motor deploy delay right is still pretty hard.
 
Awesome pictures! Of the rockets and the scenery. We are all longing to go back to the desert.
 
Sharon kept saying how much easier it is to fly an "M" in a fiberglass rocket. These little paper rockets can be challenging! Even using Thrustcurve, getting the motor deploy delay right is still pretty hard.
I just built a Mach 1 BT20 models. They are fiberglass kits. I had a hell of a time glueing the tiny fins on. It's a great little kit.
 
I just built a Mach 1 BT20 models. They are fiberglass kits. I had a hell of a time glueing the tiny fins on. It's a great little kit.

Sharon picked up a Mach 1 kit in BT55. She started the build, but it's still sitting on her desk. The last two months our work has picked up, and taking a weekend off has put her behind again. She just came down from the office with that glazed look in her eyes, working since seven this morning with a short break for lunch does that to her.
I'm putting away the rockets we flew, with a few repairs, but this isolation stuff really isn't that hard for us.
 
You worms! You know that desert is large enough for an extra person while still being isolated!
 
Sorry Jarrett, we didn't even know we were going until around noon on Friday. Sharon had to get her work out first.
Not even sure that the site would be vacant since there was a star party scheduled out there for last weekend.
Lucky for us, it was cancelled and no one showed up.
So, am I off the hook?
 
Hehehe you were until you mentioned the star party I didn't know about either! Well one day we will get to launch again I suppose. Until then I get to pick on you.
 
Hehehe you were until you mentioned the star party I didn't know about either! Well one day we will get to launch again I suppose. Until then I get to pick on you.

The star party was organized by https://www.eastvalleyastronomy.org/ . We are not a part of that group but we knew that it had an event in the spring which is why we looked to see if it had been cancelled. We wouldn't have gone out there otherwise. Well - at least not where we were - we would have headed to the KOFA site instead....
 
Thanks for the link, I'll look into that club when this social anxiety is over. I am debating where to head for the upcoming meteor shower/new moon. I plan on tent camping out either in KOFA or near the Trip sight. I figured KOFA might be more remote as far as campers go.
 
Thanks for the link, I'll look into that club when this social anxiety is over. I am debating where to head for the upcoming meteor shower/new moon. I plan on tent camping out either in KOFA or near the Trip sight. I figured KOFA might be more remote as far as campers go.

KOFA would be much better IMHO for the Lyrids Meteor Shower on April 22-23
 
I'm so jealous!! But lucky to have a job with a defense/comms company that's not gonna shut down, so not much has changed for me except not being able to leave home as much. I'm real tempted to go out to Plaster for a class 1 wildcat session...I've got a lot of higher altitude LPR models that we can't fly at Fiesta Island anyway.
 
I realized that we have about a gazillion (technical term) 29mm casting tubes and liners we acquired from the Rossen estate sale several years ago. I informed Wayco this morning that it was time for us to start making 29mm Not Your Wimpy Red motors (I've got about 10 M's made which doesn't do me any good with launches shut down). Should be interesting. I guess I've gone about this backwards. I started in Research making 54mm - then went to 75mm to 98mm and then went backwards to 38mm and now thinking of making 29mm......
 
You'll know you've arrived at the seventh level when you start making 10mm Internats contest motors...and liking it.
 
Back
Top