Ray Dunakin
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At the beginning of August I went on my annual desert rocketry & camping trip. Usually I spend most of the trip in central Nevada, but this year I decided to try out western Arizona.
Here's a link to the photos:
https://albums.photo.epson.com/j/AlbumIndex?u=3009006&a=31372927
I had great plans for this trip, with a lot of new rockets to fly and new payloads to try, including a BoosterVision video system built into a payload to fit a 1.8" rocket. Lots of cool motors in stock too. I've had to cancel several other trips over the past couple years so I was hoping to make up for lost time.
Alas, the best laid plans... So many things went wrong on this trip, it was almost funny.
Things got off to an inauspicious start when I realized, halfway to the desert, that I had forgotten to pack the power adapter for the BoosterVision receiver. Not a big problem, just had to spend an hour or so locating a Radio Shack in El Centro to shell out $17.00 for a new adapter.
My first flight of the trip was along an abandoned mining railroad in the eastern Mojave. A small two-stager, it tipped into the wind as the sustainer fired up, and came down quite a ways down range. Took quite a while to find it. The motor retainer on the booster failed, but I found the motor pretty easily and it suffered no damage from the fall. I got some great photos from this flight.
By the time I'd recovered all the components of that flight, it was getting dark and I was a good deal behind schedule. Didn't reach my intended campsite until after midnight. From my hilltop I could see military aircraft doing strafing and bombing runs at a distant gunnery range, under the glare of huge aerial flares.
The next morning as I was about to leave, I discovered my car's battery had died. Fortunately I came prepared -- I had a "Start Me Up" emergency jump starter device. Great product! Just plug it into the cigarette light, wait five minutes, and it charges the battery enough to get you going. But I had to buy a new battery when I reached Blythe.
In the Ibex Hills of western Arizona, I launched a 2.6" two-stager powered by an I284 with an I211 in the sustainer. But the I211 didn't light until the rocket was coming down, and the sustainer disintegrated as it slammed into the rocky desert floor. Only the parachutes and aft closure were salvageable. Even the quicklinks were mangled. Unfortunately my brand new PerfectFlite logging altimeter was also destroyed on this flight, leaving me without an alt for the remainder of the trip.
The only possible explanation for such a delayed ignition is that the 1/8" heat shrink tubing I used on the Thermalite timing cord didn't adequately confine the flame. I've used 1/8" tubing before but it was old surplus stock that had already shrunk a bit. This was new stock and quite a bit looser.
Next I flew a small single stage rocket on an H97. Nice flight but it ended up high on a rocky slope. The temperature was close to 110, so retrieval of this rocket, and the previous ill-fated flight, went very slowly. As the sun sank low on the horizon, I discovered my watch had stopped!
At twilight I drove around a bit to explore some of the other trails in the area, and saw a rare bighorn sheep. Moments later as I came to a stop, I heard an ominous hissing noise. My left rear tire had been punctured by a sharp rock. Changing tires is not one of my favorite activities, especially when the temperature is still in triple digits, so I got out my puncture repair kit and put a couple plugs into the hole. Still leaked a little, so I added a can of "fix-a-flat". Finally got the leaking stopped, and used a small compressor to get the tire pressure back up to normal.
Went to make a sandwich, and discovered my Rubbermaid container of premium grade roast beef had also sprung a leak and was full of water from the melted ice. Yuck!
The following morning I had a great flight with a parasite-staged "Tri-Star" rocket. Two small camera rockets mounted on the side of a larger, 2.6" diameter booster. The booster was powered by an I284 (one of my favorite motors!) and the smaller rockets had G motors.
As I packed up after recovering the rockets, I discovered that my trusty SureFire II launch controller had given up the ghost -- the internal batteries no longer held a charge. At the next town I bought a roll of speaker wire so that I could at least launch from my car's battery. Unfortunately this meant I would be unable to do any flights with the video payload -- I'd need more than two hands. I also had no idea how the power inverter for the VCR would be affected by using the same battery to fire the rocket.
My next site was the Battleship Mine area, which turned out to be less interesting than I'd hoped. Since it was getting dark by the time I arrived, I camped there anyway. In the morning I did a dual launch. One rocket was another 2.6" two-stager similar to the one which had crashed two days previous. Same motor configuration -- I284 staging to an I211. This time I used 3/32" heat shrink tubing to sheath the Thermalite. The other rocket was a small one powered by a G55.
The two-stage rocket flew successfully, with ignition of the sustainer coming right on time. However, the payload's parachute separated from the shock cord, and the payload fell onto a pile of rocks. To my surprise, the damage was minimal and easily repaired with a bit of tape. The smaller rocket also flew successfully and landed a short distance away. Meanwhile, my tire was slowly leaking again, and had to be reinflated. I backed up a few inches to position the leak so that the goop inside the tire would plug it. Oops -- forgot about that booster leaning against the other side of the car, now squashed under a wheel.
Next, I visited the historic mining town of Oatman, AZ. This turn of the century village still has most of the original buildings and retains much of its Old West charm despite the proliferation of touristy gift shops. Wild burros come in from the hills looking for handouts from the tourists, and are quite pushy about it. Some of the shops sell carrots to feed to the burros.
Later that I day I had a good single stage flight near the Peerless Mine, a 2.6" rocket on a Pro38 I212 Smokey Sam. Had to do quite of bit of climbing to retrieve the rocket and payload.
That night I wasted many hours trying to locate my next camp/launch site. This was complicated by the fact that there were many more trails in the area than were shown on the map. Eventually I gave up on that site and went on to an alternate site, arriving about 3:30 in the morning. Just as I got there, another tire went flat, punctured by a sharp rock. I managed to plug it enough to get me to the next town, rented a motel room for a shower and a few short hours of sleep before check out time, and called AAA.
After replacing both damaged tires, my last full day of the trip was pretty much shot. I took a drive into the desert northwest of Blythe to checkout the site of a gypsum mining town called Midlands. Nothing there but a few foundations and a lot of rubble. However, a couple of handpainted signs directed me to "Burkard's Midlands History". This consisted of two binders full of photos and a brief handwritten history of the town, compiled by a former resident and tucked into a five-gallon can to protect it from the elements! It was interesting to read and to see the photos of what this town of 350 homes once looked like.
Late in the day I found a farmer in Blythe who invited me to launch small rocket from his alfafa field. I jumped at this rare opportunity to get aerial photos of something green for a change.
That night I set up camp near an old mine the Imperial desert. There, I spotted a desert gecko. Later a kit fox walked right into camp and sniffed around a bit.
The following morning I visited the site of some ancient geoglyphs. These are large-scale drawings or figures scratched into the ground by prehistoric peoples. Two dirt roads cut through the middle of them, and although they are currently fenced for protection there are many tire tracks marring the markings. What's left doesn't look like much from the ground, so I thought I try getting some aerial shots and see how they look from above. A nice two-stage flight, but the geoglyphs turned out to be rather disappointing and are virtually indistinguishable from the tire tracks and erosion.
That was the last flight of my trip. Many of the larger and more complex flights I'd planned had to be cancelled due to the various problems encountered on this trip, but I still managed to have fun and got a few interesting photos.
Here's a link to the photos:
https://albums.photo.epson.com/j/AlbumIndex?u=3009006&a=31372927
I had great plans for this trip, with a lot of new rockets to fly and new payloads to try, including a BoosterVision video system built into a payload to fit a 1.8" rocket. Lots of cool motors in stock too. I've had to cancel several other trips over the past couple years so I was hoping to make up for lost time.
Alas, the best laid plans... So many things went wrong on this trip, it was almost funny.
Things got off to an inauspicious start when I realized, halfway to the desert, that I had forgotten to pack the power adapter for the BoosterVision receiver. Not a big problem, just had to spend an hour or so locating a Radio Shack in El Centro to shell out $17.00 for a new adapter.
My first flight of the trip was along an abandoned mining railroad in the eastern Mojave. A small two-stager, it tipped into the wind as the sustainer fired up, and came down quite a ways down range. Took quite a while to find it. The motor retainer on the booster failed, but I found the motor pretty easily and it suffered no damage from the fall. I got some great photos from this flight.
By the time I'd recovered all the components of that flight, it was getting dark and I was a good deal behind schedule. Didn't reach my intended campsite until after midnight. From my hilltop I could see military aircraft doing strafing and bombing runs at a distant gunnery range, under the glare of huge aerial flares.
The next morning as I was about to leave, I discovered my car's battery had died. Fortunately I came prepared -- I had a "Start Me Up" emergency jump starter device. Great product! Just plug it into the cigarette light, wait five minutes, and it charges the battery enough to get you going. But I had to buy a new battery when I reached Blythe.
In the Ibex Hills of western Arizona, I launched a 2.6" two-stager powered by an I284 with an I211 in the sustainer. But the I211 didn't light until the rocket was coming down, and the sustainer disintegrated as it slammed into the rocky desert floor. Only the parachutes and aft closure were salvageable. Even the quicklinks were mangled. Unfortunately my brand new PerfectFlite logging altimeter was also destroyed on this flight, leaving me without an alt for the remainder of the trip.
The only possible explanation for such a delayed ignition is that the 1/8" heat shrink tubing I used on the Thermalite timing cord didn't adequately confine the flame. I've used 1/8" tubing before but it was old surplus stock that had already shrunk a bit. This was new stock and quite a bit looser.
Next I flew a small single stage rocket on an H97. Nice flight but it ended up high on a rocky slope. The temperature was close to 110, so retrieval of this rocket, and the previous ill-fated flight, went very slowly. As the sun sank low on the horizon, I discovered my watch had stopped!
At twilight I drove around a bit to explore some of the other trails in the area, and saw a rare bighorn sheep. Moments later as I came to a stop, I heard an ominous hissing noise. My left rear tire had been punctured by a sharp rock. Changing tires is not one of my favorite activities, especially when the temperature is still in triple digits, so I got out my puncture repair kit and put a couple plugs into the hole. Still leaked a little, so I added a can of "fix-a-flat". Finally got the leaking stopped, and used a small compressor to get the tire pressure back up to normal.
Went to make a sandwich, and discovered my Rubbermaid container of premium grade roast beef had also sprung a leak and was full of water from the melted ice. Yuck!
The following morning I had a great flight with a parasite-staged "Tri-Star" rocket. Two small camera rockets mounted on the side of a larger, 2.6" diameter booster. The booster was powered by an I284 (one of my favorite motors!) and the smaller rockets had G motors.
As I packed up after recovering the rockets, I discovered that my trusty SureFire II launch controller had given up the ghost -- the internal batteries no longer held a charge. At the next town I bought a roll of speaker wire so that I could at least launch from my car's battery. Unfortunately this meant I would be unable to do any flights with the video payload -- I'd need more than two hands. I also had no idea how the power inverter for the VCR would be affected by using the same battery to fire the rocket.
My next site was the Battleship Mine area, which turned out to be less interesting than I'd hoped. Since it was getting dark by the time I arrived, I camped there anyway. In the morning I did a dual launch. One rocket was another 2.6" two-stager similar to the one which had crashed two days previous. Same motor configuration -- I284 staging to an I211. This time I used 3/32" heat shrink tubing to sheath the Thermalite. The other rocket was a small one powered by a G55.
The two-stage rocket flew successfully, with ignition of the sustainer coming right on time. However, the payload's parachute separated from the shock cord, and the payload fell onto a pile of rocks. To my surprise, the damage was minimal and easily repaired with a bit of tape. The smaller rocket also flew successfully and landed a short distance away. Meanwhile, my tire was slowly leaking again, and had to be reinflated. I backed up a few inches to position the leak so that the goop inside the tire would plug it. Oops -- forgot about that booster leaning against the other side of the car, now squashed under a wheel.
Next, I visited the historic mining town of Oatman, AZ. This turn of the century village still has most of the original buildings and retains much of its Old West charm despite the proliferation of touristy gift shops. Wild burros come in from the hills looking for handouts from the tourists, and are quite pushy about it. Some of the shops sell carrots to feed to the burros.
Later that I day I had a good single stage flight near the Peerless Mine, a 2.6" rocket on a Pro38 I212 Smokey Sam. Had to do quite of bit of climbing to retrieve the rocket and payload.
That night I wasted many hours trying to locate my next camp/launch site. This was complicated by the fact that there were many more trails in the area than were shown on the map. Eventually I gave up on that site and went on to an alternate site, arriving about 3:30 in the morning. Just as I got there, another tire went flat, punctured by a sharp rock. I managed to plug it enough to get me to the next town, rented a motel room for a shower and a few short hours of sleep before check out time, and called AAA.
After replacing both damaged tires, my last full day of the trip was pretty much shot. I took a drive into the desert northwest of Blythe to checkout the site of a gypsum mining town called Midlands. Nothing there but a few foundations and a lot of rubble. However, a couple of handpainted signs directed me to "Burkard's Midlands History". This consisted of two binders full of photos and a brief handwritten history of the town, compiled by a former resident and tucked into a five-gallon can to protect it from the elements! It was interesting to read and to see the photos of what this town of 350 homes once looked like.
Late in the day I found a farmer in Blythe who invited me to launch small rocket from his alfafa field. I jumped at this rare opportunity to get aerial photos of something green for a change.
That night I set up camp near an old mine the Imperial desert. There, I spotted a desert gecko. Later a kit fox walked right into camp and sniffed around a bit.
The following morning I visited the site of some ancient geoglyphs. These are large-scale drawings or figures scratched into the ground by prehistoric peoples. Two dirt roads cut through the middle of them, and although they are currently fenced for protection there are many tire tracks marring the markings. What's left doesn't look like much from the ground, so I thought I try getting some aerial shots and see how they look from above. A nice two-stage flight, but the geoglyphs turned out to be rather disappointing and are virtually indistinguishable from the tire tracks and erosion.
That was the last flight of my trip. Many of the larger and more complex flights I'd planned had to be cancelled due to the various problems encountered on this trip, but I still managed to have fun and got a few interesting photos.
Thank you for sharing your trip with us!
