BALLS 30 starts today or tomorrow?

[Rail Dawg]

Heading to BALLS 30. The ballslaunch.com site says Sept 23-25 the Tripoli home page says Sept 22-25.

I planned on attending on the dates from the ballslaunch.com site and will get to the launch on Friday the 23rd.

Any clarification is appreciated!

Chuck

 

[BBrown]

Chuck, the launch is Friday through Sunday.

 

[Rail Dawg]

Chuck, the launch is Friday through Sunday.

That‘s great! Looking forward to seeing a lot of folks out there.

Chuck

 

[techrat]

Yeah... wanted to go to this, but I'm not worthy yet. Maybe next year for me... :-(

 

[Rail Dawg]

Yeah... wanted to go to this, but I'm not worthy yet. Maybe next year for me... :-(

It‘s not an easy journey for many! Lots of logistics and time for sure.

Looking forward to helping where needed.

See you next year!

Chuck

 

[StreuB1]

Yeah... wanted to go to this, but I'm not worthy yet. Maybe next year for me... :-(

Anyone is worthy of experiencing Balls. The journey though is one you must prepare for. Nearly a week on the playa is nothing like most will ever experience. Its a different venture all on its own. One must prepare for it, ask questions in advance, do your research......and prepare. Old school GPS is also suggested as a backup to cell phone GPS. If you can follow someone who is experienced navigating the lake bed, then I would suggest it before you venture out.

 

[Rail Dawg]

Am currently at the Black Rock Hot Springs right at the base of the big black rock maybe 12 miles N of the launch site.

Nice place to spend the night! Can easily see all the rocket folks‘ lights out there in the very center of the playa.

What a great job being done by the Tripoli volunteers! I’m impressed!!!



Chuck

 

[SEWAR]

Looking forward to tomorrow!

 

[FredA]

May the skies be clear and the winds light.
Have fun!
Sorry we're out this year - next year!

 

[StreuB1]

Looking forward to tomorrow!

I absolutely love that view. Ugh, wish I was out there!!

 

[MClark]

Weather today was perfect

 

[Hobie1dog]

attending a balls launch is a bucket list item for me

 

[MClark]

Another perfect day.hardly a breath of wind.

5:10 this afternoon. Many times it has been a dust storm at this hour.

 

[Rail Dawg]

The Tripoli folks again have put on a world-class launch out on the playa!

Tripoli has stepped up the game with range safety. I was impressed! Very professional.

Well-done volunteers!!! And to all those who flew a “G” on up to the space flights right on!!! What an awesome couple of days.



Chuck

 

[FredA]

Care to summarize the "space flights" please?
Which Gary won the Hamster Dance this year?

 

[Rail Dawg]

Hi Fred unfortunately I don’t have the details on the flights. I’m a lousy reporter.

There was an impressive “Q” motor burn-through failure. Andromeda?

The bigger motors like the “P” and above sure have a hard time containing all that energy. Someone else may know the numbers but there were some big motor failures out there along with some that rocked!

Even a couple of “G” flights were fun to watch. The high-altitude flights are awesome but the lower ones where you can see the whole flight are very cool too.

My hat is off to the Tripoli Crew. They ran a safe and highly enjoyable event out there literally in the middle of nowhere. Well done!

Chuck

 

[SEWAR]

I’ll have a 16 minute video posted on Youtube tonight of Saturday’s launch.

 

[FredA]

I’ll have a 16 minute video posted on Youtube tonight of Saturday’s launch.

Super - please post a link here so we can find it.

 

[SEWAR]

Super - please post a link here so we can find it.

Will do!

 

[MClark]

Balsa Bob won Hamster Dance

 

[MClark]

Gary R got 20,800 but nose cone was lost.
The other long burn motors had issues with non vertical.
Bob went 5860 with fully successful recovery.
Ya gotta finish to win.

M

 

[kenstarr]

BALLS was fantastic! Hopefully I can make it there again next year and have better success
Ken

 

[jderimig]

Care to summarize the "space flights" please?
Which Gary won the Hamster Dance this year?

There was one attempt that could have made it to 300k feet, waiting on more data. Denis from Austria flew a p to o. The boost , sustainer coast and sustainer flights were nominal, nice and straight. Telemetry data was sparse but got the time of the 90k baro crossing up and down. The time difference between those were close to the sim. I haven't heard if he recovered the sustainer to retrieve more hard data.

 

[Neutronium95]

There was one attempt that could have made it to 300k feet, waiting on more data. Denis from Austria flew a p to o. The boost , sustainer coast and sustainer flights were nominal, nice and straight. Telemetry data was sparse but got the time of the 90k baro crossing up and down. The time difference between those were close to the sim. I haven't heard if he recovered the sustainer to retrieve more hard data.

His group actually built two entire identical rockets, one flew on Saturday, and one flew today. For some reason the sustainer lit at booster burnout today, instead of coasting for ten seconds. It apparently hit a maximum velocity of 1.8 km/s. They had a location in the mountains where they got a data packet from the sustainer on the way down.

 

[SEWAR]

From yesterday:

Longer one to follow.

 

[SEWAR]

 

[SEWAR]

Enjoy

 

[Rail Dawg]

Nicely done Sewar! Great videos!

Chuck

 

[FredA]

Gary R got 20,800 but nose cone was lost.
The other long burn motors had issues with non vertical.
Bob went 5860 with fully successful recovery.
Ya gotta finish to win.

M

Way to go Bob!
Yep - as with most launches, keeping it together and getting it all back are the hard part.
Thanks for the update.

Sewar - nice video - thanks - any plans to cover Friday/Sunday?

Any scoop on the Q burn-thru?

Any update on the P-O flights apogee & recovery?
Did Denis make the four motors in the US....must have come really early?

 

[SEWAR]

Way to go Bob!
Yep - as with most launches, keeping it together and getting it all back are the hard part.
Thanks for the update.

Sewar - nice video - thanks - any plans to cover Friday/Sunday?

Any scoop on the Q burn-thru?

Any update on the P-O flights apogee & recovery?
Did Denis make the four motors in the US....must have come really early?

We drove up on Friday and left Sunday morning. The only day I was there on the playa was Saturday.