LDRS 2016 Current update for Saturday

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AfterBurners

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Just received a text from "fyrwrxz" as follows:


"Dan - You don't wanna be out here today. Wind is up and camp destroying dust devils. It's survival @ 103 out here. I have half the lakebed in my tent. Starting to pack up - range closed. Getting ready to bail if it gets any worse? Talk to you later when I get home. I can't hear over the phone. This SUX!!"

Now I don't feel so bad about not going. I hope whoever went did get in some launches. I'm sure they had some cool projects out there.
 
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Zoiks! That's about as hot as it gets there. The afternoon wind and dust devils are normal though. I once watched a 10' X 10' shed roll down the road when I lived in Apple Valley. I don't miss the wind and dust at all.
 
This morning, the wake up flight was my Ultimate Darkstar on an AT M2000 redline. Wildman's second punisher drag race followed around 9:30. Then Sharon and Wildman had a drag race with their Gizmo XL's. Sharon flew hers on another M2000, and Tim flew an M1939.Tim won with a little help from David Reese, who made his igniter.
Big day at the launch, but every day around 3 pm the wind comes up. We still flew over a dozen rockets since Wednesday, had a great time and are on our way to the banquet.
 
This morning, the wake up flight was my Ultimate Darkstar on an AT M2000 redline. Wildman's second punisher drag race followed around 9:30. Then Sharon and Wildman had a drag race with their Gizmo XL's. Sharon flew hers on another M2000, and Tim flew an M1939.Tim won with a little help from David Reese, who made his igniter.
Big day at the launch, but every day around 3 pm the wind comes up. We still flew over a dozen rockets since Wednesday, had a great time and are on our way to the banquet.

Sounds like a fun!

I had the same experience at Aeronaut last year especially the last day when the wind was crazy all throughout the last night. It is a great launch site and it really made me feel small and insignificant compared to the powers of this Earth.
 
The wind started blowing pretty good by late morning and the range was shut down for the most part.
A few brave souls launched rockets during wind breaks.

I spent some time talking with Gary, Karl and Charlie from AeroTech.
Bought some items from Jim and Ruby at Discount Rocketry.
I was too late to purchase a LDRS-35 T-shirt. :(

I had a good time talking with friends and watching rockets fly.
As for the drive home, Ugh!
 
The wind started blowing pretty good by late morning and the range was shut down for the most part.
A few brave souls launched rockets during wind breaks.

I spent some time talking with Gary, Karl and Charlie from AeroTech.
Bought some items from Jim and Ruby at Discount Rocketry.
I was too late to purchase a LDRS-35 T-shirt. :(

I had a good time talking with friends and watching rockets fly.
As for the drive home, Ugh!

How many people showed? Was it pretty crowded?
 
When we took the range duty at noon it was closed. After about 10 minutes the wind had subsided to 12 gusting to 16 and range was reopened. We had a study supply of rockets, up to an M cert flight.
After range duty we bailed back to the hotel.

M
 
This morning, the wake up flight was my Ultimate Darkstar on an AT M2000 redline. Wildman's second punisher drag race followed around 9:30. Then Sharon and Wildman had a drag race with their Gizmo XL's. Sharon flew hers on another M2000, and Tim flew an M1939.Tim won with a little help from David Reese, who made his igniter.
Big day at the launch, but every day around 3 pm the wind comes up. We still flew over a dozen rockets since Wednesday, had a great time and are on our way to the banquet.
I took some pictures and video while I was out there Saturday morning. Is this Redline Darkstar yours?
Picture 081.jpg
 
That weather station link posted here must be too far south to be of any use since you folks really are getting hammered in the afternoons: https://www.findu.com/cgi-bin/panel.cgi?call=DW4819&LED=0&xsize=800

I woulda' thought with what was posted on the link, everyone would have glowing reports of how great the weather/winds are. Sounds like early morning it's great but as time goes on, time for kite flying. Kurt
 
I got there first thing Friday morning and it was practically dead calm, then about 2:30 or 3 someone flicked the switch and the wind kicked up. They shut down the range until about 8:30 and there were a decent amount of some really nice night launches. Yes, the wind had pretty much subsided. It was like that all night. Saturday morning it was pretty much the same, perhaps slightly more breezy than Friday. But, the winds started much earlier, like around 11, but there were periods of calm, enough so that there were still people launching, myself included, but then gusts would pick up and the dust devils. I had an emergency and had to leave around 3 pm, so I can't say if it calmed down after that.
 
I would say it was a large crowd, biggest I've seen (compared to several XPRS's and a bunch of northern/central CA club events), not sure how it compares to other LDRS events since it was my first. Not everybody was there every day, Friday and Saturday were definitely the largest, many people had cleared out Saturday night. ROC had a bunch of pads set up with 3 banks each for HPR and away pads, all spaced enough that while one bank was flying the others could be loading (with a few exceptions for some more heads-up style flights). And sometimes launches were coming fast and furious, sometimes with the next flight being announced before the previous one had even reached apogee (made it a bit hard to watch or film). We never had to wait more than a few minutes to get to the RSO.

Got there Wednesday ~1:30pm, managed to get things set up before the "W" kicked-in the first day (~2:30-3 I think). Was hot, though as usual for dry CA heat it didn't feel as bad in the shade. In the evening got treated to a bunch of fireworks on the lakebed, we heard that it was a certification event for pyrotechnicians. Thursday the W came around the same time, ROC wisely decided to start an hour earlier (8am instead of 9 Thursday, and 7am instead of the scheduled 8 Friday/Saturday/Sunday) to get more flying time. The wind didn't die down until close to midnight, so the night launch was cancelled for that day. Friday about the same as Thursday, though the winds calmed around 8:30pm and there was a nice night launch that evening. Saturday the wind started much earlier (~11am) with a few dust devils blowing right through the camp (including one that blew right over the dumpsters and re-arranged some garbage :p ), but there were also some lulls unlike the other days. They announced another night launch after the banquet (~10pm) and the weather was okay (a bit breezy), but I think there was only like one flight that night (admittedly we were getting tired and may have missed some inside our RV). My ez-up was done in by the winds, through it was staked at every corner and strapped-down in every corner (two to the ground, two to the RV) 3 of the 4 legs were crimped at the top by the end, so it went in the dumpster on the way out. Have to pick up another one before XPRS.

Sunday morning was perfect, absolutely clear skies (most other mornings had wispy clouds, sometimes pretty low) and no wind. Not as hot either. Got two flights in Sunday morning before we packed up and started the trip back to San Jose (~7:20 thanks to traffic). A total of 7 HPR flights for my Dad and I (one Thursday, two Friday, two Saturday, two Sunday), we got each of our finished rockets in the air once (I brought an Osprey 75 that I was finishing in the RV, but wasn't totally done so it didn't fly), and successful flights for all but one, I had a main parachute fail to deploy on a DD flight, looks like my charge failed to shear one of the two pins, landed hard but didn't break anything other than my 3D printed nose-tracker sled and bent the eye-bolt in my avionics bay. My Dad did his first dual-deploy flight on a new rocket (during the Saturday afternoon gusts), everything went perfectly. Lots of other great flights to watch, I'll be spending the next several nights and probably a weekend or two going through all of my videos (and altimeter logs / GPS tracks) to get my album posted.

Many thanks to ROC for an excellent launch and banquet! We're both looking forward to the next west coast LDRS!

Our fleet, all but the orange one flew at LDRS 35.

P6120178.jpg
 
Aerotech's facebook site has some nice video's that show what the experience was like.

https://www.facebook.com/AeroTech-Consumer-Aerospace-159005948954/

I managed to get most of my night launch rockets flown. I decided the winds were too strong to launch my 9ft Solar Flare on a K1275 Redline. Will launch it at our next night launch if the winds co-operate. Sunday was about perfect as you can get and those who left early really missed out. The crowds for this LDRS were half of the last LDRS at lucerne which was a real zoo. There were very little wait times and a very relaxed environment.
 
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Oh, and almost forgot about the earthquake Friday morning! :) Our RV's house battery was acting up, my Dad and I had just been outside the RV troubleshooting it, climbed back in and had just gotten settled when suddenly the RV started shaking like people were rocking it from the outside for about 30 seconds (followed by the tanks sloshing for a while afterwards). Knew it had to be a quake and kept refreshing the USGS page for about 10 minutes until it finally showed up, 5.1 ~80 miles away. Probably wouldn't have woken us up had we been asleep, but very noticeable where we were.
 
I'll second Terry's post that anyone who left Saturday missed out on an awesome Sunday morning - perfectly clear skies, not crazy hot and almost dead calm. I launched a bird to over 3000ft that inadvertently popped the main at apogee and it landed within 200ft of the pad. Basically zero wait to get on a pad - I banged out four (admittedly simple) L1 flights in basically 4 hours. Got to see a huge RC boost glider, a great hybrid flight, and a beautiful L-L two stager.

I was a bit worried when I showed up just as the wind kicked up on Friday, and even as late as 8:30 the winds seemed high, but then we got a couple hours of dead calm for night flying and a nice Saturday morning. Very cool and generally well-run event.
 
Early afternoon winds are typical at Lucerne Valley. Best flying is early morning, which is why ROC proactively changed the start to 7 am on Friday-Saturday-Sunday (from 9 am) after the winds started kicking up a little early on Wednesday and Thursday. That gives you all afternoon and evening to prep your big project, so on flying day all you have to do is to haul it out to the pad. Those of us who routinely fly out at Lucerne are used to it...

Sunday morning definitely WAS the calmest day, but I left at about Noon so I don't know how long the winds held out. They were still OK when I left.
 
Just received a text from "fyrwrxz" as follows:


"Dan - You don't wanna be out here today. Wind is up and camp destroying dust devils. It's survival @ 103 out here. I have half the lakebed in my tent. Starting to pack up - range closed. Getting ready to bail if it gets any worse? Talk to you later when I get home. I can't hear over the phone. This SUX!!"

Now I don't feel so bad about not going. I hope whoever went did get in some launches. I'm sure they had some cool projects out there.
I don't want everybody thinking I was Chicken Little out on the playa-as a matter of fact it was THE best launch I've ever been to! Mostly because i got the chance to re-connect with my middle and oldest sons and we had a blast watching the big boys fly! Dan was waffling about coming out and I would have encouraged him more but it was just a one day thing for him and he doesn't live close (does anybody???!) . I do owe an apology to SDTRA for not being around more, but I hope at least they understand this was more about my kids than the launch itself. ROC did a superlative job and they had this down like a 9-5 job. 80 pads and it went like clockwork. Much smaller crowd than anticipated, but I suspect the weather reports turned a few off. I hope we get it back from the East Coast again real soon. Next time I promise to work registration, I swear!
 
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