luke strawwalker
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I was just reading a few posts to my wife as she relaxes on the couch and we were discussing the thread awhile back about "worst rocket launch ever" where folks posted some of their misadventures, like having a rocket go unstable and crash through the neighbor's screen door and land on the dinner table during suppertime, or hit the water tower and bounce off, and the sheriff shows up at your door because the old biddy living next to the water tower calls the cops and reports that you 'blew a hole in the water tower with a rocket' when actually the float valve inside is hung and the water tower is draining from the overflow pipe and pouring water on her house... (That's still the funniest thing I ever heard)
Thought I'd kick off a thread about your weirdest flight or recovery ever...
Back when I was in high school, my mom had a good friend she worked with at the hospital, and we spent quite a bit of time at their house in the next town over. I was a rocket noob and got her older son (about two years older than I) interested in rocketry and so one day I took my two stager (based on the "Comet" rocket by Estes, can't recall the name at the moment, but I still have it-- found it somewhat the worse for wear in Grandma's attic) over to his house in Boling, TX and we launched it from the pasture across the creek at the end of the street behind his house. Well, it just cleared the tree line and hit the wind, heeled over about 60 degrees off vertical, and staged, really quick, 1,2,3 like. That sustainer motor took over and SHOOM! off she went heading into the wind, with me watching it... it started coasting, slowed and seemed to 'hover' in the wind, and started dropping nose down, and POW deployed it's chute, but popped those silly rubber shock cords Estes used to use, and started dropping straight down for a core sample. Now, the creek sorta meandered south around behind the houses on either side of the street, and the two other streets actually dead-ended at the creek, before the creek turned west heading back toward the highway two streets over where the houses stopped and the other side was a big ranch. I watched it come in and was sure it core sampled, and watched the chute drift off, and figured all was lost. We hiked back across the creek and down the street to the intersection and over two streets in the direction it went toward the creek, looking in yards and on roofs as we went trying to figure out where it went. I was pretty sure it ended up either on the ranch or in the creek, and figured it was totalled for sure. Well, we walked to the last street and I was looking down into the creekbed, which was overgrown in waist-high weeds, and decided to hike down there and look. I walked along the weeds awhile til I found a 'clear spot' to go down to the water, and there, not a foot from the water's edge, in a perfect 2 foot round clearing of weeds, sticking perfectly straight up from the soggy clay muck soil, was the rocket. I pulled it out of the ground, wiped the 3 inches of sludge off the end, and dug the core sample out with a stick. It wasn't even dinged! Just mucked up a bit by the mud. Now for the chute and nosecone. I walked down the street aways til I found a spot to cross the creek, climbed through the fence, figuring I was on a vain search for the nosecone and chute, but lo and behold I found it within ten minutes in the pasture. I crossed back over and Mark and I went back to his house. That had to be the most 'miraculous' recovery I've ever had...
So what are some of yall's "Amazing Stories"?? OL JR
Thought I'd kick off a thread about your weirdest flight or recovery ever...
Back when I was in high school, my mom had a good friend she worked with at the hospital, and we spent quite a bit of time at their house in the next town over. I was a rocket noob and got her older son (about two years older than I) interested in rocketry and so one day I took my two stager (based on the "Comet" rocket by Estes, can't recall the name at the moment, but I still have it-- found it somewhat the worse for wear in Grandma's attic) over to his house in Boling, TX and we launched it from the pasture across the creek at the end of the street behind his house. Well, it just cleared the tree line and hit the wind, heeled over about 60 degrees off vertical, and staged, really quick, 1,2,3 like. That sustainer motor took over and SHOOM! off she went heading into the wind, with me watching it... it started coasting, slowed and seemed to 'hover' in the wind, and started dropping nose down, and POW deployed it's chute, but popped those silly rubber shock cords Estes used to use, and started dropping straight down for a core sample. Now, the creek sorta meandered south around behind the houses on either side of the street, and the two other streets actually dead-ended at the creek, before the creek turned west heading back toward the highway two streets over where the houses stopped and the other side was a big ranch. I watched it come in and was sure it core sampled, and watched the chute drift off, and figured all was lost. We hiked back across the creek and down the street to the intersection and over two streets in the direction it went toward the creek, looking in yards and on roofs as we went trying to figure out where it went. I was pretty sure it ended up either on the ranch or in the creek, and figured it was totalled for sure. Well, we walked to the last street and I was looking down into the creekbed, which was overgrown in waist-high weeds, and decided to hike down there and look. I walked along the weeds awhile til I found a 'clear spot' to go down to the water, and there, not a foot from the water's edge, in a perfect 2 foot round clearing of weeds, sticking perfectly straight up from the soggy clay muck soil, was the rocket. I pulled it out of the ground, wiped the 3 inches of sludge off the end, and dug the core sample out with a stick. It wasn't even dinged! Just mucked up a bit by the mud. Now for the chute and nosecone. I walked down the street aways til I found a spot to cross the creek, climbed through the fence, figuring I was on a vain search for the nosecone and chute, but lo and behold I found it within ten minutes in the pasture. I crossed back over and Mark and I went back to his house. That had to be the most 'miraculous' recovery I've ever had...
So what are some of yall's "Amazing Stories"?? OL JR