Plaster City December 2012 launch report

I'm clearly on a blog roll now...

My goal for December was fun and easy flying so I packed sparsely planning for no dual deploy, no onboard vid, and no GPS headaches.  I sought leisure via simple motor ejection and perhaps a Jolly Logic Altimeter One thrown in for good [barometric] measure.
     Jack had the new CTI Pro38 654J316 Pink reload in stock so I snapped one up and threw it into my trusty Bullet for its trillionth flight (click to enlarge):

The neck-snapping ascent rocked and I'm a bigger than of pink than ever.  Real men fly pink.  The Jolly Logic reported 4,075' and there was much rejoicing.
     I also had this CTI Pro54 1990K490 Green^3 [figuratively] burning a hole in my closet and it seemed perfect for my 5.5" Polecat Aerospace Jayhawk that I hadn't flown for some time.  The pressure-up was a bit slow but I never get tired of that stunning, barium-free green flame (click to enlarge)

The uppage was way cool until 'round about Max Q when it looked as if a canard fin had ripped off.   Hmmm I'd built this thing quite robustly but it's hard to reinforce those big, potentially floppy wings. In any event the parachute appeared to eject right at apogee but wasn't fully inflating.  Despite taking my own advice and repacking my 'chute immediately before flight, unfortunately, the 12' diameter behemoth fluttered ever groundward without ever fully inflating. I very close to touchdown and could see all the wings/canards had survived the flight. The as the Jayhawk impacted the ground one corner of one canard cracked on impact.  So yet another stooped fouled 'chute had damaged yet another prized rocket:

The Jolly Logic altimeter reported 4,711' but I wasn't sure if I could fix that fin.  Jack thought he might have a spare at home but I decided that a) I don't really want to fly rockets that flap about at Max Q and b) I don't maintain a rocket museum at my house for show-rockets.  In the end I salvaged what I could and dumped this orange rocket in the trash.  Oh and about that time I noticed that a hole had been poked in the nosecone as well so double-hmph.