Happy 2015, Holtville!!

Hi, all, and happy 2015 to you as well.  Last Saturday was a stunningly perfect day for flying with 0-3MPH winds all day and all the way to the top.  Here's the second installment of my 240-slowed-to-480fps liftoff vids (full-screen HD and crank that audio please):

Go, GoPro!!  I can't believe how much downward force is exerted on those steel pads!  They're bouncing awhile after liftoff in several sequences.  Here are are some photos I was able to shoot between flying and moving the GoPro.  As you might have noticed in the vid I made two errors involving our equipment manager, Mike Caplinger, at this launch:

1. I missed his 2-stage liftoff because he was prepping intently and then was ready all of a sudden and I didn't want to interrupt his launch sequence by asking him to pause while I ran over to start my camera.
2. I left my K2045 alligator clips dangling underneath the motor.  It wasn't until later when he expressed vigorous concern with the damaged clips that I realized ignition exposure isn't as brief as I had once assumed.  In my defense the e-match leads were very short and others flew after me but I'll be sure to somehow secure them out of harm's way in the future, Mike.  

I had only one flight that day because of all the video, photos, and helping others but it was a doozie. A couple of years back I crashed my 4" Nike Smoke at Lucerne, my buddy Megan rebuilt its replacement entirely herself (I was hoping she'd do her L1 and L2 with it), and I've been sitting on this 1408K2045 for way too long.  My 1D mark IV shoots at 10fps so these two sequential liftoff frames are 0.1s apart:

The ascent was neck-snappingly fast, loud, and straight with a nice 14+ second coast to apogee.  Unfortunately the 'chute fouled but, fortunately, it landed in some soft dirt and remains entirely intact and ready to fly again:

Darrel Kelley and I discussed the fouling and he recommended this Fruity Chute method to reduce line tangle so I'll try that next time.  Thanks for reading and cheers to another year of great flying weather at our new site.