That's the closest I've been to Lucern in nearly a year and a half. Better luck next month.
Tuesday, March 20, 2018
Lucerne, March 2018 was a washout
I was excited to finally fly an Aerotech 98mm, 2-grain, L2500 Super Thunder with stainless steel forward closure at Lucerne. It was raining lightly in North County SD as I left to drive up that way. It continued to rain, on and off, over the drive until I got through Apple Valley... where it worsened. As I got closer to the dry lake bed the rain further increased. Hmph. I turned around and headed home at the pink X below:
That's the closest I've been to Lucern in nearly a year and a half. Better luck next month.
That's the closest I've been to Lucern in nearly a year and a half. Better luck next month.
Saturday, March 17, 2018
Holtville Havoc II - March 3-5, 2018
Holtville Havoc II was supposed to see reasonable conditions on Friday, terrible conditions on Saturday, and brilliant conditions on Sunday. I can attest that Friday amazed, Saturday was flyable until about noon, and I wasn't there on Sunday. Here's a group photo and the rest of my photos from Saturday:
I had just one flight planned, on Friday, for this three-day event: the mighty CTI M6400 Vmax! I had mostly prepped my L3 vessel, a 7.5" Nike Smoke, when I realized two problems with the reload. The first was that the now aging resin, Dow PAPI 901 [polymeric with MDI], included with the reload was not curing from the day before. It was thickening but not curing. Secondly I could not fit the nozzle/liner/seal disc assembly into my Dr. Rocket 98/10240 casing. With the forward closure fully threaded into the case I did not have sufficient depth to thread the aft nozzle ring into place. Based on these two issues I scrapped this one flight so nothing to report here. I'll see what CTI recommends as next steps. :(
I was trying to get that flight out of the way on Friday to free Saturday for two L3 attempts. Both Larry Hermanson and Cris Erving pulled their L3 flights together that morning because the weather was unexpectedly good. Larry and Cris finished prepping at nearly the same time and got set up on the two 500' pads. Larry was first with a CTI M1401 White which seemed successful. Cris went second on an Aerotech M1500 Mojave Green and also ascended successfully:
Both flyers seemed positive on their way out to retrieve their rockets. Larry retrieved his first and was indeed successful. Congratulations, Larry! Cris took a bit longer to retrieve his. Upon seeing his rocket I learned that his main had not ejected properly so he's going to try again in April. Props for an amazing launch, all!
I had just one flight planned, on Friday, for this three-day event: the mighty CTI M6400 Vmax! I had mostly prepped my L3 vessel, a 7.5" Nike Smoke, when I realized two problems with the reload. The first was that the now aging resin, Dow PAPI 901 [polymeric with MDI], included with the reload was not curing from the day before. It was thickening but not curing. Secondly I could not fit the nozzle/liner/seal disc assembly into my Dr. Rocket 98/10240 casing. With the forward closure fully threaded into the case I did not have sufficient depth to thread the aft nozzle ring into place. Based on these two issues I scrapped this one flight so nothing to report here. I'll see what CTI recommends as next steps. :(
I was trying to get that flight out of the way on Friday to free Saturday for two L3 attempts. Both Larry Hermanson and Cris Erving pulled their L3 flights together that morning because the weather was unexpectedly good. Larry and Cris finished prepping at nearly the same time and got set up on the two 500' pads. Larry was first with a CTI M1401 White which seemed successful. Cris went second on an Aerotech M1500 Mojave Green and also ascended successfully:
Both flyers seemed positive on their way out to retrieve their rockets. Larry retrieved his first and was indeed successful. Congratulations, Larry! Cris took a bit longer to retrieve his. Upon seeing his rocket I learned that his main had not ejected properly so he's going to try again in April. Props for an amazing launch, all!
Sunday, March 4, 2018
Holtville, 2/2018 launch
Howdy, ya'll. I've been absent from this blog for awhile. This was not my intent and I hope I'm back for some time to come.
I attended the February launch at Holtville and here are my photo selects. I'm quite sure that Mark Treseder shot some of those. Teamwork! I flew only my trusty 3" Nike Smoke on a CTI 540I470 White Thunder:
I had no doubt that this little rocket would withstand the motor's substantial max Q and, surprisingly, I could see it all the way to the ground under chute. Is my vision improving? Cheers!
I attended the February launch at Holtville and here are my photo selects. I'm quite sure that Mark Treseder shot some of those. Teamwork! I flew only my trusty 3" Nike Smoke on a CTI 540I470 White Thunder:
I had no doubt that this little rocket would withstand the motor's substantial max Q and, surprisingly, I could see it all the way to the ground under chute. Is my vision improving? Cheers!
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