Glide, glided, glade

Today’s club launch had its ups and good parts and bad parts. I showed up with seven rockets, planning up to nine flights but probably less. Not everything happened as planned.

We got under way late, due to not being on time. Weather started out overcast (though it’d been almost cloudless when I left home… then again, there’d been thunderstorms a few hours before that.) but got sunnier. And hotter. Winds were pretty light. My first flight was the Metalizer, in its usual check-the-wind role. The wind was out of the northwest, not so great since we were facing north. (We didn’t have a lot of choice today.) The other function of the Metalizer was to inaugurate my new camera, which has faster (much faster) continuous shooting than my old one, so I can get good launch shots — in principle — instead of having to do screen grabs off video. I’m still learning how to use it though.

Next was my first contest flight of the day. The contest was A glider recovery duration, and my favored contestant was the Edmonds Deltie, which won the glider contest in 2013, on an A10-3T.  On this flight, though, the glider got tangled in the shock cord and everything tumbled to earth together. (A Red Baron, that’s called.)

I tried again. This time the glider and booster separated cleanly; I lost sight of the booster, though, as it fell into the tall vegetation. The glider went out and out, and I lost sight of it shortly after it passed by or maybe through a tree. I thought it’d gone in front of the tree, someone else thought it went behind. Either way, it was lost to sight at around treetop level and about 1:04 duration. It would’ve won the competition handily if found and brought back.

Instead, here’s what I found and brought back.Seriously. Heading out along the line on which my booster’d been seen, I found — separately, in the high clover — two crumpled pieces of red crepe paper, which was what I’d used for wadding. Then I met a girl coming back who told me she’d seen an orange streamer; I asked her to show me where, and she did. Indeed it was the Deltie’s orange (crepe paper again) streamer — or part of one — with no booster attached. Aside from the streamer, of course, the booster was unpainted brown, nearly an exact match for the vegetation I was wading through.

As for the glider, I don’t know. I’m guessing it got hung up in one of the trees, but I saw no sign of it. Rats! And Edmonds is out of production now. Though someone said to check jonrockets.com … Yes! They have Edmonds gliders! I may need several. [Edit: No they don’t. Everything’s out of stock.]

(Mine was not the only glider to go AWOL today, either.)

As usual I didn’t care greatly about winning the contest, so long as I had an entry, even one that DQ’d twice. But I’d been hoping to double-dip, using a contest flight also as a NARTREK Silver flight. So I went to my Condor, took out the B6-4 I’d prepped it with the night before, and loaded up an A8-3 for my third contest/NARTREK flight. And it Red Baroned.

I decided a non glider flight was in order, so I put the Sea Sting up next. Didn’t get a good launch picture, it was out of focus. Flight was kind of funny. It spun slowly on its long axis, and it coned somewhat. But it flew and came back more or less unscathed.

Next was my zombie rocket, the Lunar Eclipse Jr. I’d seriously considered flying it on an E9-6, the same motor that damaged it with a cato last summer, but I chickened out and loaded up a CTI E22 Smoky Sam. It curved back over the flight line and toward Turner Road. I thought it might have landed in Turner Road, so I hurried out without first getting landmarks for the line it was on. It wasn’t in the road, but despite the fluorescent orange 18″ Top Flight chute, I didn’t see it off the road either, for a while. Finally I spotted the chute, well off the road on the other side in the field. The rocket was fine but the 24 mm casing had been kicked. Stupid. I’d been a little worried about retention, it just being a hook, but I’d talked myself into believing it was sufficient.

Well, anyway, it flew. Didn’t hang on the rod, didn’t explode, didn’t get lost or run over or hung in a tree. It may still be cursed, but it’s kind of a lame curse.

I went back and prepped the Condor again. I’d done my three contest flights and DQ’d on all three, but there was still NARTREK to try for. A8-3 again. This time separation was good, and someone spotted the booster and got it for me while I went after the glider — which had headed more or less straight for Turner Road. It landed almost in front of a couple people who’d been out that way looking for another rocket, so I got it back with no problem. Time was 44.55 seconds, well above the 30 needed for NARTREK and a decent contest showing if it’d been permitted as a contest flight. Finally! The gliders were not a total loss for me today.

Anything else? I’d sort of planned on flying the Mustang on a CTI motor, but then I remembered the reason I’ve always flown it on AT single use motors: There’s just a (big) hook for retention, and I wouldn’t trust it to hang onto my casing. I had the Mini Satellite Interceptor along, but felt it was too small to fly with all the high plant life around. So I hung out the rest of the afternoon, helped break down, and headed on home. Pretty good launch, but I’ve had better.