When I left the club launch today at about 1:30, it was about 89°F, heat index about 101°F, both still rising. I was hearing thunder. If it’d been up to me the launch would’ve been postponed, but it wasn’t, and if it weren’t the Apollo 11 anniversary and if I hadn’t committed to being there I’d’ve skipped it, but it was and I had.
So I was there, I and my son and my July 21, 1969 Syracuse Post-Standard,
but I left the Star Orbiter and the V-2 at home. I just had two theme (US Manned [sic] Space Flight) rockets and two contest rockets.
I started with the Dr Zooch Saturn V, with newly increased nose weight and a lighter (B6-4) motor.
It flew straight and steady with no serious problems — the homemade Mylar chute didn’t fully deploy, and, due in part to the nose weight, I suppose, the Apollo end came in point first, but aside from dirt the escape tower was undamaged. This one’s officially unretired now.
Next the new Mercury-Redstone on a 1/2A6-2, also a nice flight.
In this case the escape tower was jettisoned, along with the nose of the Mercury capsule. Hm, thought I’d glued that better. Well, nice thing about cardstock rockets: if you need to replace a bit, you just print a new one.
Third was the Yankee on a B6-4, a rerun of the May flight with the same contest Mylar streamer, and nearly the same result: 1:01 duration. As of when I left it was leading the streamer duration contest.
The other contest was a lunar spot landing, competing for closest to the “moon” (a Pilates ball). I used the Razor on an A8-3. My first attempt was angled to compensate for a breeze that had gone away. My second was less angled but still went too far upwind. It was in first place as of when I left but only by default: The only two other contestants by that point hadn’t yet successfully left the pad.
Missions accomplished, I packed up and left. As I feared, it was almost too oppressively hot to put in the effort of packing up to leave. I avoided heat exhaustion, I guess. May still holds the record for best launch weather.
Rich's Rockets 