I don’t seem to be under a curse any more.
This morning it was chilly. There were reports of frost to the north, the first since last spring. Not that cold where we were but mid 30s °F. But the sky was clear and the wind was light, and by late morning it’d warmed up enough to shed the jacket and knit hat and scarf and gloves. (Okay, I was the only one wearing the latter three, I think.) It got up to 60°F by the afternoon and was really quite a nice day.
I was launch director so showed up with only three small rockets and took only one photograph. I flew the Yankee twice, for the B Streamer Duration contest. B6-4 both times, and the first time I used the new streamer I made last month, pleated Mylar about 6 by 120 cm. I got 50 seconds, not as good as some of my flights earlier in the year (with a similar but shorter streamer) but comparable to the last couple months. For the second flight I cut about 30 cm off the length, and got about 43 seconds.
There’s an alleged rule of thumb that the optimal length for a streamer is 10 times its width. In fact this seems to derive only from a report at NARAM some years ago, in which someone presented results from a comparison of different streamer materials and pleated versus non pleated, and then there was one comparison of two different lengths for one particular pleated material with one particular width using one rocket and one motor type on one occasion. I don’t remember how many flights they did but it was not many. Anyway, I think it’s a stretch to attribute much significance to that length comparison for that material, that width, pleated, with that size rocket, that motor, and that weather condition, let alone to promote it to a rule of thumb for all materials, all widths, pleated or not, all rockets, all motors, all weather conditions. Nor of course do my two flights prove anything, but the fact that I got less time when I went from 20:1 to 15:1 only tends to bolster my skepticism regarding that rule of thumb.
Anyway, I came in second this month.
I also came in second in the Sport Scale contest with my White Sands V-2 No. 3, freshly repaired after its bad balsa dent on its maiden flight in August, which also flew on a B6-4 very satisfactorily.
And of course, since it’s October, I flew the Pumpnik on a C6-4 and it did its thing well.
Three rockets, four flights, all successful, no damage. That’s it for this year’s club flights.
Rich's Rockets 