| Overcast appr. 5000' AGL, Wind 5-15 S, with a strong squall and incomplete funnel cloud (!) sighted around noon. |
|---|
| Model | Flt
# |
Recovery Type | Motor | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Flutter-B | 1 | 7"x70" crepe streamer | Estes B6-4 | I built this model for a non-sanctioned contest coming up 6/14, and wanted to test fly it, in case anything needed adjusting. With a boattail and BT-50 tube, I was able to put a huge streamer in it, but it's heavy enough it doesn't get exceptional altitude -- in the wind, it arced over a bit, only went about 500 feet up, and recorded 41 seconds. Nose cone came off the screw eye and was lost, which in SD would have been a DQ. With a new nose cone, and with less wind, it ought to be capable of getting close to a minute in dead air, which will probably be competitive below the regional level. |
| Long Shot | 3 | 2" x 48" crepe streamer | Estes D12-0/D12-7 | I got brave, after the squall (the wind died down a bit) and prepped up the Long Shot with D motors in both stages, aimed it a bit upwind, and let it rip. The model tipped off from the top of the rod (the 3/16" rods are only 3' long and this is a tall model), then tipped some more when it staged; it wound up about 300 yards south of the pads, just across a major drainage ditch. The way across, given recent wet weather, was to walk about 1/2 mile to a bridge, then the same distance back, all on ground ranging from soggy to knee-deep water. Model was recovered, but the streamer was so soggy it shredded when the rocket was picked up, and it somehow managed to break a fin at the root -- on landing, since the fin was right beside the rocket. |
| Bertha 24 | 5 | 12" plastic parasheet with spill | Estes B6-4 | After the long walk for the Long Shot, I didn't want to walk much for the Bertha, so I put my new 18mm adapter in the mount (I built a lighter adapter after losing the old one at Kent in May) and loaded up a B6-4. With a little pad compensation for the wind, and the longish delay that resulted from the low flight, the Bertha returned to about 20 feet from the LCO table; a perfect minimum-walking flight. By this time, it was getting late (I'd spent three hours recovering the Long Shot!), and the range was closing down; I picked up my rockets and went home to make repairs. |