STILL Hot best describes Saturday's launch. Yes, it was STILL hot. The summer weather was mitigated by cooler temps, but the bright sun radiated plenty of heat. Despite the heat, the field was full and flying was great. However, the field grass was still un-mowed but shorter than I expected and the field dry...even with the recent regular rains. We did trim a path to clear around the launch pads to keep the grass down and away.... and to keep the fire ants at bay. They were ferocious and got me pretty good while trying to set up.
The winds were mild even at altitude. To my knowledge, we had only one rocket go into the southerly woods. However, Gary's one rocket did manage to land on the power line. We learned something. Capture the pole number BEFORE calling Duke or FPL so that they can figure out who should come to help get it down. Because we had a mostly sunny morning, the sun was also directly in our eyes for many flights, so we had to do a lot of eye shielding to see what was going on.
Welcome to the many new fliers! I met some of you, and really appreciate your collaborative spirit to helping us set up and tear down AND help out with Launch Control, particularly Bodhi. You did an awesome job of managing a bunch of people wanting to fly. You also gave me a break to help my grandson with getting some of our rockets on the pad. With the new to flying came lots of learning and opportunity to interact. You all did so well and so many your rockets flew well too. Thanks for coming out to join us and enjoy
the time learning together.
Speaking of learning, I understand that a couple of our fliers are 3D printing their rockets. Ezra even mentioned using biodegradable filament for printing his "The Man" rocket. This is really cool, as most everything else we use is biodegradable and will not impact the State Forest environment. Way to go!
There were a few F impulse rockets at the top end of the range, but most(75%) were of the flights were C or lower impulse. We got our exercise!
We currently have a "Go for Launch" up for October 4. Keep an eye on our Facebook page or our website for launch status. Now is a great time to build your rockets in the cool of your AC! Hope to see you in October! Have a great month! Also, if I don't get to work on the away pad controller, remember that control 3 did not do well to launch this past launch day. 1 and 2 are fine. 4 was untested. We rarely have 3 rockets on the away pads simultaneously. This was a new problem(opportunity!) Keep them coming!