G80s were cheaper then. But that's one of the reasons it hasn't flown since.

Sorry about almost killing us driving through the rain storm in the Miata. I still have flashbacks.

I have some CD and USR G motors in my stash. I always loved it when Tom Binford would pull out some firestarters.

Binford put up one of the first large clusters I ever saw at Spears Range in Manchester, TN. I believe the name of the rocket was "The Motor Eater". Seems like it was yellow. He had some G or H Silverstreaks that he air started with thermalite and maybe a K550 core. I don't know how he got all his larger rockets stuffed in that Trans Am.

I remember going over to SPEARS to see Dennis LaMonth's (sp?) Dragon's Breathe flight(?). I think there was a camera crew (maybe from the BBC) there to capture the demise.

And Tom Binford seemed to always have a big box of cool motors in that TransAm. Especially after a trip to a West Coast launch.



Something cool I found packing up my workshop - a bag of 13mm reload hardware Tom made. C20s and D20s.

Yes, but I wouldn't call Lamothe's rocket with the Dragon's Breath motor a "flight". More like a rapid disassembly! lol
I believe Tom had a screw manufacturing business so he could probably have turned out 13mm hardware by the thousands if he wanted. I talked to him at Spears, LDRS XV, and a couple other Manchester launches. Pretty laid back fellow, iirc.

I remember now, I met Tim, John and Tom Binford at the Battle Park launch. They hunted me down because I had Georgia car tags. Sorry for the mix up.

Still love watching your old videos. I think they were better than any of the more recent attempts. TRA really should do a commercial quality LDRS (and maybe BALLS) video each year.

The first high power flights I ever witnessed first-hand was at a launch at Ft. Stewart (Georgia, near Savannah) where I first met Tom (had his TransAm then too) and he was just back from LDRS-8 at Hartsel like a month before. (This was like six weeks after John and I had done our Apollo 11 20th anniversary launch of my Saturn V at Complex 39 there at KSC, using the KSC countdown clock timed to the actual audio replay of the last three minutes of Jack King's launch commentary from 20 years ago that day.)

Anyway...John and I saw him fly several H and I flights, the first Smokey Sam flight I ever saw (an I in an EZI that had a smoke trail so thick it looked like you could go out and climb it), and an absolutely mind-blowing (at the time) Aerotech K900 flight in a minimum diameter rocket that just (figuratively) exploded off the pad. That K was also the first Medusa nozzle motor I ever saw. A couple of the Army dudes had pulled up to the tank range being used for that launch just before Tom lit off that K900. i think they were truly stunned! They had a look like "You mean *civilians* can buy s--t like this??". Tom also flew an Aerotech I32 at that launch that had something like a 20 second burn time. Flew it in a small min diameter bird and it just burned out of sight over our heads.

Bought my first high power motors from him at one of our early grass farm launches late that year (like December, 1989) and confirmed with an Aerotch H70 in an NCR Phantom 4000.

Wow, special, special times with special people. That will all be 30 years ago later this year, including the Apollo 11 anniversary flight John and I did at KSC that summer of '89 at KSC. In retrospect, I was just a kid of 26 at the time. Looked like one, too! But what a special dream come true that was to fly a Centuri Saturn V from KSC, right across the street from the VAB. We did it again there at KSC for the 25th and 30th anniversaries. Days long past now.

Earl

That was a fun trip. I got to meet Shrox, Jack Hagerty and several other people I had only known by name before. Spent too much money and ate too much. That drive back in the endless pouring rain was brutal. I can still remember asking, did we just drive across the centerline?" I still have flashbacks too.

Would do it again in a minute if I had the chance. Maybe in a larger car though.

I am in the process of doing one for NARAM-60 just passed. It is expensive and time consuming. Key word professional.

Jerry