My Blue Bird Zero was the last to go, and boy did it go!
I put it up three times on E power and they were all perfect flights.
Last season's paint crack on the fin root had been growing ever wider with each subsequent flight,
but the fin was still hanging on at quitting time.
As I was packing up the gear, my wife was egging me on for "just one more flight".
I agreed and fitted the BBZ with a D12 from a group of packages I recently purchased for the Viper.

The combo of a D12 and dead calm air made it easy to follow the flight path upward.
Apogee came and went but the parachute didn't. The nose never even attempted to leave the tube.
What happened next has to qualify as my best lawn dart yet.
I pulled the engine and just as I had suspected the clay cap was still intact.

It won't be difficult to fix. I put a collar inside at the paint break and attached the top half
with #6 screws in anticipation of this happening someday.
About average for my BBZ. It once spent two weeks in a tree during thunderstorms.
I only got it back when it filled up with water and became heavy enough to break the shock cord.

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