A couple of weeks ago my daughter pointed out to me that the Fairfax Society of Rocketry, located near Cedar Rapids, Iowa, was planning a launch called the Hocus Pocus Rocket Launch. I looked into it on Facebook and found that they were inviting basically anyone and everyone, and so I decided to take them up on it. Today was that launch, and it was a good one. I forget if there were two or three Level One certification launches, but it was exciting to see high powered rockets in person.
Even better, though, was getting to launch some of my own low power rockets. I took eight rockets to fly, and I had eight flights, but it wasn't as straightforward as it sounds. Here's how it went down for me:
The event was set to start at 9:00am, but things weren't fully set up when we arrived; I pitched in as much as I could, but not being familiar with their equipment I'm afraid I wasn't that much help. Actual flying started about 10:00am.
I started with my Mo' Skeeter, as usual, flying on a B6-4. I flew off the first position on the stand in the first round of flights... first flight of the day.
Mo' Skeeter turned in another beautiful flight, but drifted a good distance out into the field due to the wind being kind of stiff, 11 MPH or maybe a bit more. Warned that the wind would continue to rise throughout the day, I decided to push forward and get all my launches in before noon.
My second flight was my Hercules, flying on a B6-2, which prior experience has shown is a good choice for this rocket. It weathercocked rather heavily back over the spectators, ejected just fine and still managed to drift out into the field. The flight was low and not particularly exciting, so…
My third flight was my Hercules, flying on a C6-5 this time. The organizer, Reggie Morrow, announced that it was "returning to the scene of the crime." I tipped the rod back into the wind a bit, which turned out to be a mistake, but a small one; it flew higher, but still weathercocked back over the specators, and then it drifted into a small tree. It was just a bit out of reach, hanging over the back of a parked pickup truck, so after seeking permission I climbed up on the bumper of the truck and pulled it down.
After these two flights, the Hercules had a few new battle scars including a bit of tree-rash on the trailing edge of a fin and a body tube dent in the nose cone. Still looks good, though, and will definitely fly again.
Feeling a bit more adventurous, and also being a bit more comfortable with their launch equipment, I pulled out my Skylark and put in a pair of B6-4 engines. I was concerned that one igniter plug might not be holding on well enough, but the cluster ignited perfectly and the rocket recovered inside the field (in fact, not that far from the stand, all things considered).
I'll note at this point that, except for the Mo' Skeeter launch, all the rockets I launched today were rigged with small fabric parachutes. One came from BMS, and I honestly do not remember where the others came from, but they are somewhere around 8 inches across. I risked damaging the rockets due to the faster descent, but after the long walk I had to recover the Mo' Skeeter I really wanted to keep them close to the launch stand.