February 2004 launch report (3/1/2004)
Hey, it's warmer than last month !
On Saturday, February 28th, a pretty-good-sized group of
people (for a winter launch) came out to the field in White Bear
Lake for MASA's second launch of the year. The weather was
pretty decent with temperatures in the 30's and a light wind out of
the south. With 79 flights, this was probably the largest
number of flights ever at a MASA launch with snow on the ground.
Thanks to Prez. Mike Erpelding for driving all the way down with
his truck o' equipment.
A few of the flights:
MASA members - please send in your thoughts about the
launch!
Ken Jarosch writes:
A really nice crowd today. In order to promote the open contest
and use (or lose) my many 1991-92 high performance rockets I have
been saving for such an event, I came prepared to fly 1/2 A to D
streamer and parachute duration.
But because of the winds , I quickly decided to keep the power
down to 1/2A mini and A regular rockets. I also removed all the
thin film parachutes and replaced them with my only unused
streamer, a dual 2" x 20" plastic unit. I had to tightly
wrap this to get it into the mini tubes. This mass and old shock
cords resulted in deployment failure. The streamer ripped out the
shock cords with the nosecones. The B streamer ripped the nose
cone away from it's shock cord. Only the A streamer with it's
heavier and longer cord survived but the weight blow the motor out
past the weak Quest motor hook. A second attempt with the Pip
Squeak 2 and a loose nose cone and taped motor finally worked.
All these rockets will be reworked for an external smooth tube
mount. I also flew the "in field" junk rockets on a
C11-3 with a 12" chute.
I did not get to try any of my yet untried real contest
rockets. Maybe later on.
Stuart Lenz writes:
It was a bright and sunny February day with temps in the 30s
and winds 10 to 15 MPH. Mike E, Ken J and Alan E were almost
finished setting up the equipment when Ellison and I arrived just
before 900 am. Alan was first to launch, Stomp first, saucer
second. Having missed the January launch, Ellison and I had a
difficult time just launching the new rockets, even got some of
them painted. I brought my kit bashed Renegade but choose not to
launch it with the winds and small field. Streamers (or Boink)
were the recovery device of the day and even some of these drifted
out of the recovery area. My first rocket was a Flis Long Overdue
that ended up on a power line. We also flew my new Black Funnel,
Short Ringfin , Acme Spitfire and some older classics Luna 2, SS
Casseopiea, and downscaled 1/2 Andromeda. Ken J spent most of the
day on streamer duration models. Lee F arrived just as we started
launching, Glen O and Ted C arrived later for some nice flights.
We also had many new people and families launching with us. We
kept 5 pads busy until 1200, packed up and Glen O, Mike E, Ellison
and I sent to Arbys for lunch. Lots of wet shoes today.
Ted Cochran writes:
I had to come late, and had to make up for it by leaving early
-(.
There were a lot of people there!
I flew a Tumbleweed/Astron Sprite scale-up for the first time
on a B4-2, and my Silver Comet on a C11-3 and a D12-3 on its 38th
and 39th flights. Too windy for the Shuttle or the Honest John.
Ellison Lenz made a good start on the prang nominations with an
unstable bottle rocket and an unstable mini Bertha. There was a
noisy CATO that wiped out a RTF kit and unfortunately upset its
young owner, but the rest of the flights I saw were pretty
uneventful.
The Details:
Full launch tally (in
Adobe Acrobat PDF form, requires version 4 or newer of the Acrobat
reader)
The totals were: 79 flights, 89 motors. The
cumulative total impulse was 592 Ns with an average total impulse of
6.6 Ns. The motor breakdown follows:
|
Type |
# Burned |
| MicroMaxx |
0 |
|
1/4A |
0 |
|
1/2A |
3 |
|
A |
30 |
|
B |
21 |
|
C |
25 |
|
D |
9 |
|
E |
1 |
|
F |
0 |
|
G |
0 |
|
H |
0 |
(Alan Estenson)
|
