January 2006 launch report (1/28/2006)
On Saturday, January 28th, MASA held its first launch of the
year. The field at Sunrise Park Middle School in White Bear
Lake was hard & icy but with little snowcover. The
temperatures were mild for January with a light breeze out of the
east. Two local TARC teams came out to get in some practice
flights.
This date marked the 20th anniversary of the loss of the space
shuttle Challenger and her crew.
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!
Alan Estenson writes:
I got there about 10:15 to find that Mike had set up a
range with five pvc pads towards the east side of the field
(near the hockey rinks). He and Ken were already busy with
members of two TARC teams that were there to get in some
practice flights. There was very little snow on the field,
and the ground was very hard. It was also very slippery in
spots where meltwater had puddled and frozen. There was a
light breeze out of
the east.
I finally flew a "Pump-Nik" on an A10-Pt, then a Meteor
on a B6-4 and a Totally Tubular on an A8-3. Most of one
fin broke off the Meteor and was nowhere to be found.
One TARC team flew their rocket once on an E15.
The boost was fine, but the ejection charge spit the entire
motor mount out the back of the rocket. The forward part
of the rocket came down under chute while the back part tumbled
down. I believe that the egg survived. I think that
the other team flew twice - on a D12 and then on an E9. The E9
flight floated far away over the houses to the NW and was not
recovered.
The Tarara family had the most flights of the day.
Young Andrew Tarara did a fine job giving the countdown and
pushing the launch button for his rockets. Caleb Boe had
the only multi-engine flight with his
Deuces' Wild on two B6-4's.
Flights waned after noon, and the range was packed up by
1pm.
Buzz McDermott writes:
Saturday was my first time to this particular field, and
it turned out that most everything I brought was too big to fly
there. I did have a couple of small rockets with me so I only
managed to get in a grand total of three flights. I flew an
Edmonds Tinee on a A3-4, a small plastic speaker wire spool on a
C6-3 and a modifeid core diaphragm from an old car speaker on a
C6-0.
Now that I've seen the field I know what to bring next time. I
think my Rikter Wreker (or however Flis spells it) on three
C11-3's should be just about right (Bt-70 x 7 ft rocket). I'll
also have a Flis Espresso (styro cup rocket) and a couple of
high drag rockets that make nice low lobs on E30's. I've been
building like crazy. It's hard not being able to paint, though.
The Details:
Full launch tally (in Adobe Acrobat PDF form, requires version
6
or newer of the Acrobat reader)
The totals were: 41 flights, 42 motors. The cumulative
total impulse was 358 Ns with an average total impulse of 8.5 Ns.
The motor breakdown follows:
|
Type |
# Burned |
| MicroMaxx |
0 |
|
1/4A |
0 |
|
1/2A |
0 |
|
A |
8 |
|
B |
13 |
|
C |
15 |
|
D |
4 |
|
E |
2 |
|
F |
0 |
|
G |
0 |
|
H |
0 |
(Alan Estenson)
|
