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September 2011 launch report (9/27/2011)

On Saturday, September 24, MASA held its monthly launch at the sod fields near Nowthen.

It was a darn nice day for the end of September.  The morning started out cool, but the skies were mostly sunny for most of the day, and it was nice and warm by the afternoon.  There was a slightly annoying breeze out of the east.  This brought a small group of rocket-eating trees into play.  Four rockets landed in those trees, but all were successfully retrieved.  The breeze also brought the soybean field into play, and a few rockets floated into it.

With 198 flights, this was MASA's biggest launching day since April of 2003!

Thanks to the RSO and LCO volunteers:  Neal Higgins, Todd Carpenter, Ken Hoyme, Dwayne Shmel, Alan Estenson, Jeff Taylor, David Schaffhausen, Carol Marple, Ted Cochran.

Thanks to Jason Pokorny for bringing the awesome hot chocolate to the launch!

Theme: 

The theme of this launch was "Science Fiction".  Quite a few cool sci-fi rockets took to the skies - including sneak peeks at some future kits from Sirius Rocketry.

FUN Contest:   

The fun contest planned for this launch was a 50 second set duration event.
"Fly any single-stage model rocket on any size model rocket motor. Your goal is to achieve a flight duration time as close as possible to 50 seconds.  Use either parachute or streamer recovery.  You only get ONE official contest flight. You must declare this flight to be official BEFORE it launches. However, you may first make as many unofficial practice flights as you desire. Entry may not be radio controlled, contain a dethermalizer or similar flight-termination device.  No human intervention is allowed between launch and touchdown. Model must be allowed to land naturally."

Results	Timer1	Timer2	Flight Time	Delta from 50
Jace Flansburg (Y)	46.78	47.75	47.27	-2.74
Ron Wirth	45.68	n/a	45.68	-4.32
Neal Higgins	44.75	44.6	44.68	-5.33
Kent Delahay	43.31	n/a	43.31	-6.69
Alan Estenson	42.75	42.81	42.78	-7.22
Ted Cochran	38.6	38.78	38.69	-11.31
Jason Pokorny	33.03	33.06	33.05	-16.96
Nancy Schaffhausen	73.66	73.5	73.58	23.58
Stuart Lenz	23.0	22.97	22.99	-27.02
Chris Feld	13.85	13.69	13.77	-36.23
Jeff Flansburg	103.31	103.36	103.34	53.34

Congratulations to Jace Flansburg!  He is the overall winner, and the first-place youth contestant!  Jace wins a $5 Fleet Farm gift card and a rocket kit.

Congratulations to Ron Wirth!  He is the first-place adult contestant and in 2nd-place overall.  Ron also wins a $5 Fleet Farm gift card and a rocket kit.

Thanks to everyone who participated in the contest!

MASA members - please send in your thoughts about the launch! 

Andy Heren writes:

Here are a few things about yesterday's launch:

1) I launched 10 rockets. One is my new Big Bertha that replaces my original one, whose motor mount has been repaired once and is now retired. All the launches were nice ones with successful recoveries, except my second to last. I was talking and looked away and never saw where it landed. (Dad always told me to keep my eye on the ball). If anyone found a blue FlisKits Avalear, it is mine. My last launch was a long recovery and I shoudl have declared it my entry in the contest.

2) The day was such a beautiful day! I spent so mch time outside thius summer, but the last couple of weeks with the new job I have been inside most of the day. The fresh air was great and I was falling asleep in the Lazy Boy last night. Always good to spend a day outside.

3) It is a long drive from Eau Claire, but it was sure worth it. It was good to see you all again. I am looking forward to the October meeting and launch.

Brian Uhlenkamp writes:

This was our second MASA launch.  We had a great time as we did in August.  We launched 14 rockets total.
Julia launched 2 of her rockets successfully.
Lukas launched 7 rockets.  All fully successful except one.  His egglofter, the Eggscaliber.  The egg survived, but the chute got wadded/tangled  and never fully deployed, damaging one fin on landing, but it is easily fixable.
I launched my "ThiniMini" and my "Estes Challenger II Clone" on BP.  I then burned some APCP, one was an Aerotech ARCAS on a G53-7FJ and then my two 20 year old plus scratch builds, both on Aerotech G64-4W.  I also launched my Mean Machine with a keychain video on an Aerotech E20-7W.  The Mean Machine keychain video link is below.  It can get you a little dizzy on the parachute decent.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cl1TfPgsUsU
All flights were succesfull.

Thanks again to all the members and volunteers, we had a great day launching and watching others.

Jeff Taylor writes:

It was once again a near perfect day for flying rockets. The forecast called for calmer winds than what we got but it still wasn't too bad. Jason's vat of hot chocolate kept the early morning chill away. I think I only made three flights: A scratch Honest Goon goony on a C6-something, a LOC IV on an H250G, and I was in a 4-way drag race of mid-power Sirius Interrogators with Ken Hoyme, Buzz McDermott and Evie Miller. It was great to have David and Evie Miller from Sirius Rocketry at the field, and it was neat to watch their big Saturn V fly as well as prototypes of their two new kits.

Mark Thell writes:

I arrived at the launch around 1:00PM.
For the first time ever, I arrived without a rocket to fly. I have to say it was REALLY nice!!!!!
Didn't have to get stuff prepped etc. It was nice to just see everyone.
It was great to see Dave and Evie again, I last saw them at NSL Bong.
Looking at Sirius's new prototypes, I have to make room in the shop for the..... additions(or is it addictions)
Spent a fair amount of time in the soybeans recovering other folks rockets.
HUGE thanks to Dave for flying his big Saturn V. Todd and I were in the beans waiting for recovery.
Beautiful flight on an I.....something.
Picture perfect landing.
All in all, a lot of fun.

David Miller writes:

Evie and I would like to thank all of you at MASA for making us feel so welcome at this Saturday's launch!  It was great to see those of you we have
not seen in a while, and meet the rest of you. Your hospitality is a refreshing change from some other (closer) clubs and made it worth the trip to fly with you Saturday. Forgive me for not remembering all the names, but thanks to the kind folks who traded some engines with me because I did not have some of the right delays in my range box, thanks to Jason for the hot chocolate, thanks to all who were great support for Evie when she flew her very first flights ever of rockets she built, and special thanks to Todd and Mark, who kindly offered to head out to the bean field to spot the 1:64 Saturn V on recovery.  Thanks you to all!

Evie managed to fly the first flights ever of rockets she built, and I think she is now hooked.  She flew an Alpha III several times, as well as a Starlight Minute Man and a Starlight Asteroid Probe and also prepped my Mid-Power Interrogator to participate in the drag race while I was busy getting the Saturn prepped to fly.  Evie managed to get more flights in than I did! The next day, while we were still in town we visited the Hub, and she picked up several more kits for herself.  I think this is the first time she has ever walked out of a hobby shop with more stuff than I did.  I think we may be seeing you all in October as she is already talking about going to the next launch.

It was nice to be able to fly myself for the first time this year, and put up a few prototype kits into the air.  I did not get a chance to fly everything I brought, but the three flights I had were fun!  Two prototypes of forthcoming kits and the 1:64 Sirius Saturn V on an I284W-M with the delay trimmed down to about 7.5 seconds, which was absolutely perfect.  A bit of a drift into the bean field because of the large chutes used to bring her down gently, but thanks to Todd and Mark, we had it covered.

Also thanks to everyone who pre-ordered product that we could bring out to the field for you, and those who purchased some items on the field.  Not bringing a lot of the shop with us gave me room to actually bring rockets to fly!

And thanks to Carol and Jeff for some great conversation after the launch!

I have a few pictures I will try to post to the group a little later on when I have a chance to get caught up on everything else, but thanks again MASA, we had a great time!

Dwayne Shmel writes:

For those of you who saw my core sample. here is what the rocket saw:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0_Yxrclhmw

The Details:

Full launch tally (PDF)

The totals were:  198 flights, 210 motors.  The cumulative total impulse was 7380 Ns.  The motor breakdown follows:

(Alan Estenson)