Park Terrace (6/4/2004)
Park Terrace has been launching with MASA for almost as long as
Westwood. They're in the same school district. Mike Kutzke has
handled launching duties in the past. He's worked with the teachers
enough that they were happy to help their kids build their rockets
without our help (good thing, too, given how busy outreach season
has been!). Mike has done a fine job--80 fourth graders came out
today with 18 very well constructed E2X rockets--only a loose launch
lug or two and one case of the shock cord mount being too high.
Since Park Terrace had half the rockets to launch (they built
them in teams of four instead of in teams of two), I set up half the
pads--just six. I had several parents as helpers working on wadding,
motors, and igniters, and the rockets were ready very quickly. The
weather was, as you all know, perfect--warm, clear skies, light
winds. And we were far enough south of Anoka airport that the
traffic wasn't an issue at all.
The field is SMALL--about a soccer field, perhaps a bit more. But
the winds today were very light, and they were using A8-3 motors, so
only one or two rockets left the field--and even those only went as
far as the nearest neighbor's yard.
There were no misfires, and two cases of rod lock (motor hooks
snagging clothespins), which were both reflown successfully.
For the usual after-launch demo, I put up two stomp rockets on B6
and C6 power, a Quest UFO on a C (which doesn't go as high as the
E2X does on an A), a Skywinder on a C6, and the trusty Silver Comet
on a D12-3. The whole thing was done in less than 90 minutes.
Thanks to Mike for establishing a legacy that is easy to build
on.
I really felt bad leaving work for a couple hours to launch
today...NOT!
[Ted Cochran]
|
