KCAR Launch Report: Sport Launch — May 2003

The day started out a bit on the windy and overcast side. Despite that, three people were on hand to set up the range, with a fourth person arriving in time to help with the unwinding of cords. Rather than tote all of the equipment out to the launch site, only the battery, cords, PA and launcher were brought, with the remaining equipment belonging to club members. The main pad was simply a saw horse with three rods and blast deflectors, the club’s Wasp pad was out and Tim’s rail was set up in it. Dave Bucher brought his very nice pad and tower launcher, and Bob’s pad rounded out the equipment. The large bulk of flights were flown from the saw-horse arrangement.

At about noon the weather turned fair; the wind dropped, and the sun came out. This was very welcome, and larger motors came out of the range boxes as our courage built.

There were some interesting flights, and some heart-breakers, and even one or two non-flying flights. The first heart-breaker was the Jessee family’s Executioner which was still hanging from the power lines over the road as we were driving away. The second heart-breaker was George’s Mediocre Fred; this is the second glider of this type that George has had sail away. Not so mediocre, I’d say. Another heart breaker was the CATO of both motors in Dave Bucher’s spinning UFO rocket. Those were Estes C5-3’s this time, rather than the seemingly more failure prone (today at least) Quest C6 motors. Also worthy of mention was first time flier Cindy Eskina’s Super Nova which had a promising boost, but separated and the lower half made a sickening thudding sound when it tried to core sample too hard ground! This was Cindy’s first effort, but she seemed to take the troubles well and vowed to be back. We’re looking forward to it.

Some of the more interesting non-flights were the spectacular CATOs of the Quest C6’s by Ian D. He had several blow; two of which threw burning parts a very long way. Another non-flight was Dave B’s glider that hung on the rod.

One of the more strange launches was Tim’s Sprint 24C on an Aerotech D15-7 reload. The igniter “popped” and the clips fell away. Then after a long silent, smokeless pause, the motor suddenly came up to pressure and the rocket lept away in a blink rather surprising everyone.

It was interesting to watch several of the fliers test some of their contest designs for the upcoming contest launch next month. Dave B. and Dan K. both tested altitude rockets. Dave B. and George S. tested gliders, and Dave B. also launched a couple of payload birds. Dave’s gliders employ a sliding motor pod, very beautifully made rockets, with nice precision airfoils. They appeared to be quite competitive.

The club took this opportunity to try out and practice using the new theodolites made by Dave Lucas. Dave handed out all the information, and he and Bob measured off the baseline and set up the devices. We then practiced on several of the flights using the chalk Dave brought with him. This was very good and very needed practice, both in tracking and using the devices, and also in rendering the data. That chore fell largely to Bob W. who churned away with the calculator for most of the afternoon.

At the end of the day we had burned 73 motors, for about 634.54N which falls in the ‘I’ range. Of those, two were cluster flights (#20 and #63) but no staged flights. There were 12 fliers, and 70 flights (counting the CATO’s).

Launch	Flier’s Name	Rocket Name	Motor(s)	Comments
1	George Scheil	Deep Space Probe	C5-3	Good! Sideways boost
2	Tim Burger	Quest Astra	A8-3	Good!
3	Christian Bruggeman	Superbird	B6-4	First flight
4	George Scheil	Cherokee III	B6-4	Single stage flight
5	Tim Burger	Maxi-Alpha	C11-3
6	Christian Bruggeman	Nike K	B6-4
7	Erin Wingate	Firestreak	B6-4
8	Christian Bruggeman	Nemesis	B6-4
9	Tim Burger	Big Bertha	B6-4
10	Ian Jessee	Sky Writer	A8-3
11	Taylor Jessee	Death Star	C5-3
12	Randall Jessee	Yellow TP-1	C6-3
13	Tim Burger	Big Bertha	C6-5
14	Ian Jessee	Maxi-V2	D12-3
15	Taylor Jessee	Executioner	E9-6	Hung in the power lines over the road
16	Christian Bruggeman	Superbird	C6-7
17	Ian Jessee	Triton-X	C6-3
18	Cindy Eskina	Super Nova	D12-5
19	Randall Jessee	Silver TP 9	D12-3
20	Taylor Jessee	Crash & Burn	3X A8-3
21	Tim Burger	Fiesta	B6-4
22	Ian Jessee	Birthday Rocket	D12-3
23	Taylor Jessee	Super Bertha	C11-3
24	Taylor Jessee	Baby Bertha	C6-3	First tracking practice, good.
25	Tim Burger	Sprint 24C	C11-7	Track: 117.6 meters
26	Christian Bruggeman	Nemesis	C6-5	Track: lost
27	Ian Desselle	Lightning 3000	A8-3
28	Ian Desselle	Firebird	A8-3
29	George Scheil	Sunward Phoenix	C6-5
30	Randall Jessee	Maxi-V2	F21-6	Nice!
31	Tim Burger	Sprint 24C	D15-7	Track: 251 Meters.
32	George Scheil	Interdictor	B6-4
33	Dave Bucher	C Rocket Glider	C6-3	Heads up flight!
34	Ian Desselle	Viking	C6-5	CATO! (Quest motor)
35	Ian Desselle	Lightning	C6-5	Drag race with next
36	Randall Jessee	Baby Bertha	C6-5	Drag race with previous
37	Taylor Jessee	Super Eagle	C6-3	Nice; one ’chute did not open
38	George Scheil	UFO (Area 51)	C6-0
39	Tim Burger	Maxi-Alpha	D9-4	Very long delay; came out OK though
40	Dave Bucher	B Rocket Glider	B6-4	Rod hanger!
41	George Scheil	Cosmic Cobra	B6-4
42	Ian Desselle	Baby Bertha	C6-5	CATO! (Another Quest)
43	Taylor Jessee	BullPup	B6-4	Drag race with previous
44	Ian Desselle	Baby Bertha	C6-5	CATO again! (Another Quest)
45	Taylor Jessee	Baby Bertha	C5-3	Drag race with previous
46	Dan Kirk	Fiesta	A3-4T	Tracked to 18.3M
47	Dan Kirk	Viking	A8-3
48	Dan Kirk	Wizard	A8-3
49	Dan Kirk	Wizard	A8-3
50	Dan Kirk	Punk #1	A3-4T	Tracked to 108.9M
51	Dan Kirk	Punk #2	A3-4T
52	Ian Jessee	Aquarius	D12-5	Drag race with next
53	Taylor Jessee	Super Bertha	D12-5	Drag race with previous
54	Dave Bucher	Large C Rocket Glider	C6-3
55	Dave Bucher	Medium C Rocket Glider	C6-3
56	George Scheil	Mediocre Fred	B6-2
57	Tim Burger	Sprint 24C	D9-4	Very high — after three misfires.
58	Ian Desselle	SR 71 Blackbird	C6-3	Separation
59	Dan Kirk	Wicked Winnie	C6-3	Nice flight and recovery
60	Dan Kirk	Icarus	C6-3	Very nice
61	Ian Desselle	Viking	C6-7
62	Dave Bucher	Mercury Redstone	C6-3
63	Dave Bucher	Spindizzy Saucer	2X C5-3	Both motors CATOed
64	Dave Bucher	A Altitude “A”	A3-4T	Tracked to 184.8M
65	Dave Bucher	A Altitude “B”	A3-4T
66	Dave Bucher	B payload	B6-4
67	Dan Kirk	Shuttle Express	C6-3
68	Dan Kirk	Edmunds Tinee	A3-4T
69	Ian Desselle	?	B4-4
70	Bob Wingate	Executioner	D12-5	Tracked to 242.9M

Totals by motor:

Motor	Number	Impulse (Newtons)
A3	6	13.32
A8	10	23.20
B4	1	4.29
B6	13	56.29
C5	5	45.50
C6	23	202.86
C11	3	26.40
D9	2	37.52
D12	7	117.88
D15	1	18.96
E9	1	27.87
F21	1	60.45
Total:	73	634.54

Submitted by Tim Burger NAR 78486 L1.

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