ID

Okay, my brother and his wife came down to start the festivities off. I know this video is really similar to one I posted recently, but damn. It's fun stuff.

I had launched Elephant Lobster already, but for some reason was out of proper recovery wadding.



This wadding, you crumple it up in the tube to protect the parachute from the charge that pops the nose cone and deploys the recover parachute. I don't know if it is supposed to just absorb some of the force, or if it's to protect it from scorching or what. What it looks like, is squares of toilet paper. Really pathetic toilet paper you'd have to use too much of for fear of shit soaking through onto your hand.



So we used a bit of a McDonald's napkin instead.

I don't know if that accounts for what happened next. As you can hear in the video, Scribble turned out to be an awesome, high-flying rocket. It's 1.5 ounce weight (compared to Elephant Lobster's 2.6 ounces) makes a huge difference, turns out. 2.6 ounces plus a .91 ounce engine, that's about a 3-1/2 ounce launch weight. But put the same Newtons under a 2.4 ounce takeoff weight, and it goes so high you can't even see it for a while. According to Estes' literature, this makes a 500 foot difference in the maximum altitude you can gain.

So then my brother spots it coming down, but coming down fast. Not good, no parachute. But then you can see the parachute up there, sort of, maybe?

What was coming down was the body, the tube and fins. With nothing to even slow it down. Under canopy, the nose cone eventually landed. If there'd been even a slight breeze, it would have gone the way of Gonzo.



The shock chord (a rubber band type thing that connects the body and cone), it had broken off. The tube smelled a little like burned rubber, but the chord didn't look singed. Go figure.

I don't know if the napkin was the problem, the wadding burning, or if the stiffness of the napkin ripped the chord somehow or what.



Oh, and the burn pattern on the launcher, it's a face now.

We also played with balsa gliders, which are as flimsy as I remember from my childhood.



We also did the pool, and Mo went off the diving board without a life jacket. Yeah! After swimming under the board to the wall (against the rules, but at least she didn't drown), she started to climb out and then let herself fall back. I got the sense she was chicken to make sure it wasn't her imagination, that it really was that deep.



My Mom and Dad both came down, and we grilled brats and salmon for dinner, then went to see the town fireworks display.

And of course, I had to see if I could get pictures of the fireworks on my camera. Problem is, I don't even know enough about my camera to be dangerous. Owners manuals are impossible for me to read. Not because they're incomprehensible, which they might be, but because I'm wracked by a wave of ennui just thinking about one.

So I have no idea about anything except 'auto.' I've dinked around with the settings, but I tend to get photos like this:



So I was actually pleased to get a shot like this:



It's hardly original, and I could easily find better at a stock photo service, but hey.

More disappointing was the video I tried to get of the finale. My camera isn't really made for video, I think, it's more an afterthought. If you compare it to the motion picture capabilities of a 110 film camera, which is roughly what my digital works out to be the modern equivalent of, it's slick. But it tends to cut off after twenty-ish seconds because the batteries are tired. Or something. Plus, you can hear my commentary on the video, which is deeply lame.





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