My last sunburn was on a day when I got caught up launching rockets with my fellow nerds, so you'd think I'd remember sunblock. It was cloudy when I got there, but blah blah, broken record. I know you can burn on a cloudy day, too.
I didn't mean to stay at SM Park for so long, actually: I meant to split my day with the big kite fest out at Longview, but I kept saying 'just one more launch' until it was suddenly 6:30 in the evening and Blake was inviting us to his place for a 'building session.'
But I should have known: A couple of kite-flying dudes left and went to Longview and came back, and I was still out launching rockets. I guess you'd have to file this under the same category as the heart attack survivor eating at Max's Autodiner (for the record, something I haven't done in months).
Blake launched his egglofter. I need to build such a bird, it's a great challenge. The deal is, you have to get a raw egg up and back down unbroken. It's a competitive event in model rocketry, as a matter of fact.
So is streamer duration, and his B streamer duration rocket, if it didn't spend two minutes falling, I'm about to get signed as a Coppertone model.
Wind was an issue, but not insurmountable. I had an FAA notification in so I could launch Floyd, and he is a rocket I never thought I'd worry about losing. He's over five feet long and weighs over a pound. I tried supplementing his 24" parachute with two twelves, but I don't think it did me much good: one of the twelves never opened and the other seemed to wrap around the nose cone. He drifted further than I'd have expected, landing maybe thirty feet from the tree line.
I flew very few parachutes today. I found myself using streamers on rockets I'd once considered too big for streamer recovery. Brian from Australia was out with his son, and they were flying with no streamer or parachute, just a long shock chord. His theory is build the rocket to survive the landing instead of letting it get lost on its recovery device.
His shock chords are so long they basically amount to streamers, but his theory works most of the time. He did do a spectacular core sample, but only one.
When I launched Great Pumpkin Rides Again on an E9-8, with only a streamer for recovery, I worried about it taking too hard a landing. Then, after it was up in the air, I worried it would drift away even falling with only a streamer. It kept falling, and falling, and drifting and falling. I have a video of the launch, which I won't bother uploading because it mainly shows blue sky you wouldn't be able to see the rocket in, but I know from the clip that he took over a minute to fall. Thats some altitude.
Emboldened by this, I launched Punk Rocket Girl, who'd been up on a D12 with a small parachute, on an E9 with a streamer. On which, she drifted on past the trees. I walked out to the access road, and looked around a wide swath. She's a big purple rocket with a Jackson Pollack paint job, I think I'd at least see her even if I couldn't reach her.
My theory now is some asshead driving in on the access road spotted her and adopted her. My phone number was on her fin, but experience as told me it's a rare person who actually returns a found rocket even when it's got good contact info on it and when that person has no earthly use for a model rocket.
I was pleased, though, that my experiment in fiberglassing the fins on Kandy Kolored Tangerine Flake Streamline Baby's booster worked. The glass added weight but the fins stayed firmly attached on impact.
I had my new range box out, a big Plano tackle box I found on the cheap. I notice other rocketeers seem to have the same idea...
Blake was, of course, flying boost-gliders and auditioned his two-stager. On a B6-0 to an A8-3, it went, well, it went. Blake tracked it, walking off and out of sight for awhile. He eventually came back, saying the glider had left the park and he eventually lost sight of it. If only he had a homing device and the Black Rock Desert to launch that in.
I did get my lines tangled, more than a bit. Eventually, with a little help from my friends and no help from the wind...
The building session Blake invited us to turned out to be more of a bull session, which was fine. He built a streamer for another streamer duration rocket, but mainly we shot the shit. And had a fantastic meal cooked by his mother-in-law and wife.
I think the only thing Blake likes more than boost gliders is Ford Mustangs. He and his wife drive matching his & hers. The artist formerly known as Frau Lobster was big on Mustangs, used to tell me there's one in every movie. Though I don't think any made it into Star Wars or Braveheart...
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