Southern Thunder Report
All I can say is, WOW!
I'm pretty sure Southern Thunder 2006 was a resounding success! Two solid days of punching holes in the sky, and getting your tonsils sunburned from looking up into the sky so much.
I myself only got in 5 actual flights. I had a failure on the pad, plus I was taking photos for Extreme Rocketry really cut into my flying time. Plus, when you have a over a hundred people all vying for 10 low power pads and 10 high power pads, plus a couple of "away cells" where you have the BIG projects, then recovery and prep time, you don't get a lot of individual flights in, but a lot of flights for the flightline.
My first flight was on my brand new, virgin Mars Snooper. I received a lot of comments about how nice and cool the rocket. I flew it on the low power pads first, and had a successful flight.
Second flight was my Strong Arm, a mid-power rocket. It flew straight and recovery was easy.
My next flight was going to be on a donated rocket, but waiting for the launch controller to get around to my pad, the pad fell over, and ripped the launch lugs right off the rocket. No way to repair it on the field, so this birds weekend was over before it started.
So, I took the motor meant for that rocket and put it into my Garth R., named for my father. That one jumped straight for the sky and landed perfectly. So ended the first day of rocket flying.
We went back to the hotel, and I loaded up my biggest rocket motor for a flight Sunday.
Sunday came, and we again lumbered out to the field, and I tried my Mars Snooper again, this time on a larger motor. This one I had bought as a reloaded motor, so I wasn't sure it would fly, but fly it did. The bad news is the motor delay was too long and the parachute didn't get a chance to deploy before it hit the sod. Total loss of a $70 rocket. But it wouldn't be rocket science if there weren't a few crashes and explosions to keep you on your toes.
I flew my Strong Arm again, this time on a reloaded motor, and I had quite a walk to recover this one. Who says you don't get exercise chasing rockets? This, unfortunately turned out to be the last flight of the day.
I was about 3/4ers of the way prepping the Garth R for a flight to about 6,000 feet with the motor I loaded the night before, but a storm cell had come into the area, and I didn't want to launch it while it was raining. Things are time critical when you load a rocket with electronics, as the batteries need maximum juice to fire the ejection charges. I need to assemble the entire rocket, then place the batteries and head off to the launch pad within a certain period of time. With the storm cell in the area (it never touched us, but it did shift the wind around) I scrubbed the launch. I'm glad I did, as the wind shift started sending the rockets into the woods near the launch pads. So this motor is sitting waiting for me to launch it this coming Saturday, weather permitting.
Last note, the biggest project of the weekend was a 3/4 scale Coyote, a rocket I had never heard of before. The rocket was about 12 feet tall and 9 inches in diameter. Here is a picture of it launching:
Click on pictures for full size.
Here is a picture of it landing, the bad news is it didn't land under a parachute.
So. What did YOU do on your weekend?