Launch Report for Sunday, August 29th, 1999

Today was my first chance to fly in more than a month due to commitments at work and so I was hoping to get in a lot of flights today. Skies were blue and cloudless and the wind was coming in out of the Northwest at about 20 km/hr I would say. A bit breezy, but not a problem since I was going to keep altitudes fairly low anyway.

My father & I started flying at about 8:30 AM at our usual flying field in the schoolyard of Howard S. Billings Regional High School here in Chateauguay which is a suburb of Montreal in the province of Quebec in Canada. I brought my Estes Hawkeye, Skywinder, Tidal Wave, Maniac, Sky Raider, Multi-Roc, Nike Arrow, Ninja, and my Custom Serval as well as my scratch built micro motor Arrow, and Big Bertha II, a two motor cluster rocket from my childhood which was going to fly for its first time since it pranged in 1982. I also used my new NCR Command Control for the first time that came with my Phantom 4000 starter kit that I bought near Chicago in April. All motors used today were made by Estes.

Flight 276, 149th flight this year
Estes Hawkeye on an Estes 1/2A3-2T for its 2nd flight

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First up was Hawkeye on a 1/2A3-2T for its first flight to gauge wind direction & speed at altitude. Hawkeye was one of my first rockets as a BAR and I built this one in 1997. Great flight and it landed quite far from the pad due to the wind. It actually landed standing up!

Flight 277, 150th flight this year
Estes Skywinder on an Estes C5-3 for its 6th flight

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	Next up was Skywinder on a C5-3 for its sixth flight and its first with the decals on since I finally got around to applying them about three weeks ago. As usual, a great flight but again, quite a drift due to the wind and this is one rocket that I've found doesn't like off vertical launch angles too much so I had launch this one vertically.

Next up was to be Big Bertha II on a pair of A8-3's for its seventh flight and its first since a disastrous prang back in 1982, but my recovery area was rapidly being populated by swarms of kids getting ready for soccer practice and this put an early end to my launch day. Next time, I'll be trying a new field that I discovered recently while passing by on the bus that is actually a bit wider than Billings and it should allow me to launch some of my Aerotech stuff. Can hardly wait!!! :-)