Launch Report for Saturday, September 11th, 1999

Having been working on a Y2K software implementation that just went live recently, I finally got a chance to do some flying today. It was sunny, with patchy clouds, temperature was about 23 degrees Celsius (72 degrees F.) with the winds coming in out of the southwest at about 15 km/h. My father & I were at our usual launch site at 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 Ninja, Tidal Wave, Reliant, Hawkeye, Maniac, Nike Arrow, Mongoose, Scamp 01 (my first of two Scamps), and Multi Roc, as well as my Custom Serval, and also my scratch built Arrow, Big Bertha II, Phantom III, and Warthog rockets.

Flight 276, 151st flight this year
Estes Hawkeye on an Estes 1/2A3-2T for its 2nd flight


	First to go up was Hawkeye on a 1/2A3-2T for its second flight to get an idea of speed & direction of the wind at altitude. It drifted quite far from the pad even on just a 1/2A so I had my answer.

Next up was Phantom III on an Apogee A2-3 in a homemade 13 to 10.5mm adaptor. My friction fitting of the adaptor wasn't tight enough though since the motor & adaptor thrust right up into the forward end of the rocket. This was how I also discovered that there was no motor block in this rocket when I built it back in 1982. Sighhhhh... Phantom III arced over past apogee and when the ejection charge fired, it's nose cone popped off, but the streamer didn't eject and it came in for a core sample run into someone's back yard. I recovered the rocket after asking the house's owner if I could enter their back yard. There was a short zipper on the front of the body tube.

Flight 278, 153rd flight this year
Estes Reliant on an Estes A8-3 for its 5th flight


	Reliant was up next on an A8-3 for its fifth flight and the boost was great as usual, but as with Phantom III, the nose cone popped, but the streamer failed to deploy and Reliant too tried to core sample. The result was another short zipper. I'm fairly sure that I had the wadding packed a little too tight on this one.

Flight 279, 154th flight this year
Estes Nike Arrow on an Estes A10-3T for its 4th flight



Nike Arrow went up next on an A10-3T for its fourth flight and its first with its new lengthened shock cord. It was a perfect flight with a great boost and great recovery and no damage. Finally, something's going right today!!!

Flight 280, 155th flight this year
Scratch built Black Bertha on two Estes A8-3's for its 6th flight



	My scratch built Big Bertha II was up next for its sixth flight and its first flight since it pranged hard in 1982 after only one of its two B14-5's lit and I had written it off at the time, but I replaced most of the body tube and I was able to salvage the rest and I changed the nose cone for a real Big Bertha nose cone instead of my poor imitation that I made from balsa back in 1982. Up it went on a pair of A8-3's and it worked perfectly after being grounded for more than half my life.

Flight 281, 156th flight this year
Estes Tidal Wave on an Estes B6-4 for its 2nd flight

Flight 282, 157th flight this year
Scratch built Black Bertha on two Estes B6-4's for its 6th flight




Big Bertha II went up again this time on a pair of B6-4's for its seventh flight and it gave us quite a scare since only one motor lit and it veered off behind us and the parachute deployed only about fifteen feet off the ground. If it had been carrying a payload as it did in 1982, it would have met with the same fate as it did back then.

Flight 283, 158th flight this year
Custom Serval on an Estes C6-5 for its 3rd flight



Serval was next and I decided to give it some altitude this time after sending it up on "B"'s for its previous flights so I sent it up on a C6-5 for its third flight. The flight was great and it landed closer to the pad than I ever could have hoped. I love that red reflective streamer! :-)

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Tidal Wave was up next on a B6-4 for its second flight. Nice flight, nice recovery, not much else to say.