Launch Report for 2002/08/03

Motor Power	Least Powerful	Estes A8 (2.5 N-s)
	Most Powerful	Centuri C5-3S (9.5 N-s)
Flight Duration in Seconds	Shortest	5 (Flight 682)
	Longest	35 (Flight 683)
Number of Landings Outside the Recovery Area		0
Number of Flights Carrying Payloads		0
Number of non-Estes Motors Used		4
Total Number of Flights Today		7

Launch Location
The Schoolyard of
Howard S. Billings Regional High School
Chateauguay, Quebec, Canada

On a spur of the moment thing, I felt like flying something since the winds were relatively calm so I called my friend Tony to see if he wanted to come with me to launch a few. My friend Andrew had sold me his five Estes rockets along with his Big Foot launch pad and I wanted to launch these new additions to my fleet.

Tony & I arrived at the eastern end of the field which is where I usually launch and I brought my NCR Command Control launch controller along with Andrew's Estes Asteroid Explorer, Maxi Streak, Comanche 3, Marte MK-2, and Der Big Red Max which originally came in a starter set with his Big Foot launch pad. I also brought along some of my own rockets as well as my Sony DCR-TRV103 camcorder to record every flight and to produce the images that you see on this page.

Flight 679, 16th flight this year
Estes Marte MK-2 on a Quest B6-4 for its 1st flight

Andrew had flown this rocket before a number of times, but this was this rocket's first flight as a part of my fleet. It flew quite nicely and this was very likely the first time that it has flown on a Quest motor.

Flight 680, 17th flight this year
Estes Sky Raider on an Estes B6-4 for its 7th flight

Flight 681, 18th flight this year
Estes Maxi Streak on a Quest B6-4 for its 1st flight

Andrew had told me once that this Maxi Streak had flown about six times and always on D12-7's. He always got it back too obviously! I chose to send it up on a Quest B6-4 in an 18mm adaptor since I wasn't so sure that I would get it back flying it on a D! Again, this was this rocket's first flight on a Quest motor and it was certainly its lowest altitude flight.

Flight 682, 19th flight this year
Estes Comanche 3 01 on an Estes A8-0 staging to an Estes A8-5 for its 1st flight

Andrew has flown this Comanche 3 before under full power... That is a D12-0 staging to a C6-0 staging to a C6-7. I flew it today in two stage configuration with a 1973 vintage A8-0 in the booster staging an A8-5 in the upper stage. Unfortunately, the flight went very poorly and resulted in a low altitude flight with the booster being damaged beyond repair and the entire lower half of the upper stage needing to be replaced. Initially, I thought that the A8-5 had CATOed by blowing out the nozzle since the upper stage had obviously lost thrust. Turns out that this was not the case. Close examination of the video footage revealed that the booster motor was blown out the back of the first stage without the first stage itself separating. This caused the first stage to be badly burned and the upper stage to take a hard hit on landing since the parachute ejected only about fifteen feet from the ground. The cause of this seems to be that I didn't fit the A8-0 tightly enough into the booster. A lesson for next time.

Flight 683, 20th flight this year
Estes Der Big Red Max 02 on an Estes C6-3 for its 1st flight

Andrew's Der Big Red Max made a great flight on a C6-3 and I used a 12 inch chute instead of the 18 inch one to keep it from drifting too far. Even still, it drifted over 300 feet from the pad, narrowly missing the row of trees near the eastern edge of the field. The winds were stronger at altitude than I thought!

Flight 684, 21st flight this year
Estes Big Bertha on a Quest B6-4 for its 15th flight

My recently restored 1981 vintage Big Bertha made its first flight in a few years and also its first flight on a Quest motor. This old rocket used to fly on Canaroc motors back in 1982 when they were around. It was starting to get dark when I sent this one up so the ignition and ejection charge showed up really well on video. You can even see some of the ejection charge gases escaping out the nozzle.

Flight 685, 22nd flight this year
Quest Big Rage on a Centuri C5-3S for its 9th flight

My trusty old Quest Big Rage went up for its ninth time, but for some reason it veered off towards the southwest and I consider myself lucky to get it back. At this point, I don't know why this happened. It could be that the winds up there were really a lot stronger than I thought and it just weathercocked severely.

It was getting quite dark after the Big Rage flight and so we packed up the gear and left. With one notable exception, it was a great day of flying.

Temperature	26^o C (^o F)
Winds	10 km/hr

Launch Controllers	NCR Command Control
Launch Pads	Estes Big Foot 02

Time at Liftoff:	19:42:09
Flight Duration in Seconds:	30
Distance from Launch Pad in Feet:	~250 northeast

Time at Liftoff:	19:52:16
Flight Duration in Seconds:	21
Distance from Launch Pad in Feet:	105 east northeast

Time at Liftoff:	20:01:50
Flight Duration in Seconds:	28
Distance from Launch Pad in Feet:	206 northeast

My own 1982 vintage Sky Raider was up next on a B6-4 for its usual great flight. I used a 12 inch chute instead of the 18 inch one that came with the kit to keep the rocket from drifting too far.

Time at Liftoff:	20:10:13
Flight Duration in Seconds:	5
Distance from Launch Pad in Feet:	25 southwest

Time at Liftoff:	20:17:50
Flight Duration in Seconds:	35
Distance from Launch Pad in Feet:	304 east

Time at Liftoff:	20:27:39
Flight Duration in Seconds:	15
Distance from Launch Pad in Feet:	51 southwest

Time at Liftoff:	20:36:43
Flight Duration in Seconds:	??
Distance from Launch Pad in Feet:	~200 south southeast