Launch Report - 30/31 May, 1998

14AL is named in honor of the late Al Neinast, a top competitor in NAR competitions in the late 70's and early 80's. Al lived in Tomah, Wisconsin and was a two-time national champion. "Uncle Al" was a gentleman as well as a competitor and was known for keeping a "pet thermal". Al was a friend to all who flew with and against him and he represented Wisconsin well in all his rocketry endeavors. - © copyright 1998, Dan Wolf

On Saturday I was needed to help my wife get set up for Racine's Art Walk, so I didn't get to the launch site at Bong until about 11:00 A.M. Once there, I decided to try to get in some of my contest flights before the wind picked up too much.

The only 'appropriate' model I had for 1/A-Parachute Duration (1/4A-PD) was my Apogee micro-V2 that I was planning to use for both the 1/4A-PD and Sport Scale events. I prepped with a 1/4A2-2 and a 12" Estes plastic chute, using a couple partial sheets of wadding. We had a very nice launch, but on ejection only the nose cone popped off - the parachute didn't even come out of the body tube. DQ on my first flight of the day. :-(

The wind started to pick up a little, so I decided to try to get in a B-Helicopter Duration (B-HD) flight before it got too windy. I prepped my Apogee HeliRoc with a B2-3, using some thin elastic thread to tie down the rotors. One of the rotors wouldn't lie flat on the body tube against the stress of its rubber band. It appears the balsa was a bit too soft for use as a rotor. Anyway, I launched and the bowed blade threw the CP *way* off. After three or four loops, the HeliRoc flopped down on the runway, smoked for a couple seconds of delay, and ejected. I can report that the elastic thread worked admiably for the burn string, as the rotors popped into position while the body tube lay on the ground. ;-) Two flights, two DQs. Grumph!

Fortunately, I had brought a back-up for the B-HD event. Back in December I modified an Estes Turbo-Copter to recover on its nose rotor. When I thanked Lila for the idea she told me it came from Bob Alway. Anyway, I prepped this one on a B6-6. wRASP predicted about 800' altitude on this motor and I can believe it came close to that. This model deployed very near apogee and spun down for a 20+ second flight. Finally! My first qualified flight of the contest.

Kurt Schachner was working the check-in and LCO duties when I arrived and was still on duty during the early afternoon. He wanted to get in a couple flights, so I spelled him until it was time to prep my B Alt models and head out to my tracking station. I enjoy working the range head since it gives me a chance to see the models up close before they're launched.

I had signed up to be a tracker, so when it was time for tracking to open I headed out to tracking west along with Doug xxx, while Gary Miller went to man tracking east. We had to shift tracking west about 25-30 yards north before we were able to see tracking east (past a bit of a tree line), but once set we were in good shape. The sky conditions were NOT good for tracking. Lots of high cloud cover and most of the sky just shades of gray. I only saw one model during my tracking session - a big (BT-60 or BT-80), slow sport launch. On all the rest I did not see a single launch. If the model didn't put out a good cloud of tracking powder at ejection, I didn't get a reading. Fortunately, Doug spotted some of the powder clouds I missed and pointed them out in time to get a reading. Of the models that we got readings for, only one track didn't close.

Unfortunately, my Centrix clone was *not* one of the models that we saw. It had a misfire on the first launch attempt, but one of the guys at the rangehead re-prepped it for me and we got a launch. The B2-7 burned forever, but no one ever heard an ejection or saw a tracking cloud.

I had also prepped my modified Turbo-Copter on a B6-6 as a backup, but my proxy flier felt the nose cone was too tight in the body tube and wanted me to check it out, so I left Doug to run tracking west and went back to the range head to check my model. When I checked it, it felt about right to me, so I loaded it on the pad. Unfortunately, on launch, something went wrong. Much like my HeliRoc, the Turbo-Copter looped around, flopped onto the runway and finally, ejected a nice cloud of orange tracking powder. When I examined the rocket, the engine mount had ripped its way about an inch rearward of its initial position. I don't know if this happened during prep (I hadn't noticed it) or as a result of a tight nose cone containing the ejection, but it resulted in a DQ for this flight. It turns out I could have launched one more flight (due to the track lost on my first flight), but I wasn't aware of that and settled for flight points in the B-Alt event.

After we closed the tracking stations, I readied my Deltie for a launch in A Boost Glide. It flew great, with the wind moving it westward along the runway. It landed about 10 feet north of the runway after a 47 second flight (by my watch), but 42 seconds according to the timers at the range head.

Since the first flight went so well, I prepped the Deltie again. This time, the glider caught on the closepin that was holding up the power pod and the glider separated from the pod under power. Luckily, no damage to the pod or glider, but my second flight was DQ'd for safety. It looks like I'm going to have to build a pad adapter for future competitions.

All told, I was not very happy with my Saturday flights. Four DQs out of seven flights! This was nowhere near as well as I did at MWRC-97 last fall.

When I came back on Sunday, I only needed to complete two competition flights, Sport Scale and my second attempt at 1/4A-PD.

My Sport Scale entry was the Apogee micro-V2 that I was also using for 1/4A-PD. I had finished painting it on Friday evening, modeled after round 25 from the data presented in Peter Alway's Rockets of the World. This had a reasonably simple paint scheme of basic white with semi-checkerboard black fins and bare metal (I used Pactra gunmetal paint) nose tip. After static judging, my Apogee Micro-V2 was in fifth place. Not bad for my first try at scale competition. I flew on a 1/2A2-4 with streamer recovery and had a very nice flight. The model landed with no damage about 5 feet south of the runway a couple hundred feet downrange for a full 100 flight points, but no mission points.

For my final competition flight, I exchanged the streamer in the micro-V2 for another 12" parachute. I packed this one as tightly as I dared, with two quarter sheets of wadding -- hoping to get a deployment this time. No such luck! As with the first PD flight, the nose popped off but the chute stayed in the body tube. Another DQ! :-(

I tried out my Edmonds Ecee on an A3-2T. It appears I may have done a no-no during my build-up, as I airfoiled the wings and canard. On launch, the model arced over into the ground under power. The model was not damaged. It's possible I may have forgotten to push back the ejection plug that allows the canard to move freely under boost. When I e-mailed Rob Edmonds, he told me the model was designed NOT to be airfoiled - since there is no way for him to guarentee everyone would airfoil the same way/amount. Be that as it may, I'll make better notes the next time I launch it so I can pass on more info to him.

I also sport launched my Estes Mk-109 Stingray on an A8-3. This was the model's maiden launch and I have to say it flew very nicely. If you look at my web-page for this model, note that I DID add some clay noseweight so it should be stable on C engines and I also extended the shock cord to try to minimize any "Estes dents" in the body tube.

At Annie's American Cafe for the awards, it turned out I did better than I had thought. I placed 4th in A-BG with my one flight (missed 3rd by only one second), 3rd in Sport Scale (Dave's beautiful Sandhawk that had been five points ahead of me after static judging cracked a fin on landing and lost 10 flight points), and 2nd on my one qualified B-HD flight (more DQs or non-fliers there than I realized). That, combined with my flight points for B-Alt (on the lost-track flight) placed me in 3rd overall in C-Division for the contest - and the highest ranking WOOSH flier in C-Division for this contest.