Launch Report - 13 June, 1998

My wife, Jeanne, participated in the Monument Square Art Fair held at the Racine Festival site this weekend (here are some samples of her work), so I was a bit delayed getting up to the launch. After getting her set up on Saturday morning and coming back to give her a lunch break, I ran up to Milwaukee to show the launch participants the club membership cards I'm working on in order to get a little feedback on how they look.

I was running pretty late and didn't arrive on the Wisconsin Avenue side of the County Grounds until a bit after 2:00 and didn't see anyone in the area. Since the wind was out of the northwest, I figured I should check the north side of the grounds and when I got across the site I found Kurt, Dave and their families set up at the end of the cul-de-sac for the corporate park. They gave me directions on how to *get* to the cul-de-sac and I drove around to join the fun.

I showed the club membership cards I've been working on and pulled out a couple models to launch. I first tried my Novus Aerospace Saucer-75 that I had been working on trimming the last couple launches. The boost was great on an A3-4T -- straight up to good altitude. We lost the payload section at ejection, but the saucer glide started out great. then it started stalling until a final dive from about a 50 foot altitude straight in. Looks like I don't have the trim set yet!

I enjoyed a couple of the other launches (Dave's Skywinder and Kurt's Atlas, Farside on a B14-0, 1/2A6-0, 1/2A6-4 and Titan III-E) and launched my Estes Mk-109 Stingray on a 1/2A6-2 (the only 18mm motor I had with me outside of some C6-7s). It flew straight and true to about a 40-50 foot altitude, ejected cleanly and returned undamaged. Not quite as amusing as the Big Bertha on the 1/2A, but still fun. ;-)

I stuck around to help clean up and then headed back to Racine to help close up Jeanne's booth at the art fair.

I need to do a little more adjusting on the Saucer-75, but otherwise a good launch.