When I arrived at the Plant City launch site at 10:30 a.m.the winds were starting to pick up. Gusts were up to 15 m.p.h. with stronger winds a few hundred feet up.
To check the conditions I first flew the Custon NOMAD with an Estes C6-5.
Even with the winds, my flights were straight up.
Under a 12" trash bag parachute this one landed 200' downrange right behind the outhouse.
This one needs explaining.
Somewhere along the way, that nose cone was severely warped from sun exposure.
I bought the Custom kit anyway and built it around the curved nose cone. The body tube was cut and angled in a slight zig-zag design.
The WARPED had a good stable straight boost with it's first test on an A8-3.
The parachute brought it down to the same spot where the Nomad landed.
Lonnie Buchanhon showed me how he's tying up shock cords and parachutes, around a plastic ring he found in JoAnne's Fabrics.
He's still testing it to see if the ring holds up to ejection stresses. The attachment held up great today.
Say goodbye to the BIG GIRTHA!
This was supposed to be a good engine combination for my new keychain camera. Two C6-5 engines gave a good boost to about 1,000 feet.
There was only a single 16" parachute and looked like it was going to land in the field. At about 500 feet up, high winds and a thermal kept it from descending. It landed somewhere in the trees to the east.
I walked through the scrubs and Lonnie B drove me to the east side of the ranch. No luck!
Fly a lot - lose a few! I should have stayed with the two B6-4s I had planned on using. Rocket, camera and video gone!
The wind gusts played havoc with a few flights. When many of the LPR birds cleared the launch rods you could see the wind gusts hit them putting a jog in their trajectory.
Bill Gibson had a Semroc Hornet go unstable with a D12-5! All we could figure was a wind gust caught it before it got up to speed.
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