This was my 1,000 recorded rocket launch since 2009.
I picked my personal favorite, The Doctor Zooch SATURN V with an Estes B6-4 lofting it to 300 feet.
Every flight now is logged in at RocketReviews.com. I probably had another hundred before 2009 but didn't keep an accurate track of them until I started recording them on the Rocket Reviews website.
TIP: Go to RocketReviews.com and register! You'll be able to log your flights while the website tracks your totals, impulse, engine use, flights per model, average price per flight, motors by class count and per year launch cost!
In 1969 I kept track of the first launches on a legal pad. Who knows where that is now! I had over 500 flights in that book. And with scattered "here and there" launches, the total flight number is probably closer to 1,800.
Notice how even the exhaust smoke is evenly displaced around the new Odd'l Blast! Deflector.
The model did spiral on the way up, not normal for this one.
It landed just on the other side of the fence between two trees.
When I picked it up I noticed it was missing one fin and its fairing.
It might have came off during boost - that would explain the slight corkscrew.
I'd rather have the repair than end up stuck in a tree.
A sturdy favorite, the Quest VIPER had it's 16th flight with the standard Quest A6-4 to an estimated 275 feet.
A textbook flight with soft recovery and no damage.
The BT-5 based Estes YELLOW JACKET was launched with an old MPC 1/2A3-5m engine.
This one screamed to an estimated 375 feet then drifted under a 10" long streamer.
The inset picture shows the landing area, the parking lot about 200 yards away. It looks like it just wanted to join the party.
Note: I should have tried to print this one darker, maybe on some gloss stock. The gloss black on the nose cone is a high contrast against the lighter inkjet body wrap print.
A little sideline with another favorite, the FlisKits M.A.C.M.E. SHREW with a MMX engine.
It took a second igniter and a extra second holding down the launch button to get it to air-born.
Altitude? Maybe 35 feet with streamer eject.
Always a good laugh, just what Jim Flis intended.
Rounding out the hot, sweaty morning with the last flight
The Estes PATRIOT to 300 feet with an Estes B6-4 engine.
Perfect, straight boost and recovery. No damage.
New launch count - 1,004!
On the walk home I kept an eye out for the Saturn V fin and fairing but had no luck. It's 8:00 a.m. and the wind is just starting up. I've already sweated through my clothes. Florida Summers - miserable!
I believe the Hornet downscale is actually a Yellow Jacket. https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=estes+yellow+jacket&gbv=2&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&ei=2ECaVcCFMYGRyASSrqlA&ved=0CBQQsAQ&tbm=isch
ReplyDeleteThanks Bill,
DeleteI knew it was some flying, stinging insect. That's what happens when a post is put together very late at night. Correction made.
I know Estes also made a Hornet kit, heck they've used all the good names and some really bad ones.
I was lucky in that when I was a kid, I was nerd enough to not only keep notebooks on everything, but to have kept track of them after all these years. I still have my beer can collection notebook AND file card box, and I also had the notebook that I kept my early flights in. It's not much on detail, just rocket, motor and launch location in most instances, but it's something. I know I had two packs of motors that my son and I burned through in 1995, but I can't find any pics or anything I wrote down, so I kept them out of my flight log at Rocket Reviews.
ReplyDeleteBill,
DeleteThe Rocket Reviews flight record is valuable to me. Everything is there now, except the few water rockets flights. I wouldn't count those until I get into a more sophisticated parachute "ejection".
That original flight record legal pad and binder should still be in the closet of my old room in Ca.
They've actually done at least three Hornets in the past, the seldom seen Mini Brute Hornet, the faux missile Hornet from the early 90's, and the current repop of the Centuri Magnum Hornet. I've flown two of them and have the third in the build queue. And two of the three had a yellow/black paint scheme, so you were closer than you thought.
ReplyDeleteHi Bill,
DeleteI had the original Mini Brute Hornet. I remember finishing it and thinking: "That's not a very interesting design."
The newer (Centuri) Estes Hornet is a better design. Both the Hornet and older Yellow Jacket use the same flying "bug" decal. Maybe that's why I got the names mixed up.