LAUNCH! Soccer Field April 30, 2011

Here's what the soccer field looks like at 7:30 a.m.
Clear, calm and cool - perfect.

That's the first flight of the day, Hot Rod Rockets BELL BOTTOM. It's BT-5 based with streamer recovery. It flew to an estimated 350 feet with an Estes A10-3t.




The FRANKEN GOBLIN flew next with an Estes A8-3.

Certainly a dramatic boost with a 12" trash bag parachute at recovery.

The CORKSCREW had a strong launch with an A3-4t with lots of the "screwy" smoke trail. This time I could hear a helicopter sound of "fwip, fwip, fwip" during boost.
I guess I can't brag I never kick an engine at ejection anymore.
At ejection, I could see the nose cone had separated but the streamer was still inside. It even corkscrewed on the way down!
It nosed in and hit hard on the basketball court blacktop. It only suffered a 1/2" crimp at the top of the BT-5 body tube.
I'll cut that off and be ready to go again. The shorter it gets, the more it'll corkscrew anyway!

By now there were a few walkers, basketball players and six men showed up to set up for Cricket practice!
All were interested in the rockets, so I let a Cricket player launch the Odd'l Rockets CYCLONE.

The CYCLONE didn't disappoint even with the small 1/2A3-2t engine.
We all heard it whistle on the way up. At ejection it spun (especially the upper section) drifting 150 yards away. I would estimate altitude at 275 feet with a 25 second monocopter duration.

I learned a little more about Cricket and they had plenty of questions about model rocketry. Everyone thought this would be great activity to share with their kids. I handed out business cards with plenty of rocketry links.

Also flown:
The FlisKits INTERLOPER with a Micromaxx engine. Great altitude and streamer recovery.