Launch! NEFAR, Bunnell Blast, FL November 8, 2014

The Bunnell Blast is a two day event with a night launch on Saturday night. I was there for the day on Saturday.

Somewhere in that ball of flame is the SPUDNIK!

The A10-3t engine blew through the top and reamed out the inside of the foam potato.

You can see the engine flying off to the upper right.

Not a great start to the day!

I used up two igniters trying to get the D12-5 engine to light in the Quest STILETTO.

My new Canon SX280HS camera has a good burst mode, seven shots in 1/2 second! This should make for some better launch pictures.

Estimated altitude 800 feet. The parachute did deploy but the wadding stayed in the rocket. No damage on recovery.

Mike Orpi launched his Fliskits T.O.G. twice with D12-5 engines.

A slow roll got it to apogee.

I finally got to try the Estes Altimeter twice in my Estes PATRIOT.
The first flight seemed way too low reading 135 feet on the first B6-4 launch. The second launch was 300 feet with a C6-5.
These altitudes seem low! Even the Estes Patriot copy says: "Blast 600 feet high using the standard Estes engines."
Both flights were textbook, no damage on recovery.

Launches seemed to move slow, it took a while to set up the full LPR racks and plenty of MPR and HPR flights. The NEFAR raffle took another hour.

The wasted engine of the day:
I got in five flights, the last one in the MX-774 kitbashed from an Estes Bullpup.
The igniter tape was marked B6-4 but the apogee was low. After recovery the engine was pulled. It was an A8-3!

Well, that could be your problem right there.

Lots of sparks are seen under the dark cloud cover.