ROC August 2003 Launch

Lucerne Dry Lake Bed, California (RHB). It is August.  It is the desert.  It is hot.  The sun rises at six.  The wind rises at two.  It is hot.  Men, women, and children  rise with the dawn.  The lake bed comes alive with smoke and flame and rockets soaring high (and not so high). And, it is hot…

And so passes another typical ROC summer launch. The Friday evening early birds, Myself and Team Danjou (Joe and Kevin) were greeted by 20mph west winds, three digit temperatures, and porta-potties.  With sunset things cooled off, the wind began to abate, and more refugees of the LA-to-Las Vegas parking lot (otherwise known as interstate 15) began to arrive, including our venerable president, Greg Lawson.  However, since Wedge was not present, there was no fire (too hot anyway), and we all sat around and chatted in the moonlight ‘til the wee hours by which time Wayne Mrazek and our red-hatted VP, Ron McGough, strayed in.

Dawn brought pleasant temps, no wind, and Rick O’Neil with the club trailer.  The range was set up by 7:30am. First off was my “Flying Funoodle of Death” on an E9. Alas, it had sustained internal damage in transit and wallowed around the sky after liftoff.  It was on the ground even as the engine shut down.  This seemed to dissuade other potential fliers for a time, because the next rocket wasn’t sent up for another hour.  By 9am the pace had picked up considerably and stayed busy until noon, by which time the heat was driving everyone under cover.  The last rocket finally went up around 1:30pm off the Hybrid pad even as the rest of the range was being packed into the trailer. 

In all 60 fliers sent up 146 flights.  Of these, 54 used BP, 83 used AP, and 9 were powered by hybrid motors.  Motor power ranged from the lowly 1/4A3 used by Andrea Ennis’ in her Estes X-Ray nee’ “Legally Bombed”, up to the K550 used by Roy Knyrim in his Skunkworks V-2.  In all, the total impulse expended is estimated to have been in the neighborhood of 31000N-s. This number is low since few high impulse motors were fired.  However, lots of H, I, and J White Lightning, Red Line, and Smoky Sam reloads were sent up.

The busiest flier was Jordan Burchett who put up 9 different rockets on motors ranging from C6 to F62.  Right behind him was Kevin Danjou who had 8 flights on 7 rockets on motors ranging from 1/2A6 to G64. His Dad, Joe Danjou, was good for three flights.  He writes, “Ever have a favorite rocket you just always could rely on to fly straight and true....??  Until last weekend, I usta' have one. My BSD ‘Diablo’ was my first real high-power rocket and it's flown at least 30 times over the past two years on H and I motors under the pad name of "NASTY LITTLE BOY".  Wouldn't you know that it would CATO ON A "G" MOTOR... while flying as "CHOIRBOY"?  For those of you who saw it's demise, it was the orange ‘flaming candle of death’ that CATO'd at the flight line.  It was totally charred....no ‘cut off the tube; add a coupler’ for this one....it's dead.” A venerable rocket can have a no more glorious demise.

Slightly better luck was experienced by the Sutton clan (Brian, Andrea, Claire, Doug, Michael, and Natalie). Between the six of them, they had 12 flights and only one mishap: Doug’s scratch-built rocket called “Black Magic” went up on a C6 and came down a core sample. Brian had 4 of the flights and wanted to note they included his first RATT flight: “‘Rainbow Six’ on a RATT I80 flew to 2,424 ft as recorded by the G-Whiz, perfectly straight up, perfect deployment, soft landing 30 yards from the pad.”  He went on to describe the flights of his smaller birds.  “My Estes ‘Orbital Transport’ put in another great flight on a C6-5, and my ‘Astron Cobra’ ripped off the pad to the roar of three C6-7s.  I'm starting to like small engines in clusters. ‘Cougar Express’ lofted on two D12-5s; someone described it as ‘Majestic’.”

Sharing individual honors with 7 flights apiece were Mark Hayes and Roy Knyrim.  Mark wowed the crowd early on with his scratch-built bird named “Deuces Wild”.  The name is apt.  It flies on two E9’s that are canted producing two distinct exhaust plumes that gracefully spiral around each other during thrust.  Some of Mark’s other attempts weren’t quite as successful but all generated interest: his “Warthog” became a cruise missile, his “Ramjet” became a core sample, while his “Standard Rim 67A” and “Aerraux” both became lake stakes. However, his scratch-built “Mean Streak v2.1” flew just fine on a Pro38 I287.  Roy, on the other hand, had good flights with 6 of his 7 rockets.  His G through I powered flights were all successful, but his Skunkworks “V-2” suffered a separation after lofting on a K550.

Rick Dickinson showed up to fly more crayons.  His first, a favorite called simply “Big Red Crayon” was sent up on a Hypertek J317 airstarting a H180 White Lightning, H242 Blue Thunder, and H165 Redline.  The display would have been very patriotic but for the fact that only one of the airstarts lit. However, the parachutes deployed properly and “The Big Red Crayon” will fly again.  Rick’s second rocket was labeled “Cyan Crayon” and flew nicely on a H165 Redline.

Despite a slow start, the launch did have it’s exciting moments. Certainly the most visceral was the flight of Wayne Mrazek’s (NowHygrids) venerable scratch-built beast aptly named “Orange”. There was some question as to which of Dave Griffith’s RATTworks motors Wayne was demonstrating, but the demonstration did not go as planned.  One theory is that the aluminum nozzle modified to enhance the motors “scream potential” burned off.  The result was a flight that had people at the flight line screaming for cover.  Shortly after liftoff the rocket swirled around, then straightened out heading for the flight line.  Fortunately, it was also heading down and impacted hard. This destroyed most of the rocket, but the motor was just getting warmed up. The remnant continued toward the flight line and impacted again feet short of the flags. With this impact the motor shed the last remnants of the rocket, changed direction, and looped its way back toward the low power pads where it finally came to rest.  Many feel that this motor design needs to be tweaked.

John, and daughter, Amanda Wahlquist had a busy day. John, lamenting the present inability to obtain Aerotech hybrid motors, condescended to demo a 38mm RATT I110. John was right in line behind Wayne and had a front row seat on the ‘Orange’ debacle. Reviewing the spectacle, John considered, “All right, now after all this I'm still supposed to put ‘Ad Astra’ up on another of Dave's demo motors???  Yep!  After picking up the pieces of ‘The Rocket Formerly Known as Orange’ (gotta leave the lakebed clean, you know), we went out to rack up ‘Ad Astra’.  And wouldn't you know it - we had problems getting things set up…  After getting things sorted out and adjusted, …we're all set so we pressurized and then launched.  Launch delay was about 4-5 seconds before the motor lit well enough to launch, then it screamed skyward.  Final altitude was 2728' comparing favorably with a previous launch on an Aerotech I motor that took ‘Ad Astra’ to 2932'.

“Our other flights for the day consisted of a flight of my daughters Aerotech ‘Mirage’ named 'Purple People Eater' on a G38-4J and my LOC ‘Viper III’ on a cluster of three  E9-8's.  At ejection the chute of the ‘Viper’ hung up in the airframe and the rocket dropped almost a half way before working it's way free.  John Van Norman, our LCO at the time, was heard to comment ‘I pay $200 to get my rockets to do that.’”  You just have to learn the right way to rig your chutes, I guess.

Chris Feenstra was also privileged to demo a RATTworks motor, a 38mm J350, in his BSD ‘Apache’. Commented Chris, “[it] would have reached 4000 feet or so if everything went OK.” But like John Wahlquist, it took awhile to get the rocket setup on the hybrid pad. Chris continued, “We used a HyperTek style oxygen based ignition system that uses a stainless steel tube to inject oxygen into the motor. The nylon tube that feeds the NOX passes through the middle of the stainless steel tube. Upon ignition the rocket moved up a few inches and jammed. After most of the burn the rocket came loose and flew to about 300 feet. The AltAcc2C did its job and the rocket recovered successfully. I didn't get to see the fill stem. I wouldn't be surprised if it was damaged by being exposed to most of the motor burn like that.  The rocket was sliding freely on the rail. My guess is that the fill stem jammed in the motor, perhaps where the tape was used to hold the ignition zip cord wire. It seemed to be a tight fit to me.  I would rather have seen the rocket go to 4000 feet, but after seeing a few costly crashes I was glad to just get my rocket back undamaged.”  And he didn’t have to walk far to recover it, either.

This launch was special because it marked the return of the Van Normans to the roster of active fliers.  Of course, it took a free rocket to do it.  John and Veni put up their Aerotech ‘G-Force’ christened ‘Raffle Dazzle’ – they won it in a raffle – twice. As I understand it, the first flight was by Veni and the rocket performed flawlessly on a G64. The second flight was by John, also on a G64, and was less than perfect. There was no parachute deployment (John, for small motors you add that little red cup of black granular stuff to the pocket on top of the motor and it pushes the parachute out) and the rocket became a lake stake. As John described their experience, “Uh, we try to fly a couple of G64's--One went great!  That's a HAPPY rocket. In the other I underestimated the amount of BP needed and shortened the rocket by a whole two feet!! That's a SAD rocket.” For such eloquence we keep John around for LCO duty.

Seeking success through an alternate route, John went for greater complexity and lower power: “…I flew Dennis Dinga's ‘Snitch’ two stage, D to C, and almost landed it on top of Ron [McGough]'s EZ-Up! But it was neither red or blue--it was green!” …Um, yes, thank you.

The ‘Snitch’ was not the only rocket our peerless VP had to dodge. Earlier a fairly large rocket came down under chute on the cab of the McGough’s pickup. Lamented Ron, “Well, let's see I've been involved with ROC since 1995 and since then I've had my truck (94 Ford Ranger) hit in the camper shell by a incoming rocket while a LOC Legacy sitting on top was cut in half by the fin of the incoming rocket, I've been hit in the rear of my trailer while sitting at a RED light on Bear Valley Road… and now I've been hit by another rocket floating down on parachute in the cab of my 90 Ford F-250...  Is this bad luck or what?  I've been hit 3 times either participating in a launch or on my way to a launch, I'm about ready to throw in that RED HAT!  Just kidding of course, with all the work it's still fun.”

It could be worse.  The rockets could be aiming for you.  That’s what happened to Mike Riss who looked up from his work at the flight line just in time to be enveloped by the parachute of a descending rocket.  Both the rocket and Mr. Riss are doing fine.

This launch saw the ranks of high power fliers swelled by three. Level 1 certs were successfully achieved by Brad Dennis with an Aerotech “Initiator” lofted on a H128, Chris Jolly with a Rocket Dynamics “Moonrakker” powered by a I218 Redline, and Todd Sherinian with a scratch built bird named “One Ugly Rocket” that went up on a Pro38 I212.  Way to go guys!

No Level 2 or Level 3 certifications were attempted at this launch.

We want to thank vendors “What’s Up Hobbies”,  “RocketMotion” and “Rocket Rage” for providing motors kits and parts.  In particular, it was nice to see the influx of fresh AP from Utah in the form of H, I, and J White Lightening and Redline reloads.  Rumor has it that fresh single use and larger reloads may be available in time for September’s launch.

See ya’ll on the 13^th.