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| After a very long hiatus (for various reasons), I finally got an opportunity for a small launch tonight. Tracy, my wife, was the only attendee, and is responsible for all the photos below. |
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| After a week of really sweltering weather, things cooled off somewhat today. I walked out into the late afternoon sunshine, noted the wind had laid, and realized that I could launch a few. My daughter Taylor had a couple of friends over, and they helped with the launch and recovery. |
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| This was a big year for us in 4-H Aerospace: Besides Justin and Jaclyn, we had two additional kids in the project. Their parents have not authorized me to use their names or pictures, so I'll call them T and J. T and J both had two rockets; each had a Semroc Astron and an Estes Baby Bertha. However, they were not able to finish all their rockets in time (each boy had seven Art Hall exhibits as it was), so they showed only their Baby Berthas. |
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| My brother Greg is back for the 4th of July holiday, and he brought my other brother Adam's kids with him. I knew that my nephew Jesse had shown an interest in rocketry before, so we planned a launch for today, Sunday the 3rd. I prepared sixteen rockets, thirteen of mine plus three of Taylor's; however, the wind, which had been pretty calm, picked up somewhat, and between that and the fact that I couldn't use the first position on my stand (owing to the rod nut coming loose), we flew only nine. |
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| The weather hasn't been very conducive to rocket launching lately, but we needed to get the 4-H launch done before the Fair. So, when we saw that Father's Day was predicted to be nice, we decided to have the launch at 5:00pm. The wind was light, perhaps 5-10 MPH and coming from the east; we did have some drifting problems as a result of that. |
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| I wrote up a document for my 4-H Aerospace kids, describing my technique for getting a show-ready finish; for convenience, I'm posting it here. |
I sell and service computers for a living, and for probably a year now my
distributor has been sending me computers packaged in Tyvek bags. The bags
protect the shiny parts of the computer from scratching; when we deliver a
computer to a customer, we don't take all the packaging. Since I'm a pack rat,
the bags have been piling up.
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| It just hasn't been a good year for rocket launching in Northeast Missouri. Today was my first real opportunity... it was fortunate that I was able to get off work early. The wind was moderate but variable, probably topping out at 10 MPH. Though Justin and Jaclyn, my 4-H rocketeers for the last several years, were unavailable, my wife Tracy and daughter Taylor accompanied me. |
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| Well, here they are... the pictures that, had I any sense, I'd never allow to be seen. The pictures that graced the pages of my last 4-H Model Rocketry project book. |
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