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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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I wanted to make my own decals for clones of Centuri rockets, but the
decal graphics for the logo which I've found so far aren't very good.
So I spent some time with Inkscape
redoing those scans, and since I know I'm not the only person with this
need, I'm posting them here.
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| I've been itching to launch a few more rockets, and tonight was just beautiful. I knew I'd only have about an hour of daylight to launch in, but fortunately I had prepared a few low-fliers (including my Lo Flier) in advance. Tracy took the pictures, as usual, and Taylor and her friend Jaclyn assisted with the recovery. |
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Two weeks ago, the landowner who owns my current favorite launch field told me
he had it mowed and baled, and that I should feel free to come over and launch
anytime. Of course, the wind refused to cooperate... from then until today,
we only had one day when the wind was calm enough to launch, and it was a
weekday when I had to work late.
Until today, I said. This morning I looked out and saw that there was no wind. None. It's almost axiomatic that you don't prepare rockets to launch around here when the wind is calm, because by the time you're ready, it's windy. Undaunted, or perhaps just stupid, I soldiered on, and by 11:00am we were ready... and the wind was light and variable, mostly from the southeast. Ideal. |
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Justin, the kid next door who got me back into rocketry, and Jaclyn, his sister, are 4-H members; I'm their Project Leader for Aerospace, which in my book means rocketry. This year, Justin showed one rocket at the Knox County, Missouri Fair: His "Bomb," a rocket he designed with OpenRocket to look like, well, a bomb. Jaclyn showed two rockets, a Semroc Saki and an Estes Crossbow SST.
| The weather forecast said that the next week would be unsuitable for launching; so, despite 12-20 mph breezes and a cloudy sky, I decided it was time for our 4-H club launch. This year, Sam wasn't able to participate, so the group consisted of Jaclyn and Justin. My daughter Taylor and I also launched some rockets. |
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For about the first time this year, launching conditions were perfect this afternoon. So, I launched a few in the back yard with Taylor (my daughter) pushing the button and helping to retrieve them. Sorry, no pictures this time.
| Once again, I joined the SPARC guys in St. Peters, Missouri for their regular monthly launch. They were launching at the soccer field this time, so we drew some spectators, which was pretty cool. |
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| The wind quieted somewhat suddenly Sunday evening, and my thoughts turned naturally to rockets. Four kids (my daughter and three neighbor boys) were in the yard, so I got four low fliers together along with my handmade controller and my modified Estes stand, and headed out to the back yard. |
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| At our 4-H Club Launch on the 9th of July, I got to launch the Mo' Skeeter for the first (and presently only) time. |
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| My first launch of the year happened to be our 4-H club launch. I had three project members present: Sam, Jaclyn, and Justin. It's Justin's third year doing 4-H Aerospace, but the first for Jaclyn and Sam. |
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| Some time back (like, last year), Troy (akpilot) issued an open invitation to me to attend one of his club's launches. I finally got the chance yesterday. |
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This will be my first truly homebrew design. I've always been a
kitbasher; even my beautiful (and sadly missing) Dawn Star was bashed from a
Patriot and a Baby Bertha. About the only original rocket in my fleet is my
Phoenix, which was more an accident than a planned design.
That ends now. I've just received notice that my parts order has shipped from Semroc, including two 9.5" ST-10 tubes, an 18" ST-7 tube, an 18mm engine mount for the ST-10, appropriate centering rings to allow me to mate the ST-7 to the two ST-10's, and a medium-length ogive cone to cap it off. |
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| The weather this morning was beautiful, and the weather forecast was for more of the same all day long. Partly cloudy, temperature in the 70's and 5-10MPH breezes all day. I knew better than to believe that last... I've learned that, in Missouri, you prep your rockets when there is a breeze, and often there will be none when you start to actually launch; but start prepping when there is no breeze, and a stiff one will blow up on you. But this is a good thing, I thought, as I wandered out into the light breeze. |
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My daughter Taylor and I launched a very few rockets in the back yard tonight, starting around 7:30pm; thus, we had about half an hour of useful daylight left. Mainly, I wanted to test my new miniature X-24 Bug (3/4 scale, 13mm power, all paper except for the bulkhead) and try out my over 20 year old Centuri Flying Saucer. I also launched Taylor's Gauchito. Rather than dragging out the four-way stand, I used an Estes stand (modded with a ceramic tile launch deflector) and my wooden launch controller. It was about 85°F and apparently windless.
| After waiting seemingly forever for (a) decent weather and (b) all the hay and wheat to be mowed, we finally got our chance. Taylor, Justin, Jaclyn, and I all got in some launches, and for the most part we were very satisfied. All of my rockets which got launched had never been launched before. |
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| I have built a rocket which I call the "New Centurion." It's inspired by the classic Centuri Centurion, which had an innovative (for the time) ejection baffle system. My New Centurion has an offset-tube baffle, breaks at the midline (just above the baffle), and features three interchangeable engine mounts (1x18mm, 2x18mm, 1x24mm D/E). |
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| Well, it's done! Today I took five pieces of 2x6 lumber scrap, ripped them down to 2x4, then cut the four leg pieces to 30" length. The top board happened to be just under 53" long, and I left it that length; with a bit more than 5" on each end to hold the leg brackets, I was able to space the tilt and swivels 14" apart. Click here to read more... |
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Here's my latest creation: Pharos I, a "fantasy scale" rocket. |
| 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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This is an experiment, for sure. I'm using ipligence.com's IP Geolocation map, below. If I discover they are evil, I'll drop them... so please, email me if you believe they've sent you popups or any nonsense like that.