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July 28, 1998
Durham
(photo #1) - Photo of Your humble reporter, Jay Calvert, before the CATO V launch with a fine brace of 4" missiles.
(photo #2) - Cody Calvert's Quest Whiplash leaves the pad on a C6-5. To the right is George Boulas' folding-wing glider, Joe Socolosky's Mean Machine, and Mark O'Connell's 2.6" V2.
(photo #3) -Jay's NCR SA-14 Archer cruises skyward on a G35-4W Econojet.
(photo #4) - The Archer floats down from over 600 feet and nearly re-inserts itself on the mantis launcher it just came from! To the right, awaiting launch, are Mark 'Connell's Mountainside Hobbies ADR 4.0, Sandy Alonzo's 2.6" tube fin rocket, and Paul Welling's PML 3" AMRAAM.
(photo #5) - Sandy's ADR 4.0 flings itself into the sky on an H180 White Lightning reload. This was the 2nd flight of the day for this rocket/motor combo. The first flight gave Sandy his level 1 certification (CONGRAT's!). This flight suffered a separation.
(photo #6) - Jay's highly modified Public Enemy 1/4 scale Patriot darts upward and to the north on an H238-6T reload. This was the only airstart of the day, and in fact the only complex composite engine flight of the day.If all goes well, a Transolve T2 timer should be triggered by the sudden acceleration and zap a couple of Fire-in-the-Hole tungsten igniters at 0.5 seconds after liftoff. These should ignite a pair of F12-3J 24/40 reloads.
(photo #7) -. ..long pregnant pause...YES! We have 2 black smoke trails! It took nearly 3 seconds for the BlackJack engines to come up to pressure. Ejection from the H238-6T occurred before the F12-3Js were done with their 3.5 second thrust (because of their unexpectedly long pressurization time), but the rocket's velocity was relatively low and she held together just fine.
(photo #8) - Mesmerized by the spectacle, the crowd gazes in awe at the triumphant return of "Pat" from her seventh and most recent airstart. The white chute is a 56" Army surplus flair parachute. (In case you haven't guessed, I kinda like flying this rocket).
(photo #9) - Jay flew his vintage Mercury Redstone on a C6-3 in honor of Alan B. Shepard Jr., America's first astronaut and lunar golfer, who passed away earlier in the week. God speed Alan Shepard.
(photo #10) - One of the last flights of the day, Cody Calvert's Astrocam arches over the crowd for an aerial photo.
A review of the flight cards reveals:
- We had 23 rocketeers, nine of which flew at least one high power bird.
- We had 114 flights, representing 72 different rockets burning a total of 135 engines (1/2A through J).
- Most rockets flown: Sandy Alonzo (15), followed by George Boulas (12), Pete Tolx (11), and Jeff Thomas (10).
- Most flights with a single rocket: tie between Alysia Hogan's Ninja and Sandy Alonzo's Tri-F-0 (7 flights each).
- Paul Ludwig flew his Estes Bullpup four more times on C engines, for a total of 42 flights for this lucky rocket!
- Most newton-seconds burned: Rob Larson (1516.9) barely edged out Paul Welling (1504.6), followed by Sandy Alonzo (591.2), Dave Sousa (508.5), Bill Piedra (483), Jay Calvert (481.2), Mark O'Connell (461.4), Paul Schoen (399.1), Pete Tolx (377), and Kevin Toner (333.6).
- Black powder clusters and multistage rockets were flown by Elyse Nastahowski, Bill Piedra, Jeff Thomas, and Pete Tolx. Bill flew an incredible 2-stage cluster rocket, with 3 D12-0s in the booster and 3 D12-7s in the sustainer. Worked perfectly!
- Gliders were flown by George Boulas and Pete Tolx.
- There were THREE level 1 certifications: Mark O'Connell with a Mountainside ADR4.0 on an H180 reload, Paul Schoen with an LOC IV on an H123 reload, and Kevin Toner with a scratch built Fat Boy upscale on an I161 reload. Congratulations gentlemen!
- There was also a level 2 certification: Rob Larson flew a beautiful upscale Big Bertha on a J350 reload. Way to go Rob!
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