Todays weather was great, but a little on the cold side with the temperature about 35 F all day. The winds were predicted to be 15 - 20 MPH all day, but luckily they started the day much less. The theme of the launch was "Scale Day" and lots of nice missiles, sounding rockets and spacecraft were flown.We had some new faces in the crowd and it was great to see everyone out in the cold! There were 28 flyers making 63 flights and we burned a total of 3,874 Ns of propellant. This equals a mid L motor.

Launch Photos

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It was a beautiful and cloudless winter day. The winds were from the West which contributed to a few new tree dwellers. The thermometer was a little optimistic and the wind helped it to feel a little colder. Jay Calvert's new Standard Arm 45 stands ready on the Estes pads for it's first flight on a D12-5.

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Sean Hogan served LCO duty for much of the day and is seen here trying to put on a few more socks to help his feet beat the cold. Troy Busch & his dad get their Astra ready for a flight on a B6. On the right Steve Kossluck's Onyx II takes off on an F22J. The rocket crashed after failing to deploy the chute properly and broke a fin and the nice boattail Steve used. He vowed to be back with Onyx III.

Josh Drummond's Jupiter on a four motor cluster.  The two G80Ts are burning and the White Lightings are just starting. Next is Chris Adams nice THOY Phoenix flying on a G80T motor. At right, Jerome Erikson & Tim Horacek hook-up their Aerotech G-Force.

Josh Drummond can't believe his luck. His rocket "Storm Trooper" deployed it's chute perfectly at apogee only to fly right through the spill hole and tangle. The rocket crashed onto the hard ground but is repairable. Jay Calvert can be seen standing with 4-29 Pumpkin before it's candy drop flight. At right is a close view of the business end.

There goes Jay's 4-29 Pumpkin! The rocket had 30 candy bars to be dropped from 3,000 feet. It flew on two H128Ws and planned to airstart two G64s. Unfortunately one of the H128s and both the Gs didn't light and the rocket came in a little hard on the drouge only. The main chute popped just before impact. The kids were happy that the candy bars were dispersed at apogee and quickly scooped them all up. Jay's altimeter displayed 203 ft, but the rocket sure looked higher. At center, Jay can be seen wondering just what went wrong. On the right is Rick Polzello's Apogee Aspire. It flew on an F10 to about 5,000 feet. Amazingly, it was recovered hanging in this shrub only a few feet from the woods in the southeast corner of the field.

At left, Ulf Jonsson is hooking up the myriad of wires and tubes to the RATT Works H70 hybrid motor in his PML Phobos. This is the first hybrid powered rocket to be loaded onto a pad at a CATO launch. The rocket was hooked to the launch clips from two pads. First, one control is energized and a solenoid begins to fill the rocket's tank with Nitrous Oxide. Once the tank is full the extra Nitrous can be seen venting and the second control is energized launching the rocket. At center, the optimistic Ulf takes a moment to pose with his rocket before flight. The first attempt to fly the rocket resulted in a pad deployment. Nitrous leaked at the top of the motor pressurizing the BT and forced the piston to eject the chute. On the right Ulf can be seen shutting down the Nitrous tank and assessing what went wrong. A second attempt failed to ignite. The rocket was was later flown on a G80T and the motor was successfully static fired. I believe Ulf will be back with this motor at the next launch and John Poulin has finished work on his Hypertek Hybrid powered rocket as well.

Here is Brad Martin's "Clusterful" launching on three C6s. It looks like two of them are lit. On the right is Josh Drummond's Fishy Rock. Someone's ARCAS is waiting to fly. Len Haze's Advaark Hawk Missile can just be seen in the smoke from Clusterful. Alex Giosa's 1/4 Patriot never got to fly. After struggling with Copperheads, the launch lug broke while he was removing the rocket. Nice paint job! On the left someon'e Estes rocket waits.

Anyone wishing to contribute images please use the "upload photos" link on the CATO home page.  You can also e-mail photos or information to Rick Polzello or Jay Calvert. PLEASE limit email messages to no more than 3MB at a time!

LAUNCH HIGHLIGHTS and STATS:

Frequent Flyers: Joey Bender, Joshua Drummond and Jason Hicks all made 5 flights today.

Certification Flights: None today.

Cluster Flights: Zachary Adams flew his Viper III on 3 x D12. Only two of the motors lit and the rocket crashed. Jay Calvert flew his 4-29 Pumpkin on a pair of H128s and airstarted two G64s. The Gs failed to light and the rocket came in a little hard but it did drop the candy payload! Jay also flew his Exocet on a pair of D12s for a great 1st flight. Joshua Drummond flew his Jupiter on an unusual combination of motors. The rocket burned two G80s, a G40 and an F25. Brad Martin flew Clusterful on three C6s. Rick Polzello flew a LOC Starburst on a pair of E15s. One of the motors failed to light and the rocket came in hard. It looks like a weak battery might have contributed to all the cluster problems.

Multistage Flights: Joey Bender flew his Estes Mongoose on a C6 to B6 combo. Brad Martin Flew his Orange Crush on C6 to C6 power.

Catos: None, but Ulf Jonsson had his H70 hybrid deploy on the pad due to a venting problem.

Notable flights: Josh Drummond had an exiting flight of his Fishy Rock on an E9. The rocket careened through the sky and aimed for Jay Calvert. Fortunately, it missed. Scott Benner flew his 20 year old Skyhawk on a C6. Several nice scale rockets were flown today. Jay Calvert flew a Standard Arm 45 and an Exocet. Alex Giosa flew a Mercury Redstone. Chris Adams flew a Phoenix replica and Len Haze flew both a Hawk and Bullpup missiles.

Contests: None.
 
 

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