From: armoror@ucscb.UCSC.EDU (Space Cadet)
Newsgroups: rec.models.rockets
Subject: Re: Tubular fins
Date: Tue, 02 Jan 90 19:18:12 PST
Organization: FCIPs (Frivolous CPU Intensive Programs) Ltd.
I've built one rocket that used tubular fins. I cut a 'V' shape out of
of two toilet paper rolls, extending about halfway up them, and glued them to
a C-size tube with the V inside to avoid having the tubes ignited by the
exhaust. It worked perfectly. I've launched that rocket more times than any
other I've ever had, and it is in fact the only rocket that I still have (all
others, including the ones I made most recently, having been lost). It
survived the only failure of a commercial model rocket engine I've experienced
(complete failure of the ejection charge; the ceramic cap was still intact when
it came down) with only a bit of accordionizing of the body tube; I cut the
mushed part off and launched it again...
John DuBois
spcecdt@ucscg.ucsc.edu
From spcecdt@ssyx.ucsc.edu!deeptht (John DuBois)
Date: Thu, 15 Feb 90 21:48:05 PDT
To: zap@ucscb, lechner@ucscb, queue@ucscb, johnd@sco.com, davidv@sco.com,
garlick@ucscb, smq@ucscb, jonl@sco.com
Subject: rocket launches
OK, looks like it's 2:00 Sunday. Shall we meet at the Armory first?
Who besides Eric and Ford know how to get there?
John
[ Eagle's Eyrie ] Message #138 Mon Feb 19, 1990 9:23am
From: Zulu Alpha Papa, II Wing, Eagle Squadron
Subject: Rockets
Were an immense success!
Of those attending (lechner queue armoror zenomt "ken" garlick bels's sister
and you truly) queue lecher "ken" armoror and myself had flyable rockets.
Everyone made at least three flights, except armorer who made four but
lut his rocket on the last one when the chute failed to deploy.
Highlights: "Ken"'s echo, painted flat black so as to be impossible to see
in the air or on the ground dissapeaered on its second flight and suddenly
rematerialized not six feet from the launchpad.
My three stager, bing flown as a one stager went over the fence and would have
been lost but for a group of intrepid high schoolers. It went on to two
more flights as a two stager.
Queue's payloder, carrying a drink umbrella (tm) FINALLY flew,after
months of sitting on the bench. On it's last flight, the shock cord
separeted from the nose cone, and it came down in two sections, but
no serious damage was done.
Armoror's "finless wonder" made some exkitng flights with delightful
spirals. It also proved to be easy to catch, and was caught three out of
four times before it's untimely demise.
Armoror and queue commited the event to film and 8mm video respectively.
Armoror rigged his camera with a trigering device that snapped the
shot as the rocket left the pad.
Next rocket outing is planned for two weeks from yesterday.
[ Eagle's Eyrie ] Message #139 Mon Feb 19, 1990 7:54pm
From: Armoror
Subject: heh
further highlight... on the zap-2-stager's final launch, he used one of
my C6-3's for the first stage, after I ground the ceramic cap out of it. Thus
there was a 3 second delay between first stage burnout and second stage
ignition, which was partially responsible for the fact that the second stage
flew nearly horizontal to the ground. But fortunately the second stage was an
A so it didn't go too far!
I think that the ejection charge of the last engine I used failed, which
is interesting, since the only other engine failure I've ever experienced was
exactly the same type in exactly the same rocket, which, not entirely by
coincidence, used to be somewhat longer. Oh well... I had that rocket for 5
years, guess its time was up.
btw, I launched it *5* times... :-)
I am at this very moment, yes this *very* moment, working on a better
camera trigger for next time.
From spcecdt@ssyx.ucsc.edu!deeptht (John DuBois)
Date: Fri, 23 Feb 90 22:41:05 PDT
To: colu@hp850.mbari.org
Subject: rockets
We went out model rocket launching last Sunday. First time for me since
we went to Carmel Middle school back in... October '85 was it? I thought it
was going to keep raining so I didn't prepare; then it turned sunny so we
went and all I had was that fluorescent orange rocket with the tube-fins from
long ago! I launched it five times; on the fifth try it went over a fence
(the type with the nasty outward-sloping barbed wire on top) and I couldn't
see it on the other side so I didn't try to retrieve it. Oh well... it
served me well, and hopefully I'll have time to make some more before we go
out again (probably the weekend after this).
Unfortunately the camera trigger I made back then won't work with my
new one (the old camera was trashed). I tried to whip up something quick,
and ended up wasting about 50 slides ($25 or so) with it triggering wrong.
Hopefully I'll have something better next time. I did get exactly one good
shot of a launch. I expected it to be much faster than my old system, since
I don't need to trigger it with a solenoid (it has electronic shutter
release), but it seems that it might actually be slower in moving the mirror
up out of the way (since it's an SLR). Or, maybe I just don't remember at
what height I used to set the thing to trigger.
There are several other people into rocketry up here, so we might be able
to make this a regular thing. I sent off for catalogs to about 10 places that
had addresses posted to rec.models.rockets; hopefully I'll be able to find
some reasonably priced F and G engines. Also I sent off to Tripoli for
information on joining; if you're a member of Tripoli you can buy much larger
engines. J engines, anyone? Heh. It would still be nice to make them
ourselves eventually; they're expensive! Have you done anything with those
parts you bought?
John
[ Eagle's Eyrie ] Message #210 Sun Mar 11, 1990 8:07pm
From: Armoror (armoror@ucscb.UCSC.EDU)
Subject: It was great!
The only rocket I brought was supposed to be a stable finless rocket.
Unfortunately as usual I didn't get around to starting on it until a half hour
before we were supposed to leave. My semi-excuse is that it was raining the
night before and I really didn't think we were going to go launching. In fact,
in the morning I thought I heard rain so I didn't get up early to do any
building. When I did get up and opened the curtain I realized that it was fine
out; the "rain" was the aquarium bubbling... you'd think I'd be able to tell
the difference by now!
I glued two C size tubes together with a tube jointer, put an engine block
in one end and a parachute in the other, put an engine in, and found that the
center of gravity was 'way to far back. I overestimated the mass of the nose
cone and parachute. So, I glued the largest nut I had to the base of the nose
cone. It didn't make enough of a difference, but there were people waiting for
me so I decided I'd try it the way it was. Thanks to Ford (I think) for
reminding me to glue a launch lug on. I generally do that after putting the
fins on; this one didn't have any so...
The initial convoy consisted of Qarin, Tim Garlick, Irene and myself in my
car (with Qarin driving), and Jon, Tim, Ellen, Mike and Ford in a couple of
other cars.
It was quite windy which created a few problems along with some
excitement. We had lots of launches. The new camera trigger worked perfectly
aside from having one of the conductors burned through eventually, but that's
understandable (I'll get to that). Naturally I remember my own launches best.
I put a C engine into the "stable finless" rocket. It shot up a good ways,
turned sideways, and headed over toward K-Mart. I think it cleared the
building, but I didn't bother going to look for it since I wasn't able to see
where it went down.
I had some E and F engines which I really wanted to try. No one had a D
rocket for me to put an E into, so, since I had lots of free time between
everyone else's launches, and *lots* of engines, I decided to try building a
rocket while I was waiting. Fortunately I had brought my superglue and
accelerator with me. Ford had a single D tube that he "lent" me. No one had
any fins, so I cut a paper towel tube that Ford also had handy in two to use
for tubefins. I rolled up a piece of engine package paper into a cone for the
nose, and, at Ken's suggestion, rolled up some of his masking tape into a
launch lug. I didn't bother with a parachute; I just wanted to see an E go.
Flight Systems E engines have a smaller diameter than D's, but along with
the 6 E's I bought last week I had one from the last time my friends and I were
really into rocketry, about 5 years ago. I had glued paper around it to make
it the size of a D. I loaded it into the rocket and stuck an igniter in. The
igniter went off without sending up the rocket. A second igniter also failed.
I tried a piece of fuse; that just succeeded in gumming up the nozzle so I
couldn't try again. I removed the engine and ground out the nozzle to clean
it. Unfortunately this had the effect of making the nozzle several times as
large as it had been. I realized that the reason the initial attempts had
failed was that the nozzle was so small (due to the mere 5 Newtons of thrust
it was intended to produce) that the ignition devices had not fit up inside it.
Of course, grinding out a nozzle is not a good idea; it lowers the thrust
dramatically, and this engine hadn't had much to begin with. But it was the
only way, so it was worth a try.
An igniter now fit inside the nozzle easily. It launched slowly... then
turned over and flew into the ground. An E5 thrusts for 8 seconds; the rocket
shot around between the feet of everyone until it was dead. It was lots of fun
watching everyone try to run away.
Fortunately the rocket was not harmed. I taped the nose cone back on and
wrapped some of Ken's masking tape around another E (one of the ones I just
bought) to make it D size. This time I selected a skinny igniter (they are
very irregularly manufactured) and was able to push it far enough up the nozzle
that I was fairly sure it was making contact with the propellant grain. To
increase its chances I set up my double-length launch rod for the first time.
The last launch had been interesting enough that Qarin got out her videocamera
even though the batteries were almost dead. I wanted to be in focus in the
picture my camera was taking, so I knelt about 18" away from the rocket. I
counted down and pressed the button. The rocket lifted off... and, just as it
passed my head, exploded in a nice fireball! I jumped back as I felt pieces of
debris strike my face. I opened my eyes again to see the launch rod, with
shredded rocket still on it, topple over.
Later on on the videotape I saw that four large pieces of fuel from the
shattered propellant flew up into the air in a fountain pattern. The effect
was strikingly reminiscent of another rocket failure we had all seen video of.
I had put deep fillets of superglue on the tubefins and launch lug.
Although I had sprayed accelerator on it, and it had held the rocket together
the first time, I found that I now had wet (but hardening fast) superglue all
over my right ear. And, of course, I had the obligatory hair loss, this time
from my widow's peak. I guess I was in the edge of the fireball.
All in all, it was a great day! And I have a mangled rocket souvenir to
put someplace.
Next launch: next Sunday! And this time I REALLY REALLY WILL have lots of
rockets built beforehand. And I'll either wear goggles or stand a bit further
away when I ignite those Flight Systems engines... maybe I should always use D
first stages to pop them off the pad. :-)
Oh yes, I think it was that last launch that burned through the camera
trigger clip cable. The thrust probably got pretty intense before it blew...
[ Eagle's Eyrie ] Message #212 Mon Mar 12, 1990 12:04am
From: Zulu Alpha Papa, II Wing, Eagle Squadron (zap@ucscb.UCSC.EDU)
Subject: On a lighter note
(this is the second attempt at posting this...)
I ran close to half a mile chasing what I thought was my Iris (new
one stager) after it's only C flight. I left the Aerodrome, went past
the Post Office, into the shopping center... I gave up when I headed into
a housing development. Dejectedly, and with an aggravated strained
ankle (much better now.. thanks for the aspirin matthew/eric) I headed
back, s I knew that everyone was cold and mine was to be the last flight.
When I got there, i discovered much to my amazement that they had
recovered the body of my rocket, while I had been chasing the nosecone
and parachute! The shock cord had broken just as I had predicted
immediately before the launch.
Another thing about Johns runaway launch (the E one.) While everyone
was understandably distracted, Ken's echo flew off unnoticed, as we
were doing a double launch. It was not found. We did get a beautiful
simultaneous liftoff. My Iris with a b and erics "stick" with a C. Mine
ignited first, but the greater thrust of erics had them at the same altitude
by the lend o the launch rod. I hope the camera caught it, as low batteries
forced qarin to conserve tapng time. Fortunately there was enough to catch
the explosion.
I've never seen an engine fail like that before. The engine casing had
a neat split down the side, and all of th propellant was gone. On the
tape it looks like the flaming debris is radiating from the rocket, but
the consensus is hat it was all headed away from the camera. At the time,
I only saw one piece, and it seemed substantial enough to be found,
but upon investigation, it seems to have incinerated itself. Afterwards,
everyone took turns watching the tape, exclaiming "yow!" at the appropriate
moment. It was while John was watching that I noticed the hunk of
glue stuck n his hair... We all had a good chuckle. I informed
John that in the future he would have awind tunnelfor testing the damn
things if I hd to build it for him. And I want some new tubes! =)
In all, a great time.
PS. Corsair is not just "some other" car! =)
-Ford
From: johnd@sco.com (John DuBois)
Newsgroups: rec.models.rockets
Subject: Re: Rolling your own
In article <22097.25c6ad21@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu>,
heacock@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu (Doug Heacock) writes:
+Just out of curiosity, has anyone in this group every tried rolling your
+own body tubes? I tried it a couple of times a few months ago, and the
+resultant tubes were quite strong, but also quite heavy, and not the
+slightest bit smooth or round. I used 16 lb. bond paper and white glue
+thinned a bit with water, and I used a waxed-paper-covered wooden dowel for
+a form.
+
+If you've tried this, what materials/techniques did you use?
Long ago, the only site available to us for rocket launching was a small
oceanside park. There was generally a strong wind blowing out to sea, with
the result that we lost most of our rockets despite attempts to gauge the
degree to which they should be aimed into the wind. Of course, that didn't
stop us; we *had* to launch those rockets. So, I started making disposable
ones. I rolled a bit of paper around a dowel to make it the same size as an
engine, then used it to roll construction paper around to form body tubes. I
glued the end with contact cement. Fins I made of posterboard, nose cones out
of glued-together corks of the truncated cone style, parachutes from plastic
bags (I wanted to see them come down nicely even if they were headed out to
sea), shock cords from model airplane band rubber, engine blocks from cut-up
engines that I occasionally got back, etc. I made dozens of these with the
only parts from the hobby shop being the engines and the bundle of band rubber
that lasted me indefinitely. The total cost was probably about $0.50 each,
mainly the corks (less than the cost of an engine). I have a picture of my
desk covered with an enormous batch of these that lasted me several years.
They weren't very exciting, and not the best performers, but a lot better than
nothing which was my only other option at the time...
John DuBois
johnd@sco.com
spcecdt@ucscb.ucsc.edu
From: johnd@sco.com (John DuBois)
Newsgroups: rec.models.rockets
Subject: Flight Systems engines
Date: Tue, 13 Mar 90 13:43:32 PST
Last week I bought some Flight Systems engines for the first time in 5
years or so. The old engines, which we used quite a few of, never failed. The
first of the new (marked 1989) engines I used (an E5-0) blew up rather
violently about a half meter off the pad. I didn't really mind since the only
component of the rocket I bought was the body tube (tube-fins made from a paper
towel roll, etc.), but now I'm wondering whether I'd trust a more expensive
rocket to the other 5 E5's and 3 F7's I bought. Has anyone used a significant
number of recent FS engines? Any statistics?
Fortunately, we got the whole thing on videotape. The rocket lifts off,
then BOOOM! Nice fireball, and four large pieces of burning propellant arc up
leaving smoke trails. The remains of the rocket, minus one tubefin, are still
attached to the launch rod, which proceeds to slowly topple over. The engine
case split open along its entire side. I also had a 35mm camera hooked up to
the rocket, set to trigger when the rocket got about 20cm off the pad. Due to
the delay for the SLR mirror movement, it may have gotten a good picture of the
explosion too. That'd be one to put on my wall...
John DuBois
From: johnd@sco.com (John DuBois)
Newsgroups: rec.models.rockets
Subject: Re: high thrust short burn engines
Date: Wed, 09 May 90 14:57:46 PDT
I posted a while ago about my experiences with Flight Systems engines.
The engines we bought 10 years or so ago always worked. The first engine
from the first batch I bought recently (an E5-0) exploded. I also bought
some E5-7's and some F7-somethings. I finally got around to going rocket
launching again, and tried some more. The first rocket, with an F7, exploded
quite spectacularly about 20' off the pad. Chunks of flaming fuel arcing
through the air trailing smoke, etc. Amazingly, only the lower 8 inches or
so of the rocket was destroyed, so I glued on new fins and an engine mount
(I had brought my construction kit to the launch site). I didn't have any
more F mounts, so I used an E mount and tried launching it with an E5-7.
It worked great, but ended up in the K-mart parking lot quite a ways away
and was run over. Then I launched another rocket with an E5-0 and it exploded.
Another rocket with an E5-7 worked and again was lost. In other words I
didn't recover a single rocket, except in squashed or exploded form!
Fortunately there wasn't much time invested in the rockets. I built them
all at the launch site while watching the others launch, and made them simple
since after the last experience I didn't expect their lifetime to be very long.
We had quite a crowd; 8 or so people launching and lots of onlookers.
I suspect that these large, low-thrust black powder engines are very
susceptible to having the nozzle blocked by melted fuel. You can hear them
sputter on the way up, and they have extremely small nozzles - significantly
smaller than Estes engines with the same thrust. The characteristics of the
explosions, with pieces of fuel shooting upwards, suggests that the nozzle is
being blocked and the fuel is blasted out the upper end.
Regardless, since the F also exploded it looks like it's more than a bad
batch. I guess I'll be switching to higher-thrust engines or composite
engines. Unfortunately both hobby shops I've found them in carry only very
low and very high thrust engines (F7's and F100's, E5's and E50's), so I'll
have to wait for a mail order. I don't know why they stay away from the
middle range.
I wonder what I should do with the other two F7's.
John DuBois
spcecdt@deeptht.santa-cruz.ca.us
[ ROCKETS ] Message 2: Sun July 18, 1993 9:31am
From: ZaP! (zap@ucscb)
Subject: July 17 Rocket shoot
was a success. Participating were:
parade, salguod, keeper, beek, pax@armory.com, spcecdt, doug (PONA)
lee@soda.berkeley.edu, and zap.
This was parades firt rocketry experience, and he built a rocket
for the event juts befre we left. In fact, there was a regular flurry
of rocketbuilding at about the time we were supposed to leave for the
site,which resulted in a late departure. Nevertheless, we got out there
and began operations.
I flew my modified Iris (boat-tailed, streamlined fins and very slick)
with a B6-4 to determine the wind. The rocket went quite a ways down
range but was recovered sucessfully. (The wind changed direction about
180 degrees within about fifteen minutes.)
Next up was Doug, with an old estes design. The launch went well, but
the 'chute and nosecone separated from the rocket body which plummeted
to earth with some damage. The parachute was last seen heading for the
beach.
Beek flew a model that had been sitting on his shelf for several years;
It was beautiful to see it fly finally. By this time we were getting
better and juding the wind, so the rockets were coming down closer
to the pad.
I flew my Black Brant with a D, and it did its usual vanish into the sky`
trick, but was recoverd with a broken fin.
Pax and spcecdt flew a couple of homemade designs. Spcecdt's headed for
points elswhere with the wind, but pax's flew three times and was recovered
each time.
Doug gave a nice show with a two stager: a nice show of multi staging, and`
a nice show of weathercocking at separation. Fortunately it didnt get
to far on it's near horiontal upperstage.
For me, the most exciting and scary part was launching (finally) my Aerotech
Mustang: a high power design with a reloadable (and expensive) motor. The
mustang weighs close to a pound ready to fly, and given the wind and
the small size of the field, I loaded the motor with an E charge. The
casing is aluminum, with carboard inserts and 'O' rings... just like the
Challenger. A quick check determined that it was not below freezing out,
and the mission was a go. The special launch pad for it refused to issue it's
buzzer tone to indicate continuity, but we tried any way and off it went.
It has a small 'chute and came down quickly, but on the other side
of the fence at Watkins-Johnson. The secuity guard let me look for
it, and though it was 15-20 feet up in a tree, I managed to retrive it.
The 'O' rings were not damaged, and the rocket was in good shape.
Meanwhile beek managed to make a catch recovery, and several other flights
were made.
The BBQ, film of "For All Mankind" and pyro slidshow that followed were
all a nice complement to the outing... thanks to davidv@sco.com for the
film.
[ ROCKETS ] Message 5 Sun July 18, 1993 3:59pm
From: WVB (spcecdt@ucscb)
Subject: rockets
Irene's rocket was launched twice. She launched and recovered it,
then repacked it and I launched it. The nosecone+parachute separated
from the body on ejection. The nosecone & parachute drifted far away.
The body was noted to land in a parking lot. After we left the airfield
we drove over to the parking lot, keeping out eyes peeled for it. We didn't
see it so stopped the car and got out to search for it. I didn't see it
until I looked behind us. Lo, we had driven over it! It passed cleanly
between the wheels and was unharmed. It will fly again.
AND, I am going to do a considerable amount of work on my camera
trigger so that next time I don't waste 40 exposures and miss shots.
[ ROCKETS ] Message 48 (2 left): Mon April 11, 1994 1:26pm
From: ZaP! (zap@ucscb.UCSC.EDU)
Subject: Rockets 20, ground 2.
We finally managed to launch yesterday:
zap spcecdt pax@armory keeper@armory deadslug kaledeon max@armory
It was Max's first launch, and things went well for him. Much
random and impromptu roketeering was done: spcecdt, kaledeon
and pax each built rockets on-site, I modified a rocket for
two staging (worked very well) and max repainted his rocket.
Many dayglow orange fingers were to be seen.
Spcecdt's camera trigger worked flawlessly (we think) and most of
the launches were recorded. The only down points were that
kaledeon's Black Brant was lost to a Tree, and my Aerotech
Mustang, which roared off with an F40-7 failed to deploy it;s
'chute and was destroyed. It went something like a mile downrange,
and landed in somones yard. Some kids found it and returned it to me,
but their mother yelled at me for tresspassing. It was a misunderstanding
because I didnt realize that the other adult I talked too didnt live there
but oh well. The engine casing is fine, but I havent figured out
why the chute didnt deploy. The rest of the rocket is a total loss.
It's Art.
Anyway, we had a lot of fun and hopefully we can do it again pretty soon.
[ ROCKETS ] Message 51 Mon April 11, 1994 6:51pm
From: WVB (spcecdt@deeptht)
Subject: wheee
I painted Irene's rocket from the last launch (the one with the
inverted fin) fluorescent green & put a new nosecone on it, with a 'chute
made from dry cleaner bag. Irene had said she wasn't going to go (she was
working on a takehome test for her RF class) but decided to at the last
moment. So we packed everything up, including my case of rocket building
equipment/parts, and headed out to the range.
Max, dankari, and keeper were there waiting. After a few launches, a
woman showed up with a couple of dogs and attempted to convince us to stop,
because she was quite convinced that one of them would come down on one of her
dogs. We showed her that they are made of cardboard and come down with chutes
and streamers, but she was still sure that if one landed on her dog's head, it
would kill it. She had an aura about her of, uh, goofiness, shall we say. She
eventually gave up and went to walk her dogs, despite the mortal terror liable
to be rained upon her from the deceptively innocent appearing sky.
Some kids on bikes showed up and watched the launches. The rocket I
brought finally ended up on a roof. dankari's ended up high in a tree, on a
limb that didn't lend itself to climbing. The kids stuck around until a police
cruiser showed up, at which point they skedaddled. The cop stuck his head out
the window and asked what kind of rockets we were launching. He appeared to be
unfamiliar with the notion of model rocketry. We showed him that they have
fins and recovery systems and everything, and told him that they can be bought
at the drugstore, etc. He asked if we had gotten some kind of permission to do
this, and I told him no. He said he was concerned because he had never seen us
out there before. I told him we do it once a year or so. He ended up telling
us to go ahead and do our thing while he checked to see if it was OK.
I left to try to get dankari's rocket down. I tossed, oh, 100 or so rocks
at it before finally smacking it in the center of the 'chute. It didn't budge
so I gave up. When I got back to the launch site the cop had left.
I broke out the rocket parts and Irene, dankari, and I all built rockets
while Ford set up his large launch pad. A younger kid and his father showed
up and watched launches and rocket building. The kid was very excited by it
all. Ford eventually launched his rocket with the reloadable Aerotech engine.
Alas, its ejection charge failed and it augered in far away. He drove off to
find it while we finished our rockets.
We all used C size tubing, with rings cut off a tube coupler for engine
blocks. Irene and dankari used lengthwise-cut strips of a piece of yellow
plastic CAUTION banner for streamers, some cardboard fins that I had handy, and
disposable plastic nose cones that I'd retrieved from expended firework
rockets. I used my last C size nose cone, and the remaining piece of plastic
from the dry cleaner bag for a 'chute, which I left square. It worked well
enough. I had several 1-piece plastic fin sets that I also got from firework
rockets. There were the wrong size but I peeled some of the inside & outside
off of a couple of D engine blocks so that they fit in the fin set and a C tube
fit in them. The bottom wasn't large enough for a C-size engine to pass through
so my scheme was to load the engine and put a fin set on after it, and tape it
on. dankari had some spray paint so he and I painted our rockets for
visibility.
They all worked quite well. Irene's ended up out of sight, and her
search for it was fruitless, but the kid got involved and went straight to it.
Mine launched well and I recovered it. Ford came back with the shredded
remnants of his rocket. He wanted to leave then but I wanted to get a group-
behind-launching-rocket photo first. I was reloading mine, but he had a D
rocket all prepped, so we did that. Unfortunately it disappeared into the
wilderness. I got a good angle on where it went down, and he and Irene went
off to look for it. The rest of us kept launching. I lost my rocket out
toward where Irene & Ford were. While I was out looking for it they came back
with empty hands.
At this point I had the oooo-so-brilliant idea of directing them back out
into the field along the line I saw Ford's rocket go down on via HT. So they
went out again looking for it. dankari launched a few more times. They
eventually found Ford's rocket. On the way back they decided to look for mine,
so I directed them to where I saw it go down. Just as they gave up, Irene
spotted it.
Dankari launched his rocket one last time. Up to this point we had used
only As and Bs, but since it was the last launch of the day I gave him a C for
it. He and lost it. Oh well... it was launch more than any of the others.
We had a great time :) I took ~30 pictures. I need to find something to
expend the last seven or so on so I can get the film developed. My arm hurts
from all the rock throwing (as expected), and my neck hurts, perhaps from
craning my head so much (unexpected... haven't had that happen before). Let's
do it again, eh?