Launch Report, Butner, May 24, 2014

The first summer launch at Perkins Field near Butner saw great weather, warm and practically no wind.

We had a total of twenty eight (!) flyers and sixty six flights. Looking through the flight cards I see a total of seven families with more than one member flying rockets.

I finished assembly of a second launch control relay (actually transistor) box and sawhorse launch pad so we were able to use two sets of pads, loading one while flying from the other.

The largest motors flown were Gs. No H powered flights this time. B and C motors were the predominant size.

Four two-stage flights and three cluster flights were made. All motors were lit successfully.

Ron Hill had the first flight of the day (when there was a bit of wind) with his Bright Hawk II two-stage rocket on a C6-0/C6-7 combination. The flight was perfect but landed just into the trees to the south. He also flew a Deuces Wild cluster on two B6-6 motors.

Jim Scarpine and Paul Schaefer put on a show with a loud drag race of two Stealth pyramids on G69 Skidmarks.

(Be aware that we will decide whether to allow sparky motors at future Perkins Field launches based on the ground and wind conditions. Try not to be disappointed if we turn away sparky motors at some future launches. We need to be careful with all of the hay around the tarmac.)

Rich Miller tried to fly his LOC Legacy with a home-made altimeter on an old G54. After many attempts to light it finally started. It burned on the pad for a long time, never developing enough thrust to lift off. A post-mortem found that only the bottom grain lit, the upper grain did not burn at all!

Mike Collier was the most prolific flier with eight flights of his beautifully finished rockets. His flights included a two-stage flight of his Navaho AGM on a C6-0/A8-3 and two flights of a Status 1 cluster on two B6-4s. He also had an exciting flight of a Mega Viper on an old F12-5J motor that did not develop much thrust, resulting in a lawn dart.

The Triangle Math and Science Academy TARC team was flying rockets on Cesaroni F motors, including a very fast VMax F120 motor.

Sonya Withers flew a small two-stage Midget rocket on an A10-0T/A10-3T combination.

Theodore Lucas would probably get Alan Whitmore?s ?most interesting rocket name? award with his? the disappearing act. Luckily, it did not live up to its name and was recovered after flying on a C6-5. His brother, CJ flew his Darkstar Lite on an F35 and G53.

Andrew Adams and some other members of the Durham Area Rocketry Team came out to fly Andrew?s L1 rocket on a G64W before they head off to MIT and Cornell in the fall.

We did have an E12 and D11 fail catastrophically. Be aware that some early E12s had manufacturing problems, but newer ones work fine. E12s with a date code of A 08 18 11 are known to fail a lot. The D11 was very old and destroyed Paul Schaefer?s beautiful SR-71 glider. Make sure you do not store black powder motors where the temperature can fall below freezing. An attached garage is usually ok, but a detached unheated shed is not a good idea.

Here is the motor use summary:

– Dave Morey