It was cold and windy today in Blaine but there was still a large
turn-out at the MASA launch event.

I decided not to try my Initiator after several other people put theirs
in, or dangerously close to, trees.

My first flight was of the Bic Pen on a 1/8A MicroMaxx motor.  It was a
perfect flight to about 100' with an immediate chute opening right at
apogee.  The new kevlar thread shock cord worked great.  Lots of people
asked to look at it afterwards.  I'll try to get around to putting plans
for it on my web site, maybe even sell kits (the parts would cost me <
$1).

Second was the Estes Mosquito clone (the one that was lost for a few
hours last week after the A10-3T flight to ~700').
This time to keep the altitude down (way down) it was on an 1/8A
MicroMaxx using a neat little adapter I made, again from a Bic pen
casing.  The adapter has an orange plastic streamer wrapped around it
between the centering rings.
The flight was perfect, with a bit of weathercocking, to about 50'.  The
rocket was almost horizontal at apogee when the ejection charge kicked
the motor adapter out and the two units separated at a velocity the same
or greater than the initial launch!  The streamer deployed well and both
parts were easily found.  The crowd loved it.

My last flight was the Centuri Orion on an 18mm reloadable D13-4W.
After lucking-out last week and not shredding it, I decided that if this
rocket is going to be using this motor, it better be beefed up a bit.
So last night I added thick glue fillets around the fins, replaced the
ejection baffle that had blown out last time, and replaced the shock
cord using a new heavy duty mounting.  The flight was great and very
noisy like last week.  Several people asked me if that was really a D
motor.  It went to about 1200' and had an excellent deployment and
landing but got drug by the wind clear across a muddy field.  My lungs
burned from chasing after it in the cold air.  Found out later that one
of the three cosmetic pods around the base was ripped off during climb
or ejection.  I found the piece about 50' from the pad by walking along
its flight path.

I did not try launching the triple-cluster-MicroMaxx Super-Mosquito but
it's ready to go - maybe tomorrow.

People were getting cold, and tired of chasing rockets in the wind so
they wrapped things up at about 1:30pm.  Then of course the sun came
out.

Some other notable launches today were:

Four attempts to get a boost glider to work.  It had a really neat
snap-open wing system.  The first flight never left the pad.  The next
three were almost identical: big arcs into the ground followed by
ejection.  On the fourth flight though, at the last second, the wings
snapped open and the thing did an ultra-high-G loop about 20 feet off
the ground, climbed to about 50' then did lazy spirals into a car.

Several very nice models lawn-darted.  One of the most painful was a
beautiful 25 yr old Patriot (just like mine).  It weathercocked so badly
right off of the launch rod that it only got up to about 200' and hit
the ground vertically right at ejection, which sent the motor and mount
out the back end and 15' into the air.

Someone launched a toy foam-rubber "Stomp Rocket" with an E or F motor
in it.  Flew pretty well, just slightly unstable.

An Estes Interceptor made its first flight in 25 years and held together
after reaching about 800'.  Hopefully mine will be able to duplicate
that after I fix it up a bit.

An Estes F-22 Fighter boost-glider went unstable at 50' and did
cartwheels, somehow ejecting the glider which did a perfect flat glide
for about 200' to a nice landing.

Several helicopter-blade recovery rockets were launched.  3 out of 4
worked great, with one coming apart at ejection.  Those churning blades
are a bit intimidating as it lands in the crowd.

A triple-D-cluster rocket had a funny event:  All three ignitors popped
but failed to light their engines (which turned out to be a good thing -
better none than just one).  On a second launch attempt they all worked
and it had a nice flight.

Someone cato'd a single-use F motor.  It was part of a drag-race and we
saw both rockets ignite but his never cleared the launch rod - just a
"Pfffttt" and some smoke.

Three or four different two stage attempts all worked perfectly.  One
was an Estes Apogee with a B6-0 to a C6-5.  It must have reached 2000'.

A couple of shock-cord failures resulted in core-samples being taken of
the soft sod field.

The last flight of the day was an Initiator on a G80.  It screamed to
about 2000', had a nice deployment, and landed short of the trees.

One guy showed me his PML ARAAM 4" rocket.  Very impressive.  Hub
Hobbies has one in stock, discounted even, and I'm considering it for my
Level 1 & 2 certification but I still like the BSD Thor.  Decisions,
decisions.

So, it was a pretty good day, though I think I'm catching a cold.   The
MASA group seemed more interesting than I first imagined.  I think I'll
join and try to go to most of their launches in addition to the Tripoli
ones.

-Jeff

See MASA's official launch report.