Glen and I were the only attendees of Saturday's Freeze-Your-Fins-Off rocket launch spectacular.

We had 12 launches and 2 unsuccessful attempts.  In the process we trashed three rockets and damaged two more - an exciting day.

The morning started out with fog and snow but I was determined to stick to schedule.  Arrived at the Battle Creek Middle School field at 10:30am and found that the winds were low so made a call to St. Paul tower that we were beginning launching but would hold off on the Large rockets until later afternoon when the ceilings lifted.  I set up and made five launches before Glen arrived.

1. Jeff- Original design - Bic Pen Arcas - MicroMaxx motor - Failed to ignite.  Weak battery on MicroMaxx launcher.
        Broke fin off during re-launch attempt.
2. Jeff- Estes clone - Mosquito - MicroMaxx in homemade adapter launched from 6v pad.
        Perfect flight to 50', sideways at ejection, good streamer on ejectable motor pod.
3. Jeff- Estes - Avenger (upper stage only) - B4-4.  First flight in >20 years.
        Great flight to 300'.  Drifted back to nice landing 10' from pad.
4. Jeff- Estes - Interceptor - B4-4.  First flight in > 20 years.
        Great flight to 400'.  Slow roll on way up looked cool.  Good ejection & landing.
5. Jeff- Estes - Interceptor - C6-5.  800'
        Old motor.  Had excessively long delay and lawn-darted right at west edge of field (> 1000' away).
        Ejection at impact.  Plastic nose cone was stuck 5" into the semi-frozen ground but didn't break!.
        Body tube broke in middle, one fin broke off.  This model had always looked a bit ratty and I was
        considering rebuilding it, just using the plastic parts from the old one.  Well, here's my opportunity.
(Glen arrived at this point)
6. Jeff- Estes - Avenger 2stage - C6-0 to B4-6.
        Good launch, weathercocked at staging with good ignition but pointed west at 30deg from vertical.
        Made very large ballistic arc out of the field.  Lawn Darted between townhouses west of field.
        Major Ooops.  Sustainer completely destroyed.  Booster lost a fin at staging but both were recovered.
(Glen experimented with his new transmitter and direction finding reciever but did not get good results)
7. Glen- Scratch built - Aerobee300 - D12-5
        Very nice flight straight up about 1000'.  Wind carried it across street east of range but landed short of trees/apartments.
8. Glen- Scratch built - T-5 - C6-5.
        Perfect Flight to 800'.
9. Glen- LOC - Auora - D15-4.
        Nice but slow climb to >500' but long delay.  Lawn Dart with ejection at impact.  Substantial damage.
(Clouds broke up so I notified STP tower that we were beginning "Large Model Rocket" launches.
10. Jeff- Aerotech - Initiator - F25-6W SU.  With extended payload section intended for future video transmitter.
        Tested video transmitter on ground but did not get good reception.
        Interesting ignition: ignitor popped and I thought it fell out but the motor started
         chuff-chuff-chuff-chuff-whoosh.  Good climb into the NorthWest wind to over 1000' but very long delay.
        Ejection occurred during high-speed descent and snapped all six lines of the nylon chute.  Fortunately
        the rocket sections descended in a flat attitude and impacted the snow and dirt on the far NW corner of
        the range.  Glen recovered the rocket almost intact except for some small cracks in two fins.
        I ran after the chute which was drifting quickly east.  It floated over three very long appartment
        buildings with me running at top speed (in hiking boots and insulated coveralls) to  keep it in sight.
        I did find it but boy did my lungs hurt.  The shroud lines were still firmly attached to the chute but had
        all broken at the point where they had been tied to the shock cord.  This was unexpected.
11. Jeff- Centuri - Orion - RMS 18mm D13-5W
        Broken ignitor (Copperhead). It had kinked while inserting it during motor assembly and broke the copper
        foil.  Had extreeme difficulty removing the engine since the ejection charge cap stuck in the motor thrust
        ring.  It popped off and spilled the poweder.  Will have to wait for another day.
12. Jeff- Estes - Trident - B4-4.  First flight in 25 years!  My dad built this rocket and I fixed it up this week.
        Beautifull flight.  Good recovery 75' from pad.
13. Jeff - scratch built - TriSquito - 3 MicroMaxx motors in cluster.
        I soldered up three MicroMaxx ignitors and used Glen's 12v launcher.
        All engines ignited perfectly on first try!  It flew very nicely to about 150-200' and I heard at least two
        ejection charge "pops" but the nose-cone and streamer did not eject. It lawn-darted 100' from the pad but
        was undamaged.
(by now Glen is very cold)
14. Jeff- Estes clone - Mosquito - MicroMaxx in homemade adapter launched from 6v pad.  Perfect flight to 50',
        sideways at ejection, streamer failed to deploy on ejectable motor pod, which landed right in front of
        our table.

We warmed up at my house and discussed the day.

What went well:
1. Doing the Notification process for launching Mid-Power Large-Model-Rockets.
2. Bringing a Card Table to the launch site.  Also plastic tarps to set stuff on to keep dry.
3. Cluster ignition of the MicroMaxx motors on my TriSquito
4. My insulated work suit and warm socks!

What went poorly:
1. Attendance: Short notice and I didn't get word out early enough, and people probably didn't want to come
     out in cold marginal weather.
2. Lawn Darts.  Our rockets did not go as high as normal, mostly due to launch rod angling into the wind and old motors.
     Definitely need to select short delays in these conditions.
3. Lots of running back and forth to car (parked 100' way).  Need some sort of cart to carry stuff from car to site.
     Glen had the idea of leaving everything in the car and prepping rockets inside out of the wind, then just
     comming out to launch.  That worked well but wasn't as fun.
4. Electronics.  Neither Glen nor I got anywhere near the same performance on site as we had in our tests.
     Cold batteries may have been a factor.

Conclusions:
1. Winter launching is fun with warm clothing and careful packing & preparation.
2. We can do Mid-Power launches right here in the city if winds are low enough.
3. The Battle Creek Middle School site is barely adequate but the off-range lawn-dart of my two-stager was a
   warning that we have to be extremely careful about engine selection and weather-cocking.
   The launch rod angling that makes recovery easier can also send a rocket off-range if the ejection charge
   fails so we always have to consider the range safety first.

-Jeff