ROC August 1997

August 1997

/ Lucerne Dry Lake

2 flights, 685 N-sec burned

The August ROC launch was smaller than usual, since many fliers had made the drive to LDRS in Hartsel, CO. The weather was hot, but the sun was tempered by a high cloud layer and gusty winds. Ken Finwall had the flight of the day, launching his LOC Top Gunn on a K1100, airstarting two I284Ws with a Timer 2B, and then lighting two G40Ws and two F50Ts with Thermalite after I284 burnout. WOW!

Flight 1: Lil Nuke, AT F40

Since the F25 flight was so nice, I decided to try it again with the reloadable equivalent: the F40. I was excited, as I had never seen one of these motors before, in person, in photos, or on video. It did not disappoint, sending the Nuke fast and high on a big, bright white flame. The chute appeared at apogee and she landed with no damage.

Flight 2: Bruiser, AT I284

The Bruiser (now in primer) was our last flight of the day. We had prepped it in the morning, but the gusty winds made me second-guess the decision to fly it. Finally, as the day was closing, I decided to just go for it. She lifted off the pad nice and straight, but quickly cocked over and headed to the east. Ejection was extremely late, causing the plastic eyelet on the nose cone to pop apart and the cone to free-fall to the playa, unharmed. The body section recovered on the 78" chute as normal. Turns out, in the haste of final motor prep, we had used the supplied -M delay instead of the required -S.
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