ROC July 2006

Last month's flight ended poorly as the booster got dragged a hundred yards across the playa by a strong June breeze. My dad spent the rest of June sanding out the tube, soaking it in resin, and carefully applying reinforcement to rebuild the forward end of the tube. After this treatment and a repaint, the Arcas looked good as new - I wanted to make sure it WAS, so a K1100T was procured and the rocket prepped for a full dual deploy flight. Steve Seeright called out the countdown and kaWHAM, the K1100 catapulted the Arcas into the sky atop a seven foot blue flame. (LOVE that Copper Chromite.) She held together through the burn and up to apogee, where the drogue appeared on cue. Even though there was no wind at ground level, things must have been moving pretty good above the mountain, as the Arcas drifted quite a ways under drogue. The main appeared at 800' off in the distance, and a quick truck trip later all was recovered. Not a bad return flight!

Well, while we were flying freshly-painted rockets, I figured it'd be a good chance to debut the new iROC look that my dad had been laboring over for so long. (What can I say, I just don't have that kind of patience :)) Everyone LOVED the decals, and John Van Norman supplied a free ROC sticker to put on the tail for added effect. The motor of choice this time was an I284W - the classic iROC motor - which turned in a beautiful flight to about 2800 feet with successful recovery.