NOTStock 48

I had photos of the Anaconda on nice red and white motors... time for a blue one. This was the biggest thing of the day, so it was up to me to haul a pad out to safe distance, and then got everything assembled and ready to go. Since it was a quiet launch, I tried to use up some of my old ignition supplies, which of course didn't work :) After installing a big'un, though, things got moving right away. Kurt G had positioned his camera drone overhead and got some super cool footage of the Anaconda zooming by! Drogue deployment was visible and we all went back to chatting. I started wondering where the main would be, and we looked north and saw something falling fast. I started to get nervous before Dierking calmly pointed out that no, I was all together under main to the *south*, and that thing up north came from an unrelated group. LOL. The Anaconda thunked down amongst many deep ruts that precluded driving to get it, but it was a nice enough day for a walk. The Raven didn't fire the main charge (hmm!) but everything else looked pretty good. Not a bad flight to start the day!

Continuing the ever-present battle to clear out the motor box, this one was left over from my days in Indiana! Neil was on LCO, I was on camera, dad was on video, and the Demon turned in a great performance on the 6 grain load. I lost track of it at burnout, but the tracker confirmed it was to the south, and eventually we saw it pop the main and land near where the Anaconda had come down a few hours earlier. The only downside was I got the case stuck when taking it out of the rocket, and I broke a fin trying to get it apart. (Stupid plastic tailcone.) That turned out OK though—I fired up the CNC at Tim's and cut four new fins to go with a new boattail... the Demon will return soon, better than ever!

For my last flight of the day, I chose to pair Little Dragon with a nice 5 grain red motor from the archives. Since it was an old red motor, I stuffed a bunch of extra scraps in to make sure it got going. This was Little Dragon's debut on the west coast, and it did not disappoint, leaping off the pad on a spike of shockwave-laden red fire. It disappeared after burnout, and though the tracker confirmed drogue deployment, it landed fairly quickly, indicating I probably didn't get a main. It landed in the direction of the road, so we packed everything up and picked it up on the way out. The main charge was a bit too aggressive, singing the main shroud lines together and preventing it from opening. Better Nomex next time :)