NSL 2019

I had promised Chris Kobel's son a drag race with our Demon 98s, but since I broke mine by accident, I had to scramble to come up with something different. I ended up choosing my freshly-painted Drago since it was a similar 4" head end dual deploy rocket, albeit with bigger fins and no boattail—no way I was gonna win this one. No matter, as I had never flown a K805G and wanted to give it a try. The Drago performed well, and the flame was a brilliant green. Dual deploy landed me about a half mile to the west.

I bought out the remainder of Aerotech's KBA stock when they shut the line down, and was excited to fly my first one. While I was repairing the IQSY from its cattle fence incident, I also took the opportunity to upgrade the parachute to an R16 for slower descents, especially in the thin desert air. Since I hadn't built a 7600 in a couple of years, I of course made the n00b mistake of gluing the grains without sticking the liner in the motor case with the bulkhead/nozzle in place. After spending 2+ hours with a chisel, things finally fit together. Luckily, the wind remained calm all day long, and I made it out to the pads just before sunset. Robert DeHate gave me some thermite to use for ignition, and David Smith was on the mic. The Tomahawk lit right up and made a gorgeous flight into the still desert air. Apogee was clearly visible, and we tracked it all the way down. Though it was descending what seemed like a half mile out, the unfurling main parachute was clearly audible in the desert stillness. The rocket landed gently and Andrew and I went out to fetch it. A perfect flight on a scale model at the NAR's national sport launch!