NYA 2017

My flight plan for this launch consisted of burning up a bunch of leftover 54mm motors in my Demon. Jacob was already set up when I arrived, so I quickly dropped the Wilson system out and got my rocket on the pad. Juliett and David arrived shortly after, and we sat around for a few minutes wondering where the kids were. A quick phone call to the "man with van" revealed they had stopped at Starbucks. We had tons of high power stuff to fly, so I went ahead and flew. The three-grain J motor lit right up and had no troubles gently lofting the rocket into the calm blue sky with a nice clean shutdown. The coast to apogee was silent, and drogue deployment was audible and visible. The rocket descended right in front of us and popped the main about 100 yards behind the pad. Gorgeous flight.

For my second flight, I cleaned out the rest of the blue reloads with a 5 grain 54mm version. Jacob had just punched his Rogue to 11,000' and change with a 6GXL L990 blue and landed behind the mysterious compound to the north; my Demon took off on the 5g blue and headed the exact same direction! Luckily, I didn't go as high as the Rogue, so I landed on the lakebed; Jacob and his dad got it back for me while I helped the kids get their high power flights in the air. Thanks, dude!

For my last flight of the day, I had loaded up a classic 54mm 4 grain reload. This propellant was leftover from a research project I had planned at Purdue but never got around to. The rocket jumped off the pad nice and straight on the characteristic light orange plume with light white smoke; apogee was visible, and the main deployed about a half mile to the west. I called the FAA and closed the waiver once it landed; a nice flight to end the day!