ROC September 2017

Since its last flight, I had painted the booster on the Punisher to match the new white nose cone; the black avbay stripe and red spacer that Tim made me add a nice effect at the forward end of the tube. I wanted to keep the sequence of 54mm White Lightning motors going, but was out of K550s, so I elected to burn a K185W instead. The 3" rocket/K185 combo is really solid, and the rocket took off with authority on the moonburning reload. Drogue deployment was confirmed by tracker, and the green main chute unfurled at 700 feet. It landed by the old road for an easy recovery.

The weather was holding so I elected to proceed with my shakedown flight on the Competitor 5. This had been a long time coming; I started the rocket back in 2006, so it only took 11 years! After final assembly and shear pin installation, Andrew helped me load up. A few happy snaps with the rocket and then back to the middle row for photos. Gregg called out the count and the rocket lifted off cleanly on a nice spike of blue fire. Drogue and main deployment were visible, and I got to the rocket before it dragged too far on its R14 main. A nice first flight.