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I'd already prepped my Electric Blue 4" rocket on Friday night in anticipation for flying it on Saturday if I had the chance. I did have a couple of chances first and last thing, but decided to wait for the alleged better weather on the Sunday. Come Saturday night I started to prep Jabiru, which was finished back in 1999 but just never flown, as I didn't have any electronics. So I woke up on Sunday and looked out of the tent and to my great disappointment the weather was crap. There was low grey cloud and the wind was worthy of a windsurfing competition, not the type of weather you want to by flying high in. By the time I got back into the marquee and finished by cooked breakie a lot more flyers had turned up and the mood wasn't good as people started to scrub their big launches for the day.
When we eventually got to the range head I started to do the announcers job but as the weather was very slowly improving I managed to unload that job onto Mark Turner and setup Electric Blue using an ignitor dipped in Igniterman pyrogen to ensure ignition. The moment I pressed the button the rocket was off the rail like it had a rod hot poker up it's arse! The size of the flame was well impressive as was the vivid blue colour and the noise. I was worried that the I357 would be like the H238 and not really worth bothering about unless you need a very quick dose of power. I couldn't have been more wrong and this wee motor is definitely on my to fly again list. After recovering Electric Blue and getting back to the flight line I discovered that there was a high altitude wind above the clouds coming as there were a few rockets that were simmed to go into the cloud base Jabiru being one of them. I quickly ran out to the pads with it and did the final prep of the electronics on the pad. I would definitely recommend that you fit switches to your electronics as twisting two wires together isn't the best solution...
It was at this point I realised that flying a white rocket with grey skies wasn't a good idea as my rocket disappeared into the cloud base, how was I ever going to spot it on the way down. Luckily young Tom "40/20 vision" Hicks was on hand and spotted it straight away on it's drogue shoot and Roy quickly pointed it out to me. It dropped to near the 400 feet programmed in for the main to deploy at and the main duly deployed. I was ecstatic, the adrenaline was pumping through the veins. A year and three months since I spacked my AltAcc at the March Thrust launch I was finally back on track with dual deployment and bigger motors. We had to walk slightly further to recover Jabiru as it landed in a field over the road just outside the site. There was no damage and the chute was easily visible on top of the crops. The R-DAS was merrily beeping out 3,162 feet, which was quite a lot lower than predicted, but the rocket didn't go straight up. On later download it was found the actual altitude was 3,264 feet, which is slightly better, but still well short of the simulation. All in all it was a cracking weekend with some fantastic flights. It's totally made my sit up and realise why I like flying rockets as there aren't may other things you can do that give you that buzz and warm glow of satisfaction when it all works as intended.
Copyright © 1999-2007, Fatboab, all rights reserved.
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In a departure from previous years I'm not going to give a full blown report on the whole event as I'm writing this a few weeks after the event and I can't remember everything that happened. Having said that, I arrived on the Thursday night just after half eleven and started on the beer before I'd even unpacked. We got a phone call about ten minutes later from Jim Mac saying his car was in a ditch, the weekend had official started.
Being the eternal optimist that I am, I finished prepping Jabiru and loaded all the black powder ejection charges and put the rocket together. If I got to fly it, it would be the first flight of the rocket, the first flight of my new R-DAS and the first time I'd flown an I435. I was thinking that there was too many firsts in the equation and that something would go wrong.
Jeremy Tomes was also setting up a 3" rocket on the pads with an I435 in it so we decided to have a drag race as both rockets were of a similar size. When the count down was given we both pressed our buttons and shortly after Jabiru screamed into the sky with a tongue of blue flame licking out it rear end. Jeremy didn't have so much luck, the force of the motor ripped the rear launch lug off the rocket and knocked the pad over. This meant that his rocket went spearing over the heads of the assembled onlookers, who all turned round to watch it.