Date: September 11, 1999

Location: Pawnee National Grasslands, CO

Club: Tripoli Rocky Mountains

For some time now, the guys at CRASH and Tripoli-Colorado have been trying to talk me into going to Pawnee to fly with Tripoli-North Colorado. I finally had the opportunity to do so this weekend.

I brought four rockets with me, but only flew two. I tried to divide my time between prepping my own, chatting with the other folks at the launch, and taking pictures of the other flights. One of the first flights of the day was Ken Mizoi's half-scale Nike-Smoke. This is a beautifully constructed rocket that Ken used to earn his L3 Cert at LDRS. This time he flew it on a Kosdon L-something. The motor burned very slowly and the rocket lifted slowly off the pad on a plume of black, Dirty-Harry smoke. It was a beautiful, realistically slow liftoff. Unfortunately, the chute in the booster didn't deploy, and we all gasped and groaned in horror as the bottom half of the rocket plummeted to earth. The nose was recovered intact, but the booster was a total loss. A real heartbreaker.

My first flight of the day was the Goblin-4 on an H128 for her seventh flight. It was a good, fast, loud flight, but thanks to a bonus delay we were treated to another heart-stopper from the Goblin as she began to head straight down. The chute finally popped and she landed about 100 yards away with no damage.

While I left the casing soaking in vinegar, I watched a few other flights. The highlight of the day (for me, anyway) was my buddy Steve's successful (finally ;-) Level 1 flight. He flew his PML Bull Puppy on an H112J for a perfect certification. Way to go, Steve!

The other highlight of the day (for everyone else in the club) was the long-anticipated flight of TNT (for details, check out the TRM web page at: http://www.edsr.com/trm/). This project was a major undertaking by several club members, and it was apparent that a lot of effort had been put into this project. Unfortunately, only two of the rocket's three stages lit, but this was still one of the most impressive flights I have ever witnessed. From what I heard, they got clean video from the live downlink, and all of the components were recovered intact.

My other flight was the LOC-IV, also on an H128-M. This is turning out to be my favorite motor/rocket combination. By the time the IV was on the pad, a nasty-looking storm was rolling through, so we were in a hurry to get our rockets off the pads. The IV had a nice flight, floating as she does up there on those H128s. Ejection was right on time, and she landed about 250 yards away in the grass. I hurried out there and got her before I got stuck in the storm. As it was, I barely got her back to my truck and started packing up before the storm hit.

Only two flights, but that's okay since there was a lot to do and see today (not to mention that I was poor and could only afford two motors ;-) I will join TRM next year and I have every intention of flying regularly at Pawnee.

YTD Motor Count: 1/2A - 2; A - 3; B - 4; C - 7; D - 8; E - 4; F - 7; G - 9; H - 7