Date: October 9, 1999

Location: Pawnee National Grasslands, CO

Club: Tripoli Rocky Mountains

Folks, it just don't get much better for flying than it was this weekend at Pawnee National Grasslands in Northern Colorado. My buddy Steve and I drove out from his cabin at Redfeather Lakes. We only hoped that the weather would be as nice at the launch site as it was up in the mountains. We had nothing to fear; when we arrived it was a bit chilly but quickly warmed up to the point where we had to remove our sweaters. The wind was just a little breezy; it certainly was not a factor for a change. And not a cloud in the bright, blue sky.

I already had a G75 packed from two weekends before, so all I had to do was tighten the closures and add the ejection charge and stuff it into the Goblin. This would be the Goblin's ninth flight and her second Black Jack. At liftoff, she rose slowly and gracefully on the thick, dark, Black Jack smoke, to about 1500 feet, tipping slightly East (left of the crowd). Ejection was right on time, and she floated down, heading towards the line of cars along the flightline. For a minute it looked like she was going to crash into one of the parked trucks, but she barely missed it by a couple feet. Fortunately, neither the truck nor the Goblin received any damage.

Next I prepped an I161 for the Endeavour's first flight. This flight would be a number of "firsts" for me: my first I-class motor, my first 38mm motor, and the Endeavour's first flight. I was unsure about which delay to use with the I161. RockSim suggested a medium delay, but intuition told me that a medium would be too long. So I consulted with Ken Mizoi, and he suggested a short delay. I trust Ken's experience more than my own intuition, so I went with the short. This turned out to be a good choice.

I was a nervous wreck waiting for the Endeavour to fly. It was almost like the nervousness I went through before my certification flight in March. I kept thinking about all the things that could go wrong, like the infamous 38mm delay liner problem. Nevermind that I did install the new white liner (not the red one!), and that the liner and delay grain fit like a glove. I just had that feeling that something would go wrong. Well, I'm glad I was wrong about that.

The Endeavour lifted off nice and slow, flying very straight and stable to about 1800 feet. Ejection was just about perfect, maybe a half-second or so after apogee. She drifted down nice and slow on her orange and blue 'chute, landing about a quarter-mile away, about half-way up the slope of the ridge that surrounds the Northern edge of the range. Such a pretty flight. Great rocket! Now I wanna cram an I211 in her. I made it a point to tell Ken that he made a good call on recommending the short delay.

After cleaning out the cases and taking a lunch break, I prepped an H238T for the LOC-IV. This would be her sixth flight and her first Blue Thunder. Boost was nice and loud and fast; unfortunately, she suffered a blow-by while still under thrust. I just stared in amazement as everything flew apart a couple hundred feet in the air. The force of the ejection snapped the nose off the quick-link and it plummeted to the ground near the pads. Luckily the 'chute and body stayed together, and landed gently about 100 yards from the pad. She suffered major zipper damage from the high-speed ejection, but everything else held together. I was surprised I didn't lose any fins. It's nice to know the IV can survive such a violent disaster. The body tube from the upper centering ring and up is destroyed, but I can cut it off and replace it. She *will* fly again!

Post-flight motor disassembly revealed something interesting. Where usually there will be a small ring of soot formed by the delay o-ring inside the forward closure from the ejection charge, this time there was soot covering the entire inside forward surface and a bit on the wall of the delay enclosure. I'm sure this had something to do with the motor's failure. Fortunately there was no damage to the motor itself.

Completely undaunted by the disaster with the IV, I prepped an H123-M for the Ariel for her second flight. Nice, pretty rainbow flight to about 1800 feet, with ejection right at apogee. It was interesting to compare the flight of the H123 to the H180 the Ariel flew on at Hartsel two months ago. For the same total impulse, the H123 has a lower avg. thrust and a longer burn time compared with the H180. She landed about a quarter-mile away, right in the same area that the Endeavour landed in earlier. As we were walking out to retrieve her, Steve quipped, "Why do your rockets always land so far away?"

YTD Motor Count: 1/2A - 2; A - 3; B - 4; C - 7; D - 8; E - 4; F - 7; G - 12; H - 9; I - 1