Launch Date: 31 May, 2017

The week following Memorial Day has been marked by increasingly mild weather conditions along the Colorado front range.  Close watch of local wind and weather forecasts revealed that today would be an ideal day to get in a little rocket flying., so I took a break from the endless yard work, packed up some rockets and gear, and headed out to Dove Valley Park.

Arriving around 10:45 a.m., the first bird to be prepped and launched was the old Hornet.  The model turned in yet another great flight on an A3-4T engine.

Next up was the much-anticipated maiden flight of the new Mini-Maggot boost glider.  After a series of hand launches, I had the glider trimmed out perfectly.  On one of these trim tosses, the glider ascended about 25 feet altitude, transitioned into glide, turned, and headed straight for me.  Before I could react, it bopped me right in the forehead!  Very helpful.

I was a bit concerned about attempting to launch this bird on a 1/4A engine with a 3 second delay, but I opted to proceed anyway.  My trepidation was confirmed at launch when the bird ascended straight up to a little over 100 feet, turned over, and headed straight down.  It pranged just when the ejection charge went off.

Much to my surprise, the glider survived the impact intact.  The power pod suffered only minor bending at the fore end of the body tube.  An easy fix that will have the Mini Maggot ready to fly another day. 

I think the glider can handle a 1/2A engine which can be had with a 2 second delay.  One bright spot of this flight was the great performance of the newly constructed glider rod and gantry system.

Since I had some spare ¼ A engines in the range box, out came the little Mosquito for a quick flight or two.

The first launch boosted the model straight and high, and, as expected with Mosquito flights, it disappeared after ejection.  Surprisingly, I spotted the model on the turf right away about 40’ distance from the launch pad.  No extended searching this time.

I quickly had the model ready to go for a second flight.  Nice thing about Mosquitos is the quick prep time.

Again, #105 boosted nicely.  By this time a bright, high altitude cloud had appeared overhead, so I didn’t even see the delay and ejection smoke.  I had to rely solely on the direction of the ejection sound to get an idea of where to start looking for the model.

This time, finding the rocket was not so easy. After a full 20 minutes of methodically searching the vicinity around the launch area, I had no Mosquito.  I did manage to find a lot of other orange things:

An orange drinking straw,

An orange candy wrapper,

An orange foam ear plug,

Even a piece of actual orange peel!

But no (BRIGHT) orange rocket.

Vexed and perplexed, I almost gave up , but decided to make one more circuit of the field, this time expanding the search radius by another 100 feet.

That’s when I finally found the bird…a full soccer field length’s distance from the launch pad. It was remarkable that it had traveled that far on a ¼ A engine!

On the long trek back to the launch area, I found this….

Doubtless left on the field after a kid’s soccer match.

“WINNER’” says the plastic medallion.

Was this a congratulatory message to me for having found the Mosquito, or is it instead a cruel mockery of the 25 minutes spent searching? 

Nevertheless, I am happy to have the Mosquito back after its 6^th flight.  The ‘WINNER’ award will be proudly draped around the model’s display stand back at the workshop!

The final flight of the day was turned in by the Estes Lynx on an A10-3T engine.  This model has always proven to be a great performer, and today’s launch was no exception. 

Ignition and boost were perfect, but at ejection I saw no deployed parachute.  The model fell fairly quickly, but in a horizontal position with the ‘chute and shock cord tangled around the wings and fins.  The Lynx survived this little mishap without a scratch.

With that done, it was time to pack up and leave DV park to the sole possession of a gentleman who was out scanning the fields with a metal detector….