BlastFromThe Past: January 2024

Now that the Holidays (a.k.a. 'eating season) are past, it's time to get back to building rockets.

Even though my rocketry time will be shared with the on-going basement finishing project as well as daily music practice, I anticipate making good progress.

So, what am I working on?

I still have the nine or so models left over from the 2022-23 "binge build", which never really fully got going.

This year, I'm breaking the build pile down into smaller, more manageable chunks.

Currently, I'm concentrating on five birds.

Two of them , the 13mm and 18mm booster stages are completed through the build and grain finishing stages. Both are now awaiting primer.

Viking 4 scale - completed sanding the fin airfoil facets and filling the balsa grain. These components along with the nose are also ready for primer.

Black Hole Space Probe - completed cutting apart the PNC-50BB nose cone assembly and smoothing out the seam lines on both the nose and display nozzle sections.

A.R.V. Condor - Starting the process of sanding an airfoil into the glider wings.

Even though the the kit directions don't require this, I do so anyway with all of my glider builds.

Just makes 'em fly better.

I won't be doing daily blow-by-blow build 'threads' on any of these models, but will write frequent progress posts with lots of pics.

Stay tuned...

Happy New Year, blog readers!

Once again, it's time to hang up the new calendars and take my retrospective look at the past twelve months in terms of rocketry activity in the BlastFromThePast shop.

Most striking is the fact that I only managed to knock out two new rockets in 2023, the Mountaineer-IV and the Deltie Airshow!

This is my lowest yearly output since becoming a BAR in 2016. Even going back to my 'Old Fleet' days of 1973-1984, it holds the record for the lowest new-build numbers in one year.

This situation might be offset in the upcoming year because I have been plugging away at several other builds that just didn't get quite finished in time this year.

As for launching activity, I managed to put up 31 flights across six launch sessions.

These all took place in the smaller parks in Castle Rock, since the larger launch site at Dove Valley in Centennial was closed down for most of the year for renovations. The park is supposed to open back up sometime this coming March, so it is my hope that our band of Front Range rocketeers can get back to business again.

I didn't make it down to Pueblo this past year either to attend a S.C.O.R.E. launch.

As a result, I didn't put up any flights that involved multi-staging or gliding components. Too much potential for losing them on the smaller fields. Only two of my launches involved motors beyond a C. These were both D-powered flights of an Estes Big Daddy.

As for the flights that did take place in 2023, most were successful, with no models lost or damaged beyond repair. The most serious issue was a C6-5 CATO that gutted my ESAM-58 model, but the bird will be restored and fly again (in some form).

Another highlight of 2023 was in getting my neighbor across the street interested in model rocketry. He has sunk his teeth deep into the hobby and is proving to be an extremely skilled model builder and flier!

So, here are the yearly pics of the current flight-worthy fleet. Instead of trying to crowd everybody into one big family portrait as in prior years, I chose to take several shots of different rockets arranged in a more orderly fashion: