Launch Date: April 10th, 2023

 After over five months of chronic cold, snow, ice, and wind, this week's weather conditions along the Colorado Front Range have finally been suitable for flying model rockets.

A massive high pressure system has parked itself over the state, bringing warmer, calmer conditions.

Yesterday, I packed up some of my smaller models and some launch gear to head to Founders park in Castle Rock.

As I noted in a previous post, our local group of rocketeers has lost the use of our favorite park for the next year, and we have yet to find a suitable replacement.

I wasn't able to pull the group together in time yesterday, so I had to go solo.

I arrived at Founders around noon to find fairly nice conditions: temperature around 70 degrees and a small amount of breeziness. Aside from a few people walking their dogs around the perimeter path, I had the entire place to myself.

The first model off the pad was the EAC Viper flagship. Powered by a B6-4, this would be its eleventh flight.

The bird boosted straight and high, deploying its parachute at ejection. Unfortunately, the chute tangled in its own shroud lines, and did not fully open. The Viper came in fast.

Despite all of the wide open turf on the field, the model 'chose' to head straight for the six foot wide strip of concrete perimeter sidewalk.

Two fins broken off....

My poor flagship! My aim is to get fifty flights out of the bird, but with all the recent mishaps and breakages, I fear that might not happen. It still needs to survive 39 more flights.  

All I can do is keep gluing it back together and hope for the best.

The second launch of the afternoon went to a Generic E2X carrying a Flight Sketch Mini altimeter.  The model turned in a very nice flight on B6-4 power.  The altimeter recorded 394 feet.

Next up, I broke out a little beginner's bird, a Bandit 3 that I had put together a few years back while building models with my grandkids.  It deserves some airtime, too....

An A3-4T motor took the bird on a very nice flight, which was easily recovered by streamer.

Because a little bit of wind was starting to pick up, I declined to launch the remaining two birds I had brought along.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, Founders Park sits on top of a wide mesa.  Winds consistently change direction at any given moment, sometimes as much as 180 degrees!  During the course of this hour-long launch session I had to relocate my launch position on the field to compensate for sudden shifts of wind direction.   On the third such move, I just sat things up in the center of the field and hoped for the best, Somewhat irritating. 

I Did It Again...

After packing up my gear and trekking back to the car, I noticed that my launch rod was missing.

Yep, I had left it back at the launch site.  At least this time, I had soccer net landmarks to go by and was easily able to find the launch area.  I recovered the rod with no problem.

Another 'Senior Moment', perhaps ??

Cheers....

Some New Rocket Display Stands

 Mrs. BlastFromThePast and I frequently shop at Sam's Club.

Every so often we purchase these humongous rolls of plastic food service film. 

A roll lasts us for a very long time, but when it does finally run out, I am left with some interesting packaging parts.  These are the plastic supports found at each end of the box for holding the roll core for dispensing the wrap.

Of course, they have the appearance of fancy bases for rocket stands.  

A length of dowel, a wood screw, a spent motor casing or two and a little bit of epoxy quickly transforms them into the same.

I also have some similar small plastic pieces from aluminum foil rolls that serve just as well for smaller rockets.

It's quite a lot of fun to re-purpose this kind of stuff for use in our rocketry endeavors.

At Last.. Time To Get Some Rocket Work Done

 The BlastFomThePast shop has recently  seen a lot of idle time in respect to building rockets.

There were just way too many other unrelated projects and activities vying for my time.

This past week, I was able to concentrate on the Mountaineer IV build.

All construction, filleting, and grain filling is now complete, and the bird is ready for primer.

The good news is that we have a big, fat high pressure cell sitting over Colorado, warming things up and keeping the nasty cold weather systems far to the north.

Good painting days ahead.

On another note, I am planning the first launch of the year  for this upcoming week.

Sadly, we have lost use of Dove Valley Park for an entire year.  It's closed down for a massive renovation and expansion project, not scheduled to re-open until next March.

So, all of us are thrashing about looking for other area parks in which to practice our craft. Most of what we have found is in the B6-4 range.

Perhaps this might prompt me to get down to more S.C.O.R.E. launches in Pueblo this year to fly the bigger stuff and gliders.

Anyway, as I am writing this post, I am also prowling about the deep, dark, and dank subterranean depths of my home (the basement shop), rummaging through various boxes and totes in search of the next rocket project.

Aha!....Here it is.....the Deltie Airshow model I started a little while back.

Now where did my modeling tools end up after my last shop re-organization frenzy???

Cheers!

So Close And Yet So Far...

I just returned from a week long trip to Maryland to visit a daughter, grandson, and son-in-law who is stationed at Fort Meade.

The last two days of our stay, Monday and Tuesday, were designated as sightseeing days.

The main thing on my bucket list was to visit Goddard Space Flight Center.

We learned that it was closed on Mondays and Tuesdays...

No worries, we'll drive down to D.C. and visit the National Air and Space Museum.

After parking, we walked to the museum only to find a long line of people waiting outside. It was then that we learned that the museum operated on timed, pre-paid tickets, and that they were sold out for the day.....

Strike two.....

Next door to the Air and Space museum was the Hirshhorn Museum of Modern Art.

Boring... definitely not my cup o' tea.  That stuff could not even hold a candle to the aircraft and rockets I had come to DC expecting to see....

Ok, let's try the original old Smithsonian building!

After walking around most of the structure, we learned that it was closed for renovation....

Stee-rike three!

Ok, one last stab - we walked across the Capitol Mall to the National Natural History Museum...which WAS open.

Only problem here was that it was packed  wall-to-wall with people!

It became near impossible to jostle our way through the crowds just to get a glimpse of any one of the exhibits. Staying together as a group was even more difficult.

By this time, all of us adults were becoming somewhat irritated, and our 5-year old grandson was getting a bit grumpy....

We're outta here....

A Productive Day In The Shop.

As promised, I did manage to immerse myself into some rocketry projects yesterday.

The first order of business was to facilitate repairs on a couple of birds that got busted up last fall.

The first was the Rascal rocket glider. On its maiden flight, a hard landing broke the fuselage in three places. These are now glued back together and awaiting the application of a strengthening/reinforcement scheme.

In parallel, a new fin for the EAC Viper was fashioned, attached, sealed, and brush painted. I still have to do the masking and painting of the orange and purple areas, but the bird will soon be in shape to fly at the next launch session.

Intertwined with these projects, I also managed to glue on the fins of the Estes Omega sustainer stage. Note the cool LEGO-built cradle.

At the same time, I finished papering the booster fins, which will probably get attached today.

Oh, and the frosty trek to the mailbox paid off. The Estes catalog had indeed arrived!

I haven't sat down and perused it in detail yet, but I'll get to it later today, as well.

Cheers!

"All The Trees Are Brown...."

 "...And the skies are gray..."

                -The Mamas & The Papas

...and it's cold

....and it's icy....

...and there's snow all over the place.

I sorely need a rocket flying fix!

And, since I'm certainly not 'dreaming' of 'California', I might as well just shrug, quit griping, and submerge myself into the  BlastFromThePast basement LaBORatory and glue something up.

I've got more than a few projects in various stages of completion. Will post some progress pics later this week.

Maybe, later today I'll even don the fur parka and the mukluks, trudge out across the frozen tundra to the mail box, and see if the new 2023 Estes catalog has arrived yet.

It's That Time Of Year Again !

 It's hard to believe that it's 2023 already.

Truly, we must have been having fun because time has certainly flown.

As is my wont every January, I do my annual look-back at the previous year's model rocketry activity. So here goes:

I managed to log 43 flights in 2022 spread out over 8 launch sessions, 6 of which took place at Dove Valley Park in Centennial, Colorado.

One of these flights marked my 200th BAR-era launch.

Other highlights included my 1st BAR cluster launch, a launch of some rocket mail, and a few altimeter//vidcam tandem launches.

No models were damaged last year that required relegation to the dust bin, though a few were dinged up enough to earn a spot in the 'repair hangar'.

No models were lost !!

Oddly, the BlastFromThePast shop managed to introduce only four new models to the stable in 2022, three of which were already mostly completed holdovers from the 2021 binge build!

A substantial amount of progress was made on the 2022 binge build, but out of the nine models started, only one was finished and saw some air time.

The remainder of the birds are now part of the new 2022-23 semi-binge build!

So, here are my annual photos of the current flight-worthy fleet:

Let's not forget the birds awaiting repair:

And, finally the in-progress 2022-23 models:

Here's wishing you all a Happy and Prosperous New Year !!