19 October 2024 - Woodsom Farm - Patience Rewarded

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Published: Saturday, 26 October 2024 20:59

Written by Kenn Blade

The morning was ripe with promise as I finished loading up my gear for the drive to Amesbury. The persistent, pesky easterly airflow that had plagued us for the first two of our fall launches at Woodsom Farm, and a few of our Acton launches as well was gone. In its place was a light breeze from the WSW, with occasional gusts to maybe around 10-12 mph. And so the turnout, as one might expect, was substantial. Arriving at the farm just about the same time as Guy with the trailer, I saw Tony Vincent and Scott Clement as usual first on hand to start the pad setup. Those guys deserve lots of credit for their efforts to be at the field bright and early to locate the spot for the flagpole and start the setup process.

A team from UMASS Lowell arrived with a number of HP rockets for L1 certification efforts, along with several other L1 candidates. Cub Scout Pack 89 showed up with substantial numbers, and Girl Scout Troop 79255 also joined us with several budding young rocketeers. Between them all, they logged about 92 launches with their Generic E2X rockets, many of them two or even three times.

The youngsters weren’t the only ones keeping the launch crew busy. There were 33 high power flights, including several L1 certification flights. There were 49 mid power flights, 15 cluster flights and 8 multi stage flights, three of which were mine. The numbers expressed here are based on what was on the flight cards, some of which had some crucial information missing. So word to the wise: the more information you can provide, the better, especially for certification flights. That way the LCO doesn’t get confused and things go more smoothly. So a couple of those numbers might be off by one or two.

You can’t have a launch day without a few glitches, but there were only 3 CATOs marked on the flight cards, and only one rocket that I know of was irretrievably snagged in a treetop. Other than that, no more than the usual amount of erratic flights and malfunctions. Most of the launches went straight and true up into the perfectly clear sky, and most landed on the field north of the ditch and west of the dirt road.

I kept myself fairly busy launching some of my own, but I did take a bit of time to stir about and chat with some of the regulars to see what they were up to. Rob Caswell and Deb Ziglar showed up after missing several of the previous launches. I was impressed by Rob’s ARCO Javelin D4, which was a birthday present from Deb. It’s very cool rocket and an excellent flyer. I managed a glimpse of John Petrakis’ Cherokee H in action, and was glad to see that Scott had brought his Halloween themed assortment of rockets along, which are super fun to watch. Frank DeAngelo flew his Executioner for the first time.

And then there was the return of Josh Drummond of Happy Chutes fame with his Frankenstein rocket, complete with the Evil Pumpkin chute and the parachuting candy bars guaranteed to cause a stampede of kids hoping to snag a treat. And later, Josh flew his Jupiter 3 Lite with a shark parachute. Very cool.

There were lots of other outstanding flights and I’m afraid I can’t mention them all. The UMASS team seemed to have their act together, and Joe Pleva and Joe Robertson turned in several great flights of various sizes. For my part, I had fun with my own admittedly modest low power rockets, despite a couple of less than stellar performances. My battle weary Avenger went cruise missile on a C6-0/C6-7 combo. My even more battle weary Citation Patriot Cluster mod had one of its three C6-5s fail to ignite, sending the rocket off course into the tall stuff east of the dirt road. I was thinking of retiring both of those rockets and replacing them with something new, but not after such less than perfect flights. I redeemed myself later by sending my Vanishing Point two-stager for a ride on a B6-0/B6-6 combo, nearly making it live up to its name. But I spotted the little yellow dot that was the parachute for the upper stage at apogee, and surprisingly enough it landed just short of the dirt road. 

This was a day for which we rocketeers live. A clear “tracking sky”, not too much wind blowing in a favorable direction, and lots of happy faces on the young and not so young as they watch the fruits of their labors take to the sky. 

As always, many thanks go out to our ever faithful launch crew, Kenn, Guy, John, et.al.  Thanks go out  to all who participated in setup and breakdown, serving lunch, helping the youngsters and other newcomers set themselves up for successful flights, and all the other behind the scenes stuff that makes the magic happen. Thanks to Claude Maina for the opportunity to try my hand at writing this article. Talking about rocket launching beforehand and telling tall tales about it afterwards is almost as much fun as actually launching.

Let’s keep or fingers crossed for another great day for our final launch of the season on Sunday, November 3^rd, which will be followed by our annual night launch. Get your lighted rockets ready! I’m hoping to see you all there. Happy Flying to all!

Rick Hobbs, NAR#112373