July 8, 2017 - Acton
- Details
- Published: Monday, 10 July 2017 10:50
- Written by Kenn Blade
Our first summer launch in Acton took place on what started out as a beautiful day. We were fully aware we wouldn't get our full day of flying in due to an approaching change of weather but we did very well for the time we had. There were a total of 143 flights ranging from MicroMaxx to a few G80 motors, the largest we can fly on the Acton field. The wind made for some distant recoveries but nothing drifted as far as Route 2. The trees along the road didn't come into play as they usually do but the wires caught four rockets throughout the day. One was knocked back to the earth by the wind but the other three will adorn the powerlines until the shock cords are weathered away. One that stayed behind was a beautiful Little Joe II that Joe Lemanski put up on its first flight; another was a scratch build by Frank DeAngelo who was talking to Jim Flis about getting the parts he'll need to make another copy as this one flew so well. The offending wires can be seen in the background of the lower part of the picture of Tony Vincent's Solar Sailer II shown at the left.
As predicted, the weather was moving steadily toward us but later than earlier estimated. We shut down operations at 2:15 and got everything loaded into the trailer. As we were on our way to the debriefing session at True West in Acton, the skies opened up. The cardboard components that were still hanging on the wires would not be having a good time.
On a positive water note, we were contacted by Richard Pelle of West Boylston about flying some water-powered rockets he had built and wanted to show off to his grandkids. He brought all the launch equipment he needed including a pressurizing/release system, compressed air and water. It was a nice set-up that many of our members had a good look at. While there were a few misfires, there were a couple of launches that worked as planned deploying a parachute through mechanical methods (we may have to have a good look that next time). Richard will make some modifications to the system based on information he gathered and will be back for our August launch for some more wet fun. Here's a video capture of one of the good flights.
This was our ninth year of rocketry at the Page School. And for this year we made modification to both the build and launch, reached one milestone and finally got recognition from the Pentucket School District. As usual, the unit can be broken down into four parts. The first is the prebuild, where a few students stay after school and help assemble parachutes, streamers, motor packets and photocopying. The second is a day of practicing the use of an Estes Altitrack and stop watch. The third being the build and rocketry lesson and finally, and the most fun, launch day. There were sixty kids in the 6th grade this, with twenty in each of three home rooms - taught by John Benvenuti, John Peters and Brenda Erhardt. We built our usual three rockets - Estes Alpha I, Custom Rockets Razor and the Fliskits Thing-a-ma-jig. Pictures are in the 
