While Geminid meteors purportedly skimmed the upper atmosphere the club enjoyed the monthly launch in calm wind and 60 degrees in the lower atmosphere. Rocketeers made up for the rained out November date with a steady rate of assorted firings. Attendance was good despite being so close to the holiday season.
Launches at large fields bring out large rockets. This was certain at the National Sport Launch East held in south Georgia 11/22-23 and run by the Southern Area Rocketry (SoAR) NAR Section. National launches offer more amenities like multiple vendors, food trucks, t-shirts, and raffle prizes. They attract the best rocketeers who bring their coolest and biggest rockets to show and fly. There are many rockets to watch and many people to watch them. Two hundred registered participants launched over 600 rockets with 200 of those being H motors and beyond. Fifty were certification flights of all levels.
The unseasonable warm mornings began with fog but gave way to blue skies in the afternoons allowing the HPRs to explore the 15K’ altitude waiver. The NSLE was also held here by SoAR in 2024 but it will be in Geneseo, NY, Memorial Day weekend next year.
October 18 was the Blue Origin Family Launch in Research Park and HARA assisted for the third year in a row. HARA’s launch support consisted of Duane, Greg, Vince and Bill, with Duane and Bill operating our launch racks/controllers and Vince loading the pads. The kids showed up at scheduled intervals, which prevented overcrowding and allowed for a fairly leisurely pace. We launched about 15 racks of 8 low power rockets between 2 and 6 PM, making for a total of 120 flights, which is pretty good; also recruited a couple of adults who plan to show up at a meeting and may join HARA.
Some highlights of the launch:
1) Lots of Estes Vikings and Wizards; some Alpha’s, Amazons and Blue Origin New Shepards (note the New Shepard does not fly well on an A8-3 – chute deployment is very near ground level).
2) Brad and his wife did an excellent job help the families prep their rockets and load the igniters.
3) A dual A8 cluster started the launch, and one guy 3D printed a New Glenn, which was powered by a cluster of 7 13mm A motors (!). Greg replaced the core A motor with a flashbulb to ignite the remaining 6 engines. Surprisingly all motors lit and the heads-up flight was fairly straight, albeit a bit low.
4) There is one rocket decorating the power lines at the north end of the field, and a few rockets parachutes drifted into the neighborhood to the north. The field is not good even for small motors when the wind is out of the south and pushes the rockets along its shortest dimension. The field was not mowed until a few days before the launch and then was fine for young kids to chase and find rockets.
5) A videographer shot video all day to be used by Blue Origin but also for the Mayor’s office to promote aerospace education in Huntsville.
See many more photos at the HARA facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100064693116419#
The first club launch of the flying season went off on schedule on the second Saturday of the month with excellent weather all day. Operating the range were Doug Aguilar, Duane Meyer, Greg Zsidisin, Art Woodling, Bill Cooke, and Vince Huegele. There were fewer HP flights and certs than usual, with many more low and mid power motors; mostly C’s and E’s. The flight cards showed 83 launches by 38 flyers. About half of the attendees were first timers and a third said they had been to the HARA open house the week before so they might have been bringing to fly the free rocket we gave them. This launch staged the annual Geezer ARC contest with Vince being the only contestant out of five to make both flights with unbroken eggs and win, breaking Duane’s four year streak as top geezer.
See many more photos at the HARA facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100064693116419#
HARA took advantage of the offer by Gigaparts to use their community room for a club open house on Sputnik Day, October 4. Members brought models to show and officers displayed the aspects of sport rocketry with new posters. A steady stream of visitors all afternoon enjoyed the exhibits with some of them even ‘joining the club,’ making the outreach effort successful. Thanks to all who organized and attended the event.
If you’ve ever tried to take pictures of rockets blasting off at a launch, you’ve noticed that the small rockets actually take off faster than the big ones. You have to be quick on the shutter to catch the Estes models just lifting off while the bigger birds are more forgiving. And although you can get close to the small rockets for a tighter framing you have to stay back from the bigger motors and hope your lens will zoom in enough. All of this challenges the photographer to get that perfect image right off the pad, but cameras with high shutter speeds and fast frame exposures help. Here are some pictures capturing ascents made at 1/5000 sec and 5 frames/sec of 18mm motor models.
Several HARA members trekked to the SOAR launch 6/26 at the Coosa Sod farm in Centre, AL, to get a HPR fix. The summer showers held off until late in the day and allowed 170 flights of models big and small. SOAR provided the hardware but some HARA members did range duty. The launch was also a check if a two day joint club event might be possible to plan at that field for next year. If so, there is discussion about reviving Southern Thunder, a multi-day regional event that ran 2004-2017 when we had the field in Manchester, TN. (search this website for reference posts)
For more photos of the launch visit the HARA facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100064693116419#
The Asbury cub scout launch was rained out but was reset for the week later allowing the kids and HARA to kick off the summer. The seasonal still, heavy air kept the rockets low and in the small field allowing some scouts to have multiple flights with their recovered models. This crowd opted to make every round a drag race and shoot all the rockets on the rack at once which sped up the hot morning considerably and made for an interesting airshow. Led by HARA president Doug Aguilar, members Nathan Ryan, Blake Parker, Dr. Bill Cooke, Vince Huegele, and Greg Zsidisin showcased the hobby with display models and replaced ignitors in misfired motors.
During the presentation scouts were told about ARC and that the national champions this year were Boy Scout Troop 74 from Montville, NJ and this Team U.S.A. just won the International Rocketry Challenge in Paris, France. They defeated Japan, Great Britain, and France to win the event. One young man prepping his rocket then declared, ”I want to win ten thousands dollars with a rocket and go to Paris.”
