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#
