19th and 20th launch. ?????

Mike, lots, way up there, swamp gas, AN and AP. And too much sun. I’ll get it posted here shortly, I hope.

Great teasers, Chris.

The wide-angle shot of (John’s?) rocket on top of that enormous straight column of smoke is a work of art.

I couldn’t keep up with Art and his brother, so I was only able to see things from a distance walking and running behind them. It was at that time I really wished I’d drank more water and put sunscreen on–Joe is always right about that. When I finally caught up with them, Art was on his back cradling his hands. First of all, Rocket Rage chutes are absolutely the best chutes made. So good in fact, that IF there’s wind, they will re-inflate and carry your rocket literally as far as the wind will take it. That happened to me on my L3 flight, and that’s what happened to Art’s rocket. From my point of view, Art only caught up once and grabbed it. He tried to reel it in. But the wind picked up, ripped the harness through his hands so fast that he got some really bad burns–he tried to cut it with a knife but couldn’t. The wind lifted the booster about ten feet off the ground under chute again and finally impaled the upper section on a barbed wire fence quite a distance away. No road rash. It hit so hard that it knocked the fence post out of the ground (we re-seated it). Before this happened though, once in flight again, the booster hit Art from behind and knocked him off his feet. That could have been really bad if it’d hit him in the head. It was a tragic ending to one of the most perfect flights I’ve ever seen. Ed Dawson caught up with me about midway through the chase, ran back to Doug’s truck and tried to track us down. Had Ed not come to get us, I don’t know how we would have gotten the rocket back. That’s a classic scenario of how we watch each others back. Thanks, Ed. You really saved the day, not to mention us. I really feel for Art. He has one of the best attitudes of anyone in the club. He said, “It is what it is.” He tried everything humanly possible to stop it but couldn’t. Although, thanks to Nadine, Ray and Doug, he’ll have some memorable pictures of the liftoff.

Hey, sounds like quite an eventful launch it’s too bad I missed it! A similar thing happened to me recently when I launched my newest creation Poindexter on a K700 in the Black Rock desert. Picture Perfect flight and the rocketrage chute lowered the rocket down very gently but then the ground winds picked it back up and dragged the rocket for a half mile along the desert floor before a guy on a motorcycle came hauling from the flight line to help me get it.

I told someone this story and they told me about when they were in the military they would release the parachute from the cargo when it hit the ground to avoid dragging and thus damaging the cargo. When the parachute is released the shroud lines are no longer taught and theoretically deflates next to the cargo. So why can’t we do this in rocketry?

I found a few kinds of parachute ground disconnect devices most of them rated for large cargo, possibly for hummers and tanks. The smallest one I’ve found is rated for 50-100 pounds and weighs only 3.5 ounces. Does anyone have any experience with these and knows where to get smaller ones? When my rocket was loaded with the K700 it weighed 20 pounds so I’m not sure if this would work but definitely worth investigating for those large projects.

http://www.para-gear.com/templates/parachute.asp?group=429&level=2&parent=337

See you guys soon.

Steve Hendricks

Most excellant input Steve, Thanks.