Launch Reports

The WAC Hive Mind recommended moving to Sunday the 12th, and it was right!  While overcast pretty much the whole time, it was otherwise perfect: hardly any wind and warm enough for shirt sleeves. A very good call!

Before diving into the details, many many thanks to all who helped make this happen.  As Launch Director, well, I didn’t do much directing or anything else.  Club members jumped in and got the work done.  I’m sure I’m missing some names, and apologies to those who I missed.

Special thanks to Bob S for shlepping all the way out to Issaquah (from Tacoma, yet!) to bring and return the club’s trailer. Without him, there would have been no launch at all.

Thanks go to the following for setup, teardown, RSO and LCO duties.

Greb W

Mike R

Mike G

Dave W

Shane F

Pete S

Matthew S

Joe ?

Additional thanks to behind the scenes work for information on the equipment and general help: Dale W and Jim P.

Again, sorry if I didn’t get your name, but thanks all the same!

Here’s the breakdown:

A: 17 plus 1 more in stage and 6 more in a cluster

B: 22

C: 24

D: 9 plus 2 more in a cluster

E: 5 plus 2 more in a cluster

F: 3

G: 4

Complex Rockets:

Staged: 2

Clusters: 2

I didn’t make a firm count, but we had at least 40 attendees, pretty good for a launch that had to be delayed and weather that was unsettled.  I hope everyone had as much fun as I did!

Ken B

Picture from the launch can be found on the Launch Photos webpage.

Hello Rocket Enthusiasts,

We had a great day of launching rockets on Saturday March 14th!

Happy to have welcomed special guests, the Arlington Civil Air Patrol Cadets who earned an Aerospace qualification!

Despite the snow on the ground and a few drops of rain here and there, we had 82 flights!  Awesome!!

Here's the motors flown:

A  29

B  4

C  17

D  8

E  6

F  10

G  1

Clustered  5

Multi-Stage 2

Total  82

Thanks to everyone who participated.

Greg W

Picture from the launch can be found on the Launch Photos webpage.

Hi all,

The MisFITS launch is over! Weather on Saturday was pretty good: no rain, some high clouds but basically sunny, temperature peaked around 65 degrees, some winds but typically only 8 mph or so. Weather on Sunday was nowhere near as nice: as forecast, the average wind speed exceeded 20 mph by 10 AM or so. When that happened, we stopped flying.

I'd like to thank basically everyone. Thanks to WAC members! Thanks to those non-members who paid good money to attend. I hope you all enjoyed yourselves.

These launches only work because we have a lot of generous folks who help out. Thanks to:

· Tri-Cities Rocketeers and especially Dave and Tammara for all they did

· Our vendor: Broomstick Rocket Components

· Jack for driving the club trailer

· Everyone who helped set up or tear down the range

· Everyone who helped with registration, LCO, FSO, pad assignment, etc.

· Bryce for running the night launch

Attendance was better than expected. My initial poll suggested around 75 people on Saturday, but we think we had more like 100 actually present.

We had about 104 flights. There were motors of all sizes, from A to M. Here's a breakdown by impulse class:

A: 1
B: 5
C: 7
D: 8
E: 4
F: 12
G: 10
H: 31
I: 10
J: 11
K: 3
M: 1

There were also a number of research motor static tests, both by the UW SARP team and WAC's WARP team.

I didn't keep track of certifications, but I did see quite a few. The large number of "H" motors certainly seems to show a lot of L1 certification attempts.

Thanks again!

Dale W

Launch director

Picture from the launch can be found on the Launch Photos webpage.

The launch at 60 Acres today went very smoothly with a wide variety of rockets.  We had everything from 1/2A-powered parachute-duration rockets drifting lazily in light thermals to seven-engine clusters echoing across the valley.  This month, we went back to alternating flights between the A pads and the B pads, loading one while launching from the other, and notched a total of 135 flights using 152 engines in under four hours.  Motor distribution was as follows:

1/4A motors - 1

1/2A motors - 7

A motors - 31

B motors - 22

C motors - 33

D motors - 24

E motors - 23

F motors - 9

G motors - 2

There were two 2-stage flights, one 3-stage flight, two 2-engine clusters, three 3-engine clusters, and one 7-engine cluster.  The only flights that appeared to leave the field were 1/2A powered parachute duration models that managed to find one of the light thermals that drifted through after the sun came out.  We had what appeared to be an unusually high number of motor CATOs across a range of motor sizes.

Special thanks to those who helped with setup and teardown, to James Mooreshire for handling LCO duty all day, and to Ken Berkun and Jim Rolph for covering the RSO duty.

Be sure to mark your calendar for our next 60 Acres launch scheduled for Saturday, March 14th , the weekend after our first scheduled high-power launch near Pasco.

Jim P

Picture from the launch can be found on the Launch Photos webpage.

Hello Rocketeers - 

     We had a great turnout on Saturday for our January Launch at 60 Acres.   Weather was excellent, with all the flights were below the cloud cover.  We even had some sunshine :).   

     We had a number of special flights including special Club project flights Parachute Duration and Gyrocopter Duration.  We had flights with electronics onboard, multi-stage flights, Cameras, a number of 3-D printed rockets flew, cluster, egg launch, helicopter nose cone recovery, steamer and tumble recovery, and many first flights (both for the rocket and the person launching the rocket).  We launched a total of 99 rockets on Saturday (100 motors were used, as one flight was a cluster launch).   See motor list below.

     A HUGE thank you to all of our volunteers who helped get waivers filled out, performed RSO and LCO duties, helped set up and tear down, got the sound system set up etc.   It takes a village to put these events on, and we could not have done it without your help.  

Saturday's Motor count - 

     A = 25

     B = 25

     C = 20

     D = 18

     E = 7

     F = 2

     G = 2

     Our next Launch will be on Saturday February 14th - Bring your favorite valentine :).   

     Cheers!

• Bill B (Launch Director)

Picture from the launch can be found on the Launch Photos webpage.