Look for partly sunny skies with a chance of popup storms and medium to high winds from roughly the west at SoAR’s launch from Mill Springs Academy on Saturday from 9 AM – 2 PM. Temperatures should reach the mid 80’s by early afternoon.
Mill Springs is our low-power field, suitable for rockets that fly no more than 1000 feet or so. We recommend a maximum of “D” impulse, but experienced rocketeers can and have flown big rockets with up to “G” power on this field. You never know!
As always, the public is welcome to watch or join in.
It is time for the June RocketTalk meeting, and for the first time since the pandemic started, it will be held at Tuxford Community Clubhouse in Alpharetta Thursday evening from 7:00 PM to about 9 PM.
The RocketTalk meeting is where we bring projects to show and techniques to share, and just talk rockets. We cover everything: build questions and techniques; motors; recovery; new and old models; high and low power; model rocket history; real rockets: etc., etc. etc. If it has anything to do with rockets, we love it!!!! You are guaranteed a few minutes of floor time… so bring your latest projects, questions, ideas, finds, complaints, recipes, clean jokes, ocarina improvisations, etc.
For those who are still uncomfortable with in-person meetings, are unvaccinated, or just can’t get to the meeting, we will still have a remote component to the meeting. We will have a TV, laptop, and web cam at the meeting and those who wish can log onto Zoom and participate from home. Just go to the RocketTalk page and click the big blue button.
Perfect weather, mostly still air, and meeting new friends was the order for the day at SoAR’s launch at Strange Duck Brewery in Commerce on May 15. (By the way, no strange ducks were launched!)
Jorge Blanco and Leaor Schwartz arrived early to set up the range and start the Build-it/Fly-it for the brewery staff and friends, while Tim Callahan and Roy Green manned the launch panel for the more or less informal launch. Ray Lecture, David Waln, Ron Stancil, and Darren Ellsworth were among the other members flying during the day.
No flight cards means there’ll be no exact details in this flight report, but there were lots of Alpha III rockets making pretty decent first flights. Leaor Schwartz flew his FlisKits Frick’n’Frack until Frack went into the trees, but his Tres 24 had a couple of mishaps and ended up leaving the launch in a garbage bag. One family showed up for their first launch with an Aerotech Initiator, and made a couple of successful flights on F23 motors, while Richard Wise and his son got to fly their first rocket three times without getting kicked out of a city park (suggestions on informal launch sites in Athens are welcomed and will be passed on to them).
Speaking of first flights, our newest member Jordan Jacob made his (and two more) with his Estes Super Nova (named Shamrock after a departed cat).
We wrapped up about 2:30 after an estimated 90-100 flights and a few of us retired to the brew pub for delicious adult beverages and rocket talk.
Many thanks to Strange Duck Brewery for the opportunity to share rocketry with people from the Athens/Commerce area.
Sunny weather awaits us as SoAR sponsors a launch at the Strange Duck Brewery in Commerce, GA this Saturday, May 15, 2021. Setup will start at 9:30 AM and the launch will start as soon as the range is ready and end at 2 PM. Following the launch, SoAR will have a FREE hamburger/hotdog cookout (Jorge is the chef).
Prior to the launch, we will be doing a build-it/fly-it with the staff of the Brewery and their families starting at 9 AM. Anyone who would like to help is welcome to come out at that time (see the last paragraph).
While the launch is being held at a brewery: No drinking of alcoholic beverages will be allowed in the launch area until the launch is over.
The field is similar to, but smaller than the Mill Springs Academy field. It is 1000 feet long, but only 300 feet wide. If the winds are SE/NW you can fly pretty much anything that is Class 1. SW/NE winds will limit motors to A-D with small chutes or streamers.
Address: 26 Old Allen Rd, Commerce, GA 30530
The goal of this launch is to attract attention to rocketry in the Athens-Commerce area and potentially grow a new NAR section in that area.
SoAR needs help pulling this off (launch setup, take down, LCO, RSO, cooking, build-it/fly-it). Look below in the footer of this page and click on Range Duty Sign-up and volunteer.
The weather forecast for Saturday’s launch at Creekside Farms in Taylorsville was amazingly accurate, as setup of the range occurred in freezing temperatures, but things warmed up by afternoon, the sky was mostly clear and the winds were mostly still, leading to a great day of launches.
Part of the launch site had been a firing range, but that part recently closed. However, SoAR brought out the big guns. First was Kyle Newman’s very nice and large Little Joe II that lifted off with a scale seven motors, a K711 and six G40’s for a total of about 3100 newton-seconds of total impulse, which made a perfect flight and was “caught”, in future SpaceX Starship style, by the finger of trees in the middle of the field, and was easily retrieved by Jorge with SoAR’s trusty fireman’s pole.
Later, Creekview High did a little practice with their K1085 rocket for the NASA Student Launch Initiative, sending it to more than 4500 feet, though it landed just off the property when their main chute couldn’t wait and opened at apogee.
Kevin Scholberg, as usual, had the most flights with fourteen, including two of the Estes AirShow, the second of which had both gliders operating perfectly, two of a very pretty rocket named “Mostly Peaceful”, and a flight of a PML AMRAAM 4″ on an I180. David Waln flew (and thought he lost) an ASP Corporal on a D12 (David, Roy has your rocket). Jim Henson tempted fate, taking advantage of the large field with two flights of his Commanche III 3-stage rocket with a D12/C6/B6 combination. He got it back the first time, but the second time saw the upper stage heading swiftly to parts west.
Bob Nowak was worried about the trim on the glider of his Hawks’ Hobby Super Orbital Transport, but it detached from its booster smoothly and had a leisurely flight down from orbit. Speaking of gliders, Mark Bowen, flew a DynaSoar Aurora rocket glider via radio control for a very nice flight. And Ray Lecture flew something that should be using its wings, but doesn’t, a scratch-built SR-71 BlackBird on a G138 for a flawless climb into the sky.
There were twenty-nine flights using the much-maligned Estes E12 motor, but all twenty-nine motors worked flawlessly. The only two motor failures all day were an E9, and a composite reload motor that had a forward closure failure.
Kevin Boyd’s photos are great as usual. And we have some other photography and videos to share shortly. The image above is from Kevin, and shows Katie Isdell’s “Traffic Cone” which made a perfect flight on an I284.
The final flight of the day, when all spectators had left but one family patiently waiting, was Kyle Newman’s Honest John on a J350.
Here are the motor counts for the 134 total flights (Motor counts are higher because of clusters and multistage flights).
