At the May 14th Mill Springs launch event there were thirty-nine participants who came out on a beautiful day to launch 151 rockets. After some morning clouds departed, conditions became quite extraordinary with very light winds, popcorn skies, and tolerable temperatures. Although not every model was recovered, the number of successful recoveries was very good considering some of the higher altitudes obtained by many participants selecting C and D engines.

Throughout the day there was a variety of interesting models that included new scratch designs and some age-old classics of sport and scale rockets. Roy Green launched a Semroc Aerobee-Hi on a A8-3 that he indicated was the design of the first commercial model rocket kit. He also sent up a Semroc Carlisle Mark II that was like the first rocket G. Harry Stine ever flew back in 1957. Ron Hender had many scale models including a scratch-built Mercury Atlas he launched with a C18 for power and a scratch-built Gemini Titan that flew with a twin C16 cluster.

Keith Frazier announced a Cone Contest that challenged participants to come as close as possible to an orange cone approximately fifty yards down field. A few contestants were able to land their rocket within 50 feet of the cone. A final winner will be announced by Keith and contacted by email with a generous prize awarded for their astute calculations and skillful launch angle eyeballing.

All-in-all the day was very enjoyable. Some event pictures [here]

Engine ignition counts:
A – 19
B – 54
C – 45
D – 22
E – 7
F – 7