Although the day was a bit dreary with overcast skies and occasional light rain, the turnout for the November 12th SoAR launch event was a whopper. Before the scheduled 11:00 event start time, multiple scout packs were invited to launch rockets in the morning pre-event hours; and launch they did! The day’s flight cards reaching a total count of 218 launches.

As one could imagine with the aforementioned onslaught of youthful enthusiasm, there was constant early action on the launchpads and in the air. Lots of successful flights with a variety of low-power rockets, creative designs, and interesting payloads (who would have thought to deliver tanks and infantry to the front lines via rockets).

By 11:00 the scouts had launched everything they had, and the rest of the event was at a more relaxed pace. As a cold front continued to move into the area, the winds picked up and by 1:30 the event came to an early close with Leaor keeping things exciting at the end with his Rocketarium Vortico launch attempt with a F15 CATO that sent up an impressive fire ball, and a great flight of his beautiful Fliskits Tesla with a C5-3 for power.

Other interesting launches included Kevin Scholberg’s scratch-built Double Header going up on an E30 and his BT80-18II powered by a D20. Ron Hender brought out his scratch-built Gemini Titan and launched it with a D20 then again with a C18-4 with good results, had a successful flight of his Estes Space Shuttle on a C5-3, launched his Estes Little Joe II with a D12, and launched his Estes Mercury Redstone off the 10/10 rail with a D12 and a C11. Let’s not overlook Chris with his Fliskits ‘Athletic Supporter’ powered by a C6-0 (tumble recovery) and the thunderous static test of a K motor.

A few event photos can be viewed [here].

Motor ignition counts:
A – 125
B – 26
C – 32
D – 8
E – 3
F – 1
K – 1 (static test)
Unspecified – 23 (likely A & B)