Against a beautiful backdrop of vibrant Fall colors, we had thirty-two participants launch 117 rockets under blue skies at the October 28^th SoAR launch event in Dawsonville.  There was a lot of mid-power action as mild winds and warm sunny skies encouraged larger rockets and more powerful mid-power engines to be put out on the pads.

There were many multi-stage and cluster engine powered flights keeping things interesting.  Notable examples include Jorge’s scratch-built Trouble Times Seven with (of course) seven D12-5s making for a spectacular flight.  Ron Hender powered his Estes Saturn V with four C6-0s clustered around an E12-4 to accomplish a more realistic looking ascent with all engines ignited. Then there was Kevin Scholberg’s LOC 429 SS that he sent up on a pair of D12-0s and a pair of E12-4s.

Halloween themed rockets were also present with many Goblins like Ray Lectures scratch-built 3” Goblin that thundered up on a G77 and then used dual-deploy for recovery.  Also in this theme was Barry Savory’s LOC Goblin launched on a G74.  The most disgusting example of spooky rocketry were the bonus entrails spilling out of Kevin Scholberg’s scratch-built Halloween Hellraiser that screeched skyward on a cluster of two D12-5s and then his drag racing three scratch-built Webs of Terror on E12 and F15.

All-in-all this event had a great turn-out with lots of action, drama, beautiful rockets, and flights to admire.  Event photos by Kevin Boyd [here]. Some additional event photos [here]. AND definitely check out this excellent video of the launch by Nicolai Jordan [here].

Engine ignition counts:
A – 7
B – 16
C – 32
D – 39
E – 23
F – 12
G – 7