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.