The morning was clear and crisp - around the 6°C. We had blue, cloudless skies for the entire morning. However, there were varying wind conditions which made for a few interesting retrieval situations. Despite that, most rockets landed back close to the launch sites.
The launch date coincided with the 6th anniversary of the first QRS launch on 20 May 2007.
For so called 'members only launch', there was a quite a good crowd and the two school teams made a trip all the way from Boonah State Primary under guidance from Anne Reardon to test their two new creations. I have been able to make two visits over two years to this school and now they have two teams entering Australian Youth Rocketry Challenge - that is so cool!
I'm also happy to report that both of their rockets did an excellent job. Both had two launches and they were pretty good indeed.
'Diggers' ( Larry) two launches were most likely the highlight of the day. The Wildman took to the skies with K 'Sparky Power' motor and it looked awesome. It was a perfect flight. Larry's beautiful Mercury/Titan had some trouble. Delay was too long and the 2 chutes separated from the rocket on a way down. Luckily it was well built rocket and there didn’t appear to be any major damage.
Ian (ogivemeahome) launched his "Squirt" on six motor cluster ( 1/2 A's). To ignite all six simultaneously is no easy task. In this case, two failed to ignite. It was what you normally call an ‘interesting’ launch! Knowing Ian, he will do something different next time and it will fly much better!
It was a busy morning with 41 launches. It was such a great weather, it was fine just to be there to take in the sun and the atmosphere.
When the day was done, a number of us took some gear home for the trek to the Westmar trip next month. If last year was an indication, the June long week-end launch will be spectacular. It is located on a huge, relatively flat cropping farm and is an awesome launch site (I named it ‘Cape Coggan’ in honour of the very-cooperative owner)
The committee conducted a quick meeting with the members to inform of the busy schedule for the next two months (including the Australian Youth Rocketry Challenge and the public open day launch both in July). We will require the services of volunteers to assist with these two events.