February 2024
February 2024 Launch Report
Another great day of winter flying! Bright sunny skies helped keep the chill away, and a big crowd with interesting flights made for a pleasant day on the field. It was particularly good to see a lot of our regulars reconnect after a few months off, and to welcome a bunch of new members too.
Engine totals:
1 – 1/2A Engines
13 – A Engines
21 – B Engines
17 – C Engines
10 – D Engines
8 – E Engines
15 – F Engines
5 – G Engines
Total of 90 engines on 88 flights, which again is nearly the same as February 2023, although we are skewing towards larger engines this year.
It was a pretty big crowd, thanks to the TARC teams. “T-ARK Teams?” Or is that “The Ark” teams (Noah’s students?). Maybe it is just “ARK Teams” to some, but the debate rages on anyway. Whatever you call them, the teams were welcome and their flights were fun to see. Charlie has been working with some of them, and they show some promise. But that’s not without some “learning moments,” which is always fun to see, as long as it isn’t your egg in the rocket.
The holidays were being observed as usual. Brian flew a new rocket that was heavy on the “cute” factor, but suffered in aerodynamics. His “Punxsutawney Prevaricating Prognosticator” rocket had a nose cone that had a striking resemblance to a certain rodent named Phil. I don’t know if Phil was scared of his shadow, but that flight certainly scared those who saw it, and Phil headed for his borrow afterwards. And to make sure that Valentine’s Day was observed, Eric & Jo Ann flew a number of rockets as a couple. Their “Valentine’s” rockets of course. Also matching pairs of “Flutterby’s”, “Space Cadet” & “X-2 Invader” (for you Warner Bros. fans), “Bat Rocket” & “Riddler”, and “USA” & “Texas.” Who says rocketry can’t be romantic!
A wide variety of rockets were flying. T-A.R.K. T-eams took some different approaches to hitting their targets. Some others jumped on the egg bandwagon, and there were several Olympus, Omloid, and other egg scramblers. Could be a big year for the Easter egg lofting contest later in the spring. Neil came with his crowd favorites “Laser Hawk”, “Bullet Bobby XXL”, and a great big “Goblin”. If you stayed long enough, you also saw Eric’s “King Kraken” released, and his “Snarky” take flight. Special bonus – Brian’s beautiful “Cherokee H” took off nicely. Sadly, shortly after clearing the rod it ejected a fireball a little early and the body made a hard and fiery landing. Gonna need a little paint on that one! There were also some nice scratch built/modified rockets from Brian C. and others, and an impressive glider flight by Dan’s “Astron Invader”. Not to mention the entertaining “K&Z show” on the microphone for the last couple of racks. Laurel & Costello got nothing on these guys!
Special thanks must go to Neil, who donated a pretty good handful of Estes and Quest rockets, including Q-jet engines, that we raffled off. Anyone who paid their 2024 membership dues before the raffle was entered. The grand prize of a Quest launch kit went to Christian. This is perfect as Christian and his family are new fliers who just joined and I’m sure will enjoy the kit.
Additional thanks for the munchies go to Joe & Joan, Jeff, “Team Deerfield”, and once again Neil. Donuts, munchkins, hot chocolate, pretzels, and candy! We’re becoming an eating club with a rocket problem!
Pictures and video in the Gallery. Some great shots of many rockets. Please add your own if you have them.
Next launch is scheduled for March 3rd. Don’t forget to pay your membership dues for 2024 (which are used to maintain equipment, pay for our outreach events, and other fun events later in the year). Forms & info online here or at the field (see Club Secretary Eric). If you have paid, see Eric at the next launch for your membership card. He also has CENJARS stickers if anyone needs them. We’ve seen plenty of new members these last couple of weeks, and we welcome them. One of the great things about CENJARS is the willingness of most everyone to help those with questions. So, if you are new to the hobby, or just curious about something, ask! One of the best resources of CENJARS is the knowledge and experience of its members.
BTW, There were some raffle winners who were not present for the drawing. The following folks won a rocket kit. See Eric at the next lunch and pick up your prize.
- Joe K. ('cause that's what Joe really needs! 😂😂😂)
- Christopher O.
- Raunak S.
- Michael S.
Congratulations!
Wasn't that “Loser Hawk” - 😂
Quote from Ken Golomb on February 5, 2024, 6:21 pmWasn't that “Loser Hawk” - 😂
😀😁😂😆
Quote from Eric Becher on February 5, 2024, 4:45 pmBrian flew a new rocket that was heavy on the “cute” factor, but suffered in aerodynamics. His “Punxsutawney Prevaricating Prognosticator” rocket had a nose cone that had a striking resemblance to a certain rodent named Phil. I don’t know if Phil was scared of his shadow, but that flight certainly scared those who saw it, and Phil headed for his borrow afterwards.
The Punxsutawney Prevaricating Prognosticator was grossly underpowered by that F15. The main rocket was an Estes Majestic which I've flown on Gs. I should have used a G for PPP but I wanted to see how it would fly. Next year, for certain, PPP will get a bigger motor.
I thought it flew in a spiral, which I assumed was from Phil's high drag. Maybe I'm thinking of another one.
We had at least 3 flights that went wobbly... There was the "Laserhawk", the "PPP" and then my T-LOC -- all of which would have benefitted from nose weight (or bigger fins). I'm fixing mine with nose weight, because I built it too tail-heavy, I keep forgetting that stubby rockets need nose weight, and I thought LOC's heavy plastic nose was enough, but I guessed wrong. They all kind of did some form of skywriting, dancing around like a tangled puppet.
The (T)ARC teams also had some wobbly ones, but I think we were worse. Most of theirs were only marginally stable, wiggling off the rod/rail quite a bit while still going up-ish. Despite my small backyard I'm going to have to do more swing-tests, especially this year, where I want to build some asymetrical odd-rocs I have swimming in my head. I've got one already built but un-painted, it's still too symetrical, but it's a start -- kinda looks like a "federation" rocket, because it's got the Enterprise Warp Nacelles as "fins".
We'll see how that flies next month, painted or not.
Nice video Joe! (Posted in the gallery).
But for some reason it only occurred to me when watching your video that for groundhog day we were playing with a gopher. 😂 But that's ok. Any excuse to play Caddyshack clips with the gopher is good enough for me.
Quote from Eric Becher on February 7, 2024, 8:39 amNice video Joe! (Posted in the forum).
But for some reason it only occurred to me when watching your video that for groundhog day we were playing with a gopher. 😂 But that's ok. Any excuse to play Caddyshack clips with the gopher is good enough for me.
LOL! "I want you to kill all the go'fers!" That was a fun video to watch. Caught some great flights and some not so great flights too!
I did find a website issue with Joe's video posting. Somehow, he posted the video twice. Should be no problem but the plug-in for the Gallery has no way to remove video postings; only images (which I used to remove one problem image link). I need to actually delve into the database with SQL to remove the video duplicate. I can do that but there should be a simpler way. I'll have to file a bug report/feature request with the author of that plug-in.
It wasn’t clear to me if the video was uploaded. So I may have repeated
erics attempt at singing needs work
fun day, fun making the video