May 3, 2026
May 3, 2026 Launch Report
This was yet another breezy day, but sunny and temps not too bad if you dressed for it.
Engine totals:
3 – 1/2A Engines
20 – A Engines
9 – B Engines
14 – C Engines
9 – D Engines
7 – E Engines
4 – F Engines
0 – G Engines
Total of 66 engines on 59 flights.
A reasonable crowd turned up, including a group of Scouts. No ARC teams, so you’ll notice the F motor total dropped compared to last month. Those that came out still enjoyed a day of “Nice enough” flying. It’s been a tough year for us, weather-wise. Hopefully things improve as we move toward summer.
With the winds, the order of the day was to keep them low, and use streamers. A couple of rockets found the trees at the far corner of the field, but most stayed close to home.
Happy Star Wars Day, and May the 4th be with you! There were a few Star Wars flights made. Eric flew his Death Star a couple of times. Also his Skywalker and Yoda lightsabers. And what’s a Star Wars celebration without R2-D2! Charlie’s version flew, but had a tough landing, as the little guy usually does in the movies.
And for those that enjoy Cinco de Mayo, Eric and Brian both flew yellow sombreros to mark the occasion. Not high fliers, but they do prove that almost anything can fly given a little bit of power.
You’ll notice a significant difference in the motor count vs flight count. There were several clusters and boosters that flew, with mixed success. Chris flew his “Sasha” 2-stage a couple of times. Both flights saw a CATO on the booster, but the sustainer continued on in good fashion, and there were no real damages seen. Chris also flew his 2-engine HoJo, which was also fun to watch. Don flew a 3-engine cluster, but when one of the side motors didn’t start, it did the predictable sky writing demonstration. Entertaining at least. Brian C’s 3-engine “Korean Cluster” showed them how it’s done!
And our sombreros off to newest member Henri. Henri flew his first rocket ever. But not just any old Estes beginner rocket. Henri did some research, designed a rocket in Open Rocket, then gathered the parts and 3D printed the nose cone. He made more adjustments after reviewing the sim. Then he flew it on an F motor. Twice! That is a process that few folks twice his age and with years of experience don’t always go through. And his construction was much better than the typical new ARC flier too. Way to go Henri! We look forward to your long career in aerospace, now that it has started at the ripe old age of 12. The Force is strong with this young man. (Sorry, couldn’t help myself on this day.)
And it was good to see our friend Joe from Rocketship Games on the field. Joe had a great selection of kits and parts, including some of the new Estes releases. Joe will miss the June launch, but we might see him in July with some stories to tell.
A few pictures are in the Gallery. Feel free to post more if you have any good ones.
If it isn’t too late for anyone, a handful of us are attending the NAR’s NSL-East launch up in Geneseo over the Memorial Day weekend. It should be a good time, with lots of high power rockets from all over the eastern US. Plus, it is a nice area of New York to see. Details HERE on the host club’s website. Hope to see some familiar faces up there.
Next CENJARS launch is set for June 7th. We look forward to some warmer weather and calmer winds!
Last week, I was playing rocket scientist at the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center mentoring Diptanshu's team Mach Lightspeed.
On our drive home, we took a detour through Nashville, TN. I don't think I'll ever go back but, if you like loud music in bars with the appeal of a Soho dive and partying like you're at a Delta Tau Chi frat house Togo party, definitely do not let me discourage you visiting there. While we were walking about, we happened upon a Ray•Ban outlet store and we walked in. A sales guy, almost immediately, introduced us to the Meta Ray•Ban sunglasses which are replete with a built-in camera. When I saw a demonstration of their video quality, I decided to purchase a pair to see how they'd function as rocketry video camera glasses.
Sunday's launch as my first go with these camera glasses at a rocket launch. There's no way to zoom the camera field save for video post-processing but, in general, the quality and ability to follow a rocket being launched is very good. If I can see and follow the rocket while wearing the glasses, the camera will capture what I see.
I've uploaded 17 videos to the CENJARS Gallery album for this month's launch. Have a look-see and let me know what you think.
Great looking to. I was wondering who's hair was on the edge of the camera lens.
Quote from Admin on May 4, 2026, 1:50 pmThere's no way to zoom the camera field save for video post-processing but,
What if you were looking through binoculars! 😆
Maybe not, but the resolution and color is pretty good.
Who wants to wager that these glasses will be on Joe Z's Christmas and Birthday lists from now until he gets them!!
Quote from Eric Becher on May 4, 2026, 10:55 pmQuote from Admin on May 4, 2026, 1:50 pmThere's no way to zoom the camera field save for video post-processing but,
What if you were looking through binoculars! 😆
The camera is in the frame of the glasses, so I doubt that it would work even with binocular eyepiece over the camera's lens.
Maybe not, but the resolution and color is pretty good.
The camera has several options of resolution. I did those videos with 1080p@30fps. The camera specs are:
- 3024x4032 pixels
- 720p+ at 120fps
- 1080p+ at 30fps
- 1080p+ at 60fps
- 3K Ultra HD at 30fps
I'm hoping to be able to try the 3K Ultra HD mode before NSL. With that resolution, I should be able to do zoom in post-processing with little loss of image quality.
Also, those videos have pretty good sound quality! I'm surprised that there's very little wind noise considering the winds on Sunday. The glasses actually have 5 microphones!
- Custom 5-mic Array (2 in left arm, 2 in right arm, 1 near nose pad)
The glasses have 32GB of storage but that can quickly be offloaded to a smart phone because the glasses have Bluetooth and WiFi.
What was nice is that I was able to man LCO and launch rockets, and take video at the same time!
I was thinking about these glasses while driving home from NASA Marshall. If I were to outfit a pair of glasses with accelerometers to sense where I'm looking, I could send that info in near real time to servos that could tilt and pan my video camera. Thus, if I follow a rocket by turning and tilting my head, the camera should do the same. With GPS in both the glasses and the camera, the camera could be located at a distance from me, the viewer, and adjusted accordingly with coordinate differences. Essentially, metric tensor math. CPUs are extremely fast these days to do that sort of math processing.
Can the video be landscape? What file is produced? MP4? Mov? Is there a file limit?
Quote from Zielijo1 on May 6, 2026, 7:38 amCan the video be landscape? What file is produced? MP4? Mov? Is there a file limit?
Mr. Richard Feder of Fort Lee, you sure ask a lot of question for someone from New Jersey. 😛
Can't directly do landscape. You'd need to do a crop to fill edit to achieve that.
MP4 or HEVC formats.
The glasses have 32GB of storage. If you offload the videos to your phone, you can shoot as much as you want.
They're not really meant to replace a video camera. They're for convenience.
Google "Ray-Ban Meta Glasses" if you want more details.