Quote from Eric Becher on September 15, 2025, 4:36 pm

September 2025 Launch Report

It has been a long time since we’ve had such a perfect day for launching, if we ever have. Sunny skies, moderate temps and nearly no wind, even aloft, made for fantastic flying.

Engine totals:

3 – 1/2A Engines
6 – A Engines
16 – B Engines
22 – C Engines
11 – D Engines
16 – E Engines
6 – F Engines
4 – G Engines
Total of 84 engines on 79 flights.

View Launch Statistics

We had a decent crowd, although many couldn’t make it after the usual launch was scrubbed last week due to rain. For those that attended, we enjoyed the weather and were flying until almost 5:00. Even the spotted lantern flies were flying around in force!

We welcomed a few more newcomers to CENJARS this month. Sam is working towards his Jr. L1, and came with his project seeking a little advice, which he received plenty of. Sam also brought a few smaller rockets to fly. It looks like he’s off to a good start. William came by to check us out. I think he approves as he said he plans to bring the grandkids next month. That’s what we love to hear! And Sua came all the way from Seoul, South Korea to fly with CENJARS. Well, maybe she happened to be here in NJ for school and found us, but still – she wins for longest travel to attend our launch. Ever! Welcome everyone.

Speaking of Jr. L1 cert projects, Manav was also in attendance. He flew his “Zephyr” in preparation for a future cert flight. Manav took the written exam and was only able to scrape together a grade of 100%. I guess we’ll call that a pass! Manav also flew a 3-engine cluster scratch build (?) that was a fun sight to see.

Brian C continues to “innovate” with his kit-bashing builds. This time it was his “Mean Bertha,” which appeared to be a Mean Machine and Big Bertha spawn. Flew pretty well. David flew a few things, including a monkey piloted Olympus with a camera attached. Smile for the monkey! Dan also flew his "Astrocam" rocket camera – with one flight looking down, and one looking up. If anyone got any good pics out of these, please post them in the gallery. Joe K also had a nice-looking Doorknob flight, after its previous flight was less than perfect. Christian entertained us with 3 flights on G engines, which are fun to watch. So was Chris O’s “Bullet Bobby XXL” on a G. Chris had a few flights, including his trident, which separated, but I hope survived.

There were a number of Nike Smokes flying around. All did pretty well, but Bill’s was probably the biggest and certainly lived up to its name. And if we are counting numbers, we must note Jo Ann’s flock of Flamingos. 3 pink flamingo rockets all flying together (there is video in the Gallery). Other flights that were also seen included flying gourds, a couple of helicopter recoveries, a stack of spools for “Back to Spool” month, more “unique” designs from Brian C, and one CATO’ed Protostar.

Thanks once again to Rocketship Games and Joe for making the trek with his store packed into the world's smallest SUV. Joe hopes to attend the next launch in October too, so if you need anything, check out his website and let him know so he knows to bring it with him.

Next launch is looking like October 5^th. Bring your best Halloween rockets, bats, gourds, witches, and anything else “fall-like” that flies. Rumor has it there might be a few costumes around too. If we’re lucky, and on our best behavior – CANDY CORN!

Meanwhile, we do have an outreach event coming up. Wall township, in which we fly, is holding their annual “Wall Kids Day America” event on Saturday Sept. 20^th. It’s not too far from the field we launch on. We usually set up some tables with rockets on display. We meet lots of folks and tell them a bit about rocketry and what CENJARS does. We also set up a rack and fly lots of demonstration flights. The “field” is small, but we fly a lot of probes and smaller rockets on 1/4A to C’s. All are welcome. You can bring something cool to display, or something small and low to fly if you want. Or just come lend a hand with the flights and meeting some folks. Details on the calendar, and the event info here. We’ll probably be there to set up around 9:15am.