February 21, 1998 Launch Report

Contributed by Tom McAtee

St. Louis Rocketry Association held its Winter Section Meet, along with a sport launch, on February 21. The day started out cloudy, with temperatures in the upper 40's, but gradually the sky cleared and the breeze dropped off for great flying conditions. Twenty-three fliers ended up making 88 flights before the day was out; not bad for February in the Midwest. Several fliers joined us for the first time: Dave and Emily Mulawa, Gary Owen, and Dan Durci. Due in part to the contest, B motors were most popular, powering 25 flights. There were 3 1/2A flights, 3 A's, 25 B's, 23 C's, 14 D's, 5 E's, 10 F's, and 5 G motor flights.

The contest started with the drawing of the target time for Random Parachute Duration, which turned out to be 95 seconds. Aaron Edwards set the pace early on with his clustered Bertha powered by 3 C6-5 motors, which wowed the crowd by staying up 88 seconds. No one else was able to beat this; Jim Hollister's F40-powered Initiator was next best at 70 seconds, followed by John Buckley's 62-second flight.

The other events would be dominated by John Buckley, our most seasoned competition flier. In C Eggloft Duration, John flew his QCR egglofter to 71 seconds, which was more than the second and third-place flights combined. Rob Chapie and Tom McAtee both flew Omloids for short but qualified flights (21 and 18 seconds respectively). Aaron Edwards had an interesting original design, but ended up crunching two eggs.

John also came out on top in B Streamer Duration, Multi-round, but had more competion. John flew a 10.5 mm Apogee B2 powered model to the limits of visibility with a three-flight total of 221 seconds. The other competitors, Tom McAtee, Jim Hollister, and Aaron Edwards stayed with conventional 18mm models. Tom McAtee took second with 193 seconds, and Jim Hollister third with 101 seconds.

John's two firsts gave him the overall meet championship with 330 points, with the other competitors down at the 100-150 point level.

B SD (WF13) C ELD (WF16) RD D (WF10) Total Pts Pts Pts Pts Buckley (1) 130 (1) 160 (3) 40 330 McAtee (2) 78 (3) 64 (4) 20 162 Edwards (4) 26 0 (1) 100 126 Hollister (3) 52 0 (2) 60 112 Chapie 0 (2) 96 0 96

Along with the contest, there was also plenty of good sport flying. Mark and Matt McGraw combined for 12 flights, including a new Lil' Nuke, 'Purple Haze', and a very cool little Boyce Hobbies Saturn 1b. In the small vein, Jim Davis had his new Apogee Micro-V-2, along with an Apogee Centrix. Unfortunately, the V-2 had a non-ejection, and made like a real V-2, but without the warhead - it lawn darted. The Centrix disappeared into the hazy sky. Jack Hollister had two multi-stage mini-models, and achieved a very impressive flight with the the three-stage version.

Chad Rogers joined us for the first time in a while, and made great flights with his original Yellow Rocket and his US Rockets Banshee. Chris Gillham made a great E27-powered flight of his Fat Boy, and Phil Nohren made an exceptionally good flight with his Estes Tomcat, a very challenging model.