There was a good turnout, with 15 flyers and about another 20 spectators. Several new flyers joined us for the first time: Jerry Hook, Paul Kordik, and Robert Wright. There were 54 flights - five powered by 1/2A's, 10 A's, 15 B's, 6 C's, 15 D's, and 3 E's.

James Hollister had the most flights for the day, with 12, and also one of the best flights. His scratch-built mini-engine two-stage rocket blasted practically out of sight, with both stages drifting down to land within a few feet of each other and within 20 feet of the pad - a fantastic demonstration of precision flying on a breezy day.

Jerry Hook joined us from Mt. Vernon, IL, and brought a group of nice-looking models. His nice-looking Mountainside Hobbies ASP flew on an E15-4; unfortunately it had a hard landing on the road and broke off some fins. Jack Hollister, back for the first time in several months, flew a new Alien Space Probe; he said he'd picked it up at the NSL - it was about all he got from the trip, since it was way too windy to fly.

Mark Geislinger had a great-looking, newly-painted V-2 from the old 2.6" Estes kit; this and Rob Chapie's nice Mountainside V-2 made good D-powered flights. Both drifted into the tall weeds outside the field but were found.

There were, unfortunately, several candidates for worst crash, with several partially-ignited clusters and non-ejections. Most spectacular was Mark Henriksen's modified Broadsword, with a cluster of 3 D's. One motor CATOed immediately after liftoff, blasting a yellow fireball out the top of the rocket, followed by what looked like another fireball but turned out to be the yellow-orange parachute. The rocket slowly climbed to about 20 feet before crashing back to earth. Amazingly, the only damage seemed to be some broken fins.

Our next meeting is Oct. 8, and the next launch is Saturday, Oct. 26, at Elsberry, MO - note the date change.