Launch Report: September 10, 2000
At about 8:15 on a Sunday morning Dad, Kevin Pokorney,
and I went to the WAEC Space Harbor to launch rockets. We brought
along my Estes X-Wing and Leviathan. The X-Wing had been to four
launches and hadn't flown once.
I changed all of that. My Estes Star Wars
X-Wing took to the skies for the first time ever on a C6-3 engine.
The parachute popped out at about apogee but didn't unfurl until the rocket
was about halfway down to the ground. The landing was a little hard,
and two of the fins on the afterburner pods broke. I pulled of the
shock cord and it broke. I don't think Estes's X-Wing was a very
good design. I believe it is better than some of their pre-fab designs,
which I've seen plow into the ground during the boost phase...
Next up: Leviathan. I got the rocket
all prepped, put it on the pad, and launched it. It roared off the
pad and streaked skyward. Around apogee the chute deployed, and the
huge orange rocket came down under it. The brute took forever to
descend, and an airplane flew right by it. Luckily, Leviathan didn't
get sucked into the plane's prop.
I ran to where I thought Leviathan would land.
It came right down and I caught it by the body tube! Woo-hoo!
I've only caught a rocket once before, and now I've done it again!
Leviathan's flight was an unqualified success, because
it came down right in the field from which we launched it. This time
I did load recovery wadding, with success, because the parachute was in
good shape.
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