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I
hadn't conducted a launch all month. I try to
launch rockets at least once each month (I missed March), and I hadn't
done any such thing all month. I had tried to launch these
rockets
earlier in the month, but none of my launch controllers would work. Ted (my brother), Humblick (Ted's friend and former member of the Commune), and I went to the WAEC Space Harbor in the afternoon of the true final day of the 20th century. We brought with us three rockets, three launch pads, and a video camera. The three rockets were Arcturus Mk. 1, SAM-66, and Skwinder. Along with the two standard yellow Estes launch pads, I brought a new pad that I had just built, using PVC piping for legs and an ingenious method of securing the launch rod. I had found the plans for it on Rocketry Online (click here). After getting the pad set up and the camcorder rolling, I was ready to launch Arcturus Mk. 1 for its maiden flight. I loaded it up with a 1/4A3-4T engine, and set it up on the pad. Then I moved back, gave the countdown, and pressed the Launch button. I was vaguely aware of the liftoff, but that was about it. We heard whooshing, saw a little flame, and lost the dumb thing. We searched and searched for it, but couldn't find it. After we gave up, I was walking back to the launch pad and nearly stepped on the rocket. I picked it up and said, "I found it!" I had rescued Arcturus Mk. 1 from being a lost rocket, but now that I have it again, I don't think I'll fly it anymore. Once was enough. Next I flew SAM-66, on its first flight with the front section modified to be a payload compartment. Several months before, I had separated and stopped up the front section, making a payload compartment. On its first flight since the modification, I put a "slug of mass" (actually a spent mini-engine), to see how well it handled a payload. Everything went fine on that flight, with the exception of the recovery, which was just a tad bit too fast. Then, I flew the final flight of the past millennium, my first ever model rocket, Skywinder, on a C6-3. Skywinder was my first rocket I ever owned, having received it for my 9th birthday over five years prior. I flew it at my tenth birthday, but that was its only flight until now. Skywinder took off, streaking upwards and shaking off the dust of over five years as a static desk display. At apogee, it nosed over and deployed its rotor blades, which spun at ferocious velocity to retard the descent. I ran over to it, hoping to possibly catch it before it hit the ground. I wasn't able to, but the rocket hit the ground pretty slowly. When I picked it up, I noticed something very strange. "It only has one rotor blade!" I shouted. The other two had evidently sheared off sometime during flight. We were able to recover the other two blades, with the help of a lady whose back porch one landed on. By then Ted, Humblick, and I had become very, very cold, and we found it hard to move our hands to put things back in the range box. So, we left the Space Harbor for the last time that millennium, and went back home with stiff hands. Seven hours later, we welcomed in either "The Year of the Space Odyssey" or "Y2.001K" by watching the movie of the name of the year that was about to begin. Right after the movie ended, and Dave turned into an energy being, Ted's binary clock struck midnight, and I welcomed in the Year of the Space Odyssey by shouting lines from the movie. I was probably the only person in my neighborhood who felt compelled to do so. |
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