Author Archives: Dennis

The Launch Report : August 2012

Author: | Category: Club News

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We ended up having 2 launches in August. We had one launch on August 11th and another launch on August 25th. The weather for both launches was very good, The temperatures were in upper 80’s to low 90’s and the winds for both launches were around 10 mph.

We had good turn outs for both launches. We had 14 different people launch rockets on August 11th and we had 17 different people launch rockets on August 25th. We had a total of 121 launches for August with a total of 5927.5 Newtons. For the August 11th launch, the most prolific rocketeers were John Yuill with 9 launches and John Olevich with 763 Newtons. On the August 25th launch, the most prolific rocketeers were Michael Seibert with 10 launches and Gary Kawabata with 774 Newtons (1 rocket).

We had 2 new members join the club. They were Paul Glonek and Kevin Kunstman. We had our members only contest on August 11th for the month, it was scratch built rockets and the winner of the contest was Chris Cantine. He won a $20 gift card to Hobby Lobby. We also had our monthly club raffle and we raised another $86, thanks to everyone who participated. The winner of the raffle was Bill Stearns. He won 2 rocket kits – one was a PML “Black Brant VB” and the other was a Fliskits “Saturn 1B”.

Also, for the first time, we had a vendor out at both launches – Bill from Balsa Machining Services. It was very nice to have him out there with many of his items available. He is planning to come out to more of our launches in the future.

There were a lot of great flights for both launches from many people, so please check out the launch logs for who launched what. There were also some pictures taken, so please go and check them out in the photo gallery.

Our next club launch is scheduled for September 8th from 10:00 am to 3:00 pm, hopefully the good weather will continue and we have a lot of people come out and enjoy the launch. Thanks to everyone who made it out to our launches in August.

Dennis McAuliff – President

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Published: August 26, 2012 | Comments: 0

The Launch Report : May 12, 2012

Author: | Category: Launch Reports

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For our club launch on May 12th the temperature was in the 60’s and winds were from 10 to 15 mph. It was cloudy all day with a threat of rain.

We had a nice turn out. We had 6 different members launch rockets, along with a group of about 5 Cub Scouts. Not including the scout launches, we had a total of 22 launches for a total of 1247 Newtons. The most prolific rocketeers for the day were Bill Wojtyla with 7 launches and Don Kennedy with 482 Newtons. This was our first High Power launch of the year and we had Grant Zaharias get his level 1 certification on a rocket he named “Haulin Assteroids”. He flew it on an Aerotech H165-M motor to about 2000 feet. It was a very nice flight and Grant had a long walk to recover it.

We also had our first club contest of the year – clusters – we had 3 entries. They were Don Kennedy with his Fliskits “Deuces Wild”, Dennis McAuliff with his Sunward “Eruption”, and Brian Toone/Grant Zaharias with an Estes “Eliminator” (modified to use a 3 engine cluster). The winner of the contest was Don Kennedy. He won a $20 gift card to Hobby Lobby.

There were a lot of great and entertaining flights for the day. Among them, Don Kennedy’s Wildman “Wildman Jr.” rocket with dual deploy on an Aerotech I161-M motor. Dennis McAuliff also had some nice flights with his Sunward “Eruption” which is a 4 engine cluster and his Fliskits “Acme Spitfire”. We also had a nice group of Cub Scouts who were launching rockets for the first time and they all had a great time. For more details on who launched what, you can check out the 2012 Launch Logs. Please visit our photo gallery to see some of our launch photos, as well.

We also had another club raffle. The mystery prize was 3 rockets ranging in skill level 1 to skill level 3. The raffle raised another $58 for the club! The winner of the raffle was Claire Krzyzewski who was with the Cub Scouts.

Our next launch is scheduled for June 9th from 10:00 am till 3:00 pm and hopefully we will get some good weather. Thanks to everyone that made the launch and hopefully we can have more people out next month.

Dennis McAuliff -President

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Published: May 13, 2012 | Comments: 1

The Launch Report : April 14, 2012

Author: | Category: Launch Reports

For our launch on April 14th the temperature was in the upper 60’s most of the day. It was overcast and we did have a brief shower for about 30 minutes right around noon. The winds were fairly light around 5 mph to 10 mph.

We had a great turnout. We had 15 different people launch rockets. We had a total of 51 launches for a total of 1699.75 Newtons. The most prolific rocketeers for the day were John Olevich with 7 launches, while Paul Parkes used the most Newtons for the day with 633 Newtons. We also had the TARC team from Neuqua Valley High School come out and do some practice flights before they head to Virginia in May for the national finals. They were one of the top 100 teams, their qualifying score was 3 with a perfect score being 0. Let’s all hope they can do as well in Virginia! We had many great flights. Among them Bill Stearns with his Aerotech “Warthog” on an Aerotech G76-7 motor. The rocket left the pad very quickly. Paul Parkes had his usual interesting array of rockets and launches. We also have a new member who joined the club, Brian Toone, and we had a few guests launching with us – Bill Piva and also Jen, Caleb, and Cody King and last but not least Tricia Noblett, the TARC team’s teacher at Neuqua Valley High School.

For further details on what everyone launched please go check out the 2012 Launch Logs.

We also had quite a few spectators including some cub scouts from the area. They are planning to come out to our next launch and might launch a few rockets with us. Our first attempt at a club raffle went very well. We raised $66 from the raffle. The mystery rockets that were raffled off were an Estes “Big Daddy” and an Estes X-Prize “Space Ship One”. They were won by a nice young man who will hopefully build them and come out and launch them with us soon.

Our next launch will be May 12th from 10:00 am till 3:00 pm. Hopefully we’ll have good weather and can launch a lot more rockets. Thanks to everyone who came out to the April launch. I hope everyone had a good day.

Dennis McAuliff -President

Published: April 14, 2012 | Comments: 0

The Launch Report : June 18, 2011

Author: | Category: Launch Reports

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We finally got some decent weather and we were able to have a nice launch. For the launch on June 18th, we had a mostly sunny day with temperatures in the 80’s. The winds were very light in the 5 to 10 mph range.

We had a very nice turnout with 10 different people launching and we had about another 8 to 10 people watching. For the day we had 53 launches for a total of 1712.25 Newtons. The most prolific rocketeers for the day were Don Kennedy with 11 launches and Bill Wojtyla with 10 launches. Don Kennedy used 525 Newtons followed by Paul Parkes with 496 Newtons. For further details on what everyone launched please go check out the 2011 Launch Logs.

The launch was attended by Michael Seibert, Bill Stearns, Don Kennedy, Bill Wojtyla, Dennis McAuliff, Paul Parkes, Sean Butler, Julika and Marika Potter, Gary Kawabata, and Jim Finks. We also had many spectators for the launch.

For the day Paul Parkes had some very nice launches with his Wildman “DarkStar Mini” and his Loc Precision “Onyx Extended”. Paul also had one very fine pinpoint landing when his ejection charge failed to eject his Wildman “Dark Star Mini” nose cone. Thanks to all of the rain we have had and the soft ground – even with his rocket being buried close to 2 feet in to the ground – there was no damage to the rocket. Don Kennedy and Gary Kawabata also had some nice looking flights and Michael Seibert had some very nice looking rockets that he launched. There were some pictures taken, so please go and check out the pictures from the launch in the photo gallery.

I think our new launch location at 119th Street and Book Road is going to work out very well for now. I hope everyone had a fun day and will be able to make out next launch on July 9th from 10:00 AM until 3:00 PM.

Dennis McAuliff -President

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Published: June 18, 2011 | Comments: 0