NAR #528

We had our first launch of the year on March 22nd. The tempature was in the mid to upper 30’s. At the start of the launch, the winds were coming out of the west at 10 to 15 mph and it was cloudy.

Considering the weather conditions we had a nice turn out, but we only had a handful of launches. The reason for that was even though our launch area was in decent shape, when you went further out in the field to recover your rocket it was extremely muddy and very difficult to walk.

The launch was attended by Justin Farrand, Tom, Chelsea, and Jared Maulsby, John Yuill, Bill Stearns, Gary Kawabata, and Dennis McAuliff. As for the launch numbers, we had a total of 5 launches for a total of 543 Newtons. Justin Farrand launched the largest rocket with a Cesaroni I-365 motor. While Tom Maulsby had the longest walk through the muddy field to recover his Areotech Strong Arm which he launched on a G76-7 motor. With just a handful of flights, all the flights were good and all the rockets were recovered. Please go and check out the launch logs to see who flew what. We also have a few photos from the launch in the photo gallery.

Even though we only had a handful of launches, it was still a good day to get out there after this long winter and see a few rockets get up in the air and talk about rockets.

Our next club launch will be on April 12th from 10:00 am until 3:00 pm. Hopefully the field conditions will improve and we can have some nice weather and a lot of you are able to attend. Also coming up April 4 – 6 is Thunderstruck in Ash Grove, IN. Here is the website with details: Thunderstruck 5. Many of our club members will be attending and flying, so if you get a chance try to make it there.

Dennis McAuliff – President

For the club launch we had on October 27th, we had a sunny day with winds around 10 mph for most of the day and the temperature was in the 50’s.

We had a nice turn out for the day. We had 46 launches for a total of 2036 Newtons. We had 11 different people launching rockets for the day. The most prolific rocketeers for the day were Bill Wojtyla and John Yuill with 7 launches each and Paul Parkes with 541 Newtons.

We also finally got our Glider contest in and the winner was Chris Cantine. He ended up winning a $20 gift card to Hobby Lobby. We had a lot of great flights for the day. To see what was launched, please go and check out the launch logs. We also had some pictures taken, so go and check them out in the photo gallery.

Our next club launch is scheduled for November 10th from 10:00 am to 3:00 pm. This will probably be one of our last launches of the year, so hopefully everyone will make it out. Our first club meeting is also coming up on November 17th. We should have a lot of fun things going on at our meetings this year, so come and join us at the Naperville Library located just east of Route 59 on 95th street.

Dennis McAuliff – President

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