Mike, lots, way up there, swamp gas, AN and AP. And too much sun. I'll get it posted here shortly, I hope.

First off, thank you, thank you, thank you. It was great meeting everyone and I really appreciate everyone taking me in and answering all my questions. Big thanks to Ray for all the photo tips, without his help I wouldn't have amassed nearly the collection of keeper photos I did.

I will try to process through the 1,500+ pictures I took tonight and Tuesday and add them up to that Flickr group. I decided to post there to allow tagging, highlighting, etc. If you have your own feel free to add them to the group.

All pictures now posted:

http://flickr.com/photos/murdock/collections/72157606321242885/

Chris Murdock

Great teasers, Chris.

The wide-angle shot of (John's?) rocket on top of that enormous straight column of smoke is a work of art.

I didn't get to see the damage to Art's rocket, how bad was the road-rash?
Beautiful boost though, I don't think I've seen very many "straight as an arrow" flights like that.

Great pictures Chris!!!!

I couldn't keep up with Art and his brother, so I was only able to see things from a distance walking and running behind them. It was at that time I really wished I'd drank more water and put sunscreen on--Joe is always right about that. When I finally caught up with them, Art was on his back cradling his hands. First of all, Rocket Rage chutes are absolutely the best chutes made. So good in fact, that IF there's wind, they will re-inflate and carry your rocket literally as far as the wind will take it. That happened to me on my L3 flight, and that's what happened to Art's rocket. From my point of view, Art only caught up once and grabbed it. He tried to reel it in. But the wind picked up, ripped the harness through his hands so fast that he got some really bad burns--he tried to cut it with a knife but couldn't. The wind lifted the booster about ten feet off the ground under chute again and finally impaled the upper section on a barbed wire fence quite a distance away. No road rash. It hit so hard that it knocked the fence post out of the ground (we re-seated it). Before this happened though, once in flight again, the booster hit Art from behind and knocked him off his feet. That could have been really bad if it'd hit him in the head. It was a tragic ending to one of the most perfect flights I've ever seen. Ed Dawson caught up with me about midway through the chase, ran back to Doug's truck and tried to track us down. Had Ed not come to get us, I don't know how we would have gotten the rocket back. That's a classic scenario of how we watch each others back. Thanks, Ed. You really saved the day, not to mention us. I really feel for Art. He has one of the best attitudes of anyone in the club. He said, "It is what it is." He tried everything humanly possible to stop it but couldn't. Although, thanks to Nadine, Ray and Doug, he'll have some memorable pictures of the liftoff.

Wow, sounds like I missed a lot after I left. Wish I had been there to assist guys, sorry.

Art I hope your hands are OK and it wasn't too serious.

Chris

Hey, sounds like quite an eventful launch it's too bad I missed it! A similar thing happened to me recently when I launched my newest creation Poindexter on a K700 in the Black Rock desert. Picture Perfect flight and the rocketrage chute lowered the rocket down very gently but then the ground winds picked it back up and dragged the rocket for a half mile along the desert floor before a guy on a motorcycle came hauling from the flight line to help me get it.

I told someone this story and they told me about when they were in the military they would release the parachute from the cargo when it hit the ground to avoid dragging and thus damaging the cargo. When the parachute is released the shroud lines are no longer taught and theoretically deflates next to the cargo. So why can't we do this in rocketry?

I found a few kinds of parachute ground disconnect devices most of them rated for large cargo, possibly for hummers and tanks. The smallest one I've found is rated for 50-100 pounds and weighs only 3.5 ounces. Does anyone have any experience with these and knows where to get smaller ones? When my rocket was loaded with the K700 it weighed 20 pounds so I'm not sure if this would work but definitely worth investigating for those large projects.

http://www.para-gear.com/templates/parachute.asp?group=429&level=2&parent=337

See you guys soon.

Steve Hendricks

Steve, that is really a great idea, and it would work. Very nice input.

Most excellant input Steve, Thanks.

OUCH! I'm really sorry to hear about the carnage and personal pain.... I'm cringing just from reading about it. I was out at the tower helping with that launch setup when Art came back in and gave us the heads up - sorry I don't know who it was I was helping but he had an awesome flame job on it.... I'm SOOOO glad he decided to abort though. The ground winds were starting to whip through pretty good at that point.

I talked to the company on the 50-100# one and he said they were about $1200 a year ago. They won't work with anything under 50#. So, back to the engineering table.....

Beautiful flame paint job was Scott Harless' bird - I'm sure we'll see it fly sooner rather than later and really, most of the bigger projects weigh in over fifty pounds but the cost is rather daunting. Maybe a group project purchase or a bad check from an out of state closed bank (thanks Bert).

I'd be willing to kick in a couple hundred just on principle alone, some day I may have one that heavy and it would be nice to have something available....
I have an idea that I will toss out on the build/recovery thread.

I want to say THANKS to a lot of folks for my M boost.

Skuba helped me prep and track. Art’s services were absolutely invaluable in the motor assembly, as the liner was a bit short which made the upper closure a bit sloppy which in turn put play into the joint. Art fixed me right up with a very clever field repair. Dale whipped out a tower that was PERFECT, and I sure couldn’t have done it without that!

I’d have never gotten off the ground without Joe’s work on the window. Tim Thomas lent me a casing. I borrowed a patch of shade under Doug’s EZ-UP, and on Saturday that was no little thing, either. Mike Konshak figured out the doggie collar tracking in the first place. Elvis worked wonders on foaming the nosecone and creating a perfect bay for the tracker. Of course Ray LaPanse’s photos were the icing on the cake.

I probably forgot someone. If I did, I apologize. I'm so grateful. It was a grand weekend

Sounds like a fun design problem. I could program a Parrot for the smarts to do the release after it hits the ground. On the mechanical side, on NASA programs we commonly use a split spool or a split nut that is held together with a lot of wraps of a wire that gets broken when the current goes through. I can imagine using something like a FG coupler tube with a bulkhead glued in each end, and then sliced lengthwise into 3 pieces. If the center hole in each bulkhead has a countersink on the inside, then eyebolts on each end would be trying to pull the three sections apart. The sections could be together with wraps of small kevlar shock cord with a pyro charge on the end.