BALLS was very amazing. It was a bit colder then last year but still worth it. My dad and I stayed out on Sunday and what John said was right. There was a 21 second Q motor that went up. We were about 400 feet from it, and what was really cool was the GPS unit they had on it. They had real time data ,from what I heard it hit 85k ish.

Also a R hybrid... I repeat a R Hybrid! It went up on sunday and it was amazing. We were about 500 feet from it when it lit. Now the oddball part of it was the nosecone came off about 10 feet above the pad. But it still went to about 9000 feet till it detonated. I took about 7 seconds ....then we felt the explosion.

Team Numb flew a two stage as well. It was a P to a N motor. P went great, then the N started. It looked good till fin flutter came in and it shredded like confetti. But they still cheered about it 😮 .

Good times, anyone who can should make it out next year. Its a MUST!
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Also I would like to congratulate Toni Alcucer, he flew a 5 inch minimum diameter rocket with a P motor. He posted the rocket on here a while back, its the all carbon fiber with a fincan. Sadly he lost the rocket becasue of ding dongs on the playa that kept there transmitter on all day. But it was a amazing boost.
And last theres john. He flew a rocket to 23k with no sweat. He got the up and the down part perfect. Of course we hiked 3 miles and he did the same with a broken foot!!

I want to thank the Colorado guys for the hospitality they showed when we showed up..rocketless Saturday night. I also want to thank Kyle for getting rid of that bag of AP for me

here's the long story on my 5" rocket..

Well....I was as nervous as heck...the motor was 91.5 pounds ready to go...47 pounds of that was propellant. The rocket itself was 20 pounds ready to go..you can see why the nervousness..We..Steve W, Ken A, Scott L, and Derrick...were about 200' away with a borrowed launch controller.."Balls" does not have equipment to go out to the 'far away cells (2500') ..we loaded up the rocket on one of Richards "Coker pads". It seemed right at home on it..until you though about the rocket weighing 112 pounds, 140" tall and being a P motor. We had to wait for a couple of other projects to get loaded and that just added to an already full stomach of butter flies. When it was our turn I began to shake as they counted down. At one I pushed the buttons and saw some smoke and some red from the 'wimpy red' igniters and then it took off. I had gone with 9 longer grains instead of the original 10 grains. I wanted a softer start up. I also did an "Ellis" style start up and placed the igniters in the middle of the third grain down...as it left the pad I just kept thinking...please hold together..and it did for the full 7.5 second burn. I lost some butter flies but still had many. There was a bit of a wiggle and I thought the thing was going to come apart. It held together and was now out of sight and just the sound of the motor and the smoke trail streaking upwards were all good signs. Simms showed a 51 second to apogee. Derrick was giving us a count. Around 50 seconds into the flight the Walston signal became very loud! We made it to apogee in one piece and had a 'good' event. I tracked it for a couple of minutes then needed a break (to compose myself) and handed the Walston off to Steve. After a couple of deep breaths I was ready to get back into the game. At this point somebody points out a white chute way up there. With binoculars we can see it but are not sure if there was anything attached to it. As we track the Walston signal it gets weaker as we aim at the white chute...dang something did not go as planned at apogee..Now we have a good strong signal and a visual of to different things..The signal is slowly coming down and heading to the south. At this point we load up in the trucks and head off towards the hot springs. We stop about a mile out..and now have a weaker signal and can still see the white chute. So we split up. Derrick and I are going for the chute that now passes over the top of "lions back" the rest take the Walston and head for the signal.
Derrick and I get up behind Lions back and meet up with John Wilke who just recovered his rocket up in that valley. He asks are we looking for a big white chute..we say yep and he points out where he thinks it landed. It took us about .25 mile to spot it with the binoculars..Only problem was it was not my 'white' chute. This one was 26' and mine was a 17 footer. So, we head back to camp, hoping that the other guys found the rocket. No such luck. Steve and I head back out to a high spot near the hot springs and I get a signal. I get a 'chirp' towards the hot springs and a 'blurp' towards the mountain range. I head off on foot and Steve looks for a road. I loose the signal about half way to the foot of the mountains. Steve picks me up and we end up chasing a signal all the way back to camp. I walk through camp and find another flier with the same Walston frequency that I have. He turns it off and we head back to our 'high spot' only to not have any signal now. It's about 8 pm now..dark and we find a new high spot and get stuck trying to get to it..A little bit of digging and Steve jumping up and down on the bumper does the trick. I've had enough and Steve is looking kind of hungry. We get back to camp and our Colorado neighbors have some Elk Burgers for us. So now what.. at this point I'm willing to cut my losses..and not put Steve or others out for my loss. So Steve flies his 54mm rocket we loose it too..but that's another story! AJ and I are making a trip back out to Black Rock in about 10 days or so. We're borrowing a couple of motorcycles and are going to camp out near the hot springs. I have gotten flight info from John Wilke's rocket and figured out that my flight should have lasted 19 minutes to touch down. I'm going to print up some maps. We should be able to cover a lot of ground in 2 days on dirt bikes.

http://hometown.aol.com/tfish38/page18.html
http://picasaweb.google.com/swig46/Balls2007/photo#5116512873511689490

Wonderful filight discription. Felt like I was there.

Good luck.

That is one of my big fears about going bigger.
Even when things go 100% A person can still
have a lost rocket.

That is a awsome boost. And just so you all know that silver part is the motor.... Good luck to you Toni, and im sorry to hear of the lost 54mm as well. From Johns rocket i wold say your about 8 miles south, south east of camp. The jet stream was moving fast and thats why John had to go so far. GOOD LUCK!

Actually, that silver part extends up into the main compartment, too - meaning there is even MORE motor than what you see.

I'm sick that I missed it. Drat.

Tony, if you get it back, I want that rail button back 😉 I'd love to have a souvenir from something that went that high. What do you think you got?

INCREDIBLE..........

Impressive as hell... I'm gonna do a Q one day...

Warren