I'm going, but I'm still figuring out the details of my accomodations for the trip, so I can't guarantee anything yet. I'll let you know if I have room though.

where and win is Balls?

Thanks for the response Chris, I will await further information. My situation is rather fluid currently, so I need to start pinning things down.

Dave, here is a link to Balls 21: http://www.rimworld.com/balls21/about.html.
The launch is September 21,22, and 23 I believe. It will be held in the Black Rock Desert of Nevada, north of Reno, and relatively close to Gerlach, Nevada, for reference. No rockets below a K are to be flown. This is extreme high power rocketry. I am sure there are others that can tell you much more. What I am speaking of is from what I have heard others say, having never been there myself.

The trip from Denver to Gerlach via I-80 (the fastest route according to Google maps) is 1091 miles and takes 17 hours. With two people a long days drive. (that is averaging 65 mph. If you could average 70 mph, driving 80 most of the time, you could get it down to 14.6 hours. I would guess if you left at 2 am you could be at camp before dark, but maybe not.)

Anyone got a report of how NCR folks flights went at BALLS? Wish I couldve made it this year esp with No Octoberfest.

-Sean

I do not know how much a report this is, so here goes. Rockets were flying on Friday, 16,000 ceiling for most of Saturday until mid-afternoon when it was opened up. Only two rockets were flown on Sunday when range was shut down and people headed home.

The Colorado contingent consisted of Larry Haynes, Vic Davis, Steve Jensen, Ed Dawson, Dennis Billings, James Russell, his son Jordan, and myself. James worked for Friday and Saturday trying to fly his homemade "N" motor in a minimum diameter 4" rocket. We had it on the pad but could not get telemetry from the Telemetrum. The Australian contingent loaned James a dongle, we got it working and ran out of time on Saturday. He was all set to launch for Sunday and weather shut it down.

Ed was prepping a two stage and had it out at the pad, but ran our of time on Saturday and Sunday was scrubbed. Steve Jensen flew one of his birds and it provided a very spectacular sky writing show. CG was off and he forgot that his notes said not to fly on a 6G motor. I am unsure of what the other flight reports were. I think half of us were newbies to the site. So this was a very unique event. ( I am trying to choose my words carefully, lest Larry get a hold of them and twist them into something obscene.) Plans are already being made for next year.

The people that were there and the knowledge they carry is incredible. If you could make yourself into a sponge and absorb it all would be tremendous.

BEAR

All I know is Chris's N5800 attempt shredded. No details yet from him. I was really hoping he'd be successful and show those all metal rocket guys some tricks.
-Ken

In my haste, I forgot about Chris, his dad, Nadine, and her sister were there also. I have a video I took with my phone of Chris' flight. It looked good till about maybe 5000 feet and then got pretty squirrely. Chris will probably jump in pretty soon and provide more details. There were some really incredible flight. I think one of the most impressive to me was a large 6" "O" powered hybrid that left the pad for a great flight. It, to me, sounded like Han Solo's Millennium Falcon leaving the spaceport in the first Star War's movie. (For you youngsters, that is Episode IV, A New Hope)

I thought Chris had it in the bag with the design. Apparently there are more demons at Mach 3+ than we know about - or they are more insidious.

Edward

On Friday, I flew a minimum diameter on an M650. The altimeter reported 29K and change, and the GPS showed 35K+. I'm just happy to get it back in one piece.

I've got to say that one of the coolest things ever, is driving to recover a rocket 3.6 miles down-rage at 60 MPH with a GPS in one hand and the steering wheel in the other.

Cool glad to hear we had some representation out there, bummer about Chris' shred was really thinking that might of gone nice but I was a little worried how he described his fins attachment, It'll be interesting to hear his report of what he thinks went wrong. We flew a 3 stage there that looked great off the pad and then about 5,000 feet looked like a demon attacked it - snapped a 4" carbon tube in half. I was reading the aussies build thread, (they seem like for the most part pretty on top of their game) and they were talking about the dynamic changes of cp relative to the cg with the mach transition and having 3-4 calipers of stability in their rockets. I know ours was nowhere near that stable and wonder if maybe thats what bit us? Too bad about the weather!