Hi all,

This was a bad day for me!. It started off well with no sign of the weather front moving in, we had light breeze and sunshine. I was first to launch on a Congreve 320H320-F in my PML Phobos. Then things started to go wrong. After 2 failed launches (Not enough juice in my battery to get the igniter going) it finally went up.

What a wicked flight it was, straight up with no weather cocking. It must of gone to around 4,000ft then arced over and then the delay smoke stopped. That the last thing we saw. Well 15 seconds later whilst still scanning the sky for a chute etc, they was an almighty loud thud over in the next field. My initial thought was that it was the motor casing coming in just behind the hedge line (45m from us) so kept on scanning the sky but still nothing. I could not even hear the high frequency beeper. So started to reside to the fact that she was gone.

So we all jumped over the hedge and started to look for the casing by the hedge line. Nothing! Some of the kids had wondered off down the far end of the field (another 250m away at least) when we hear a shout "It's hear". We all go over and their is my Phobos buried into the hard ground. To hard to dig out so the Farmer dug it out with the tractor. There was no much left of the front end, about 2ft was missing, well little bits actually, including my new Perfectflite Altimeter. You can see the photo's in today's Photo Album.

So my conclusion was that during the flight, the masking tape over the ejection charge had come off and dispersed it's self inside the airframe, so when the delay went to ignite the charge there was nothing left. How do I know this, well in the remains I found the masking tape intact with black power stuck to it.

So, after putting all the bits in a plastic bag and having nothing else to fly I took over RSO duties.

Commiserations to Ray, who had his AARAM cato just off the pad, again another flyer taking bits home in a plastic bag, at least he won the "nearest to the pad" with his chute caught on his rails. (You can see the photo's in today's Photo Album).

Their was lots of other good flights during the day, but my heart was not in it. I don't mind about my PML phobos (at least it died a glorious death!!) but it was the loss of my Altimeter (It was it's first flight!!) that I mourn.

Sean