On arrival there were lots of sheep in the launch field all looking quite confused and concerned that they were having to share their field with us rocketeers. They stopped eating their grass while we setup the range. Some thought had gone into the layout of the range the previous weekend when Mark, Liz and John had a guided tour and planned the HP and Model launch areas. All pads were marked out on the range and a range tent had been set up for the RSO to check out all rockets before they were approved for flight. Mel Sharp, Range Manager for Black Knights, performed an excellent job and ensured UKRA safety standards were met. He also made sure that everyone filled in a flight registration card! Mark Perman was RSO in charge of the launch area and he ensured that all rockets got onto and off the pad safely. Only 1 rocket was lost, an exceptional AquaJet flight by Chris Eilbeck, resulted in AWOL. There were a total of 42 flights during the day with a total impulse of 1939 Ns power, giving an average of 46ns per flight.

Weather.......

The rocket gods were good and fair considering the weathermen had predicted rain for the West Midlands! Even the farmer came out at one point to tell us that it was going to rain in 20 min's, we were lucky - not a drop. :-) We didn't get away with a perfect day though! Despite the lack of any wind or even a breeze at times we did have quite a low cloud base. We were down to 1,200ft at the end of play. :-(

Good Flying!

There were lots of good flights reported and I know that John Davis kept putting them up one after the other, a total of 8 recorded flights. He had some excellent flights out of his 2 stage Long Shot, an Estes Kit, that went up and came back down 3 times! He also successfully flew his Bull Puppy a couple of times and also put in good flights with his Estes Big Bang, LOC Onyx, Fat Boy and Phoenix. Dave Beeton and Adam Windmill put in 8 flights between them. Generally all flights went very well, I note that Earth Fighter clocked up it's 50th flight - that must be some sort of record. We also had a confirmed glider flight of 35 seconds from Adam Windmill, I was very impressed! Mike Lynock was our resident cruise missile expert this weekend! :-) 2 of his rockets seemed to have a guidance system of some sort! His rockets, Phoenix and Gemini DC both went up well, so far, and then went sort of Cruise style. Both flights were safe and great fun to watch, although a mystery as to why Mike did manage to put 1 good flight in with Phoenix and another good flight from his lightening. Steve Pedlar, Malcolm Holt and Paul Saunders all put in some very good flights, a combined total of 11 flights between them! Tom Fowler had a very good couple of flights on his Super Shot and Ian Fowler's Initiator also had 2 good flights and beeper recovery. Once Chris Eilbeck had overcome his AquaJet loss he did put in a roaring display on his Slight Niggle, loaded to the brim with a H180... just the job! ( I have since been told that it can actually take another 6 x 24mm motors in addition to the H180, now that I would like to see! :-) )

I'm sure there were more flights and more flyers. I've tried to mention as many as possible:-). If I've missed anything off it's because you didn't fill in a flight registration! Just drop me a line with your details and I'll get it posted on these pages. Also, if anything in the above is inaccurate or down right wrong just let me know, I won't take offense. (That includes any spelling / grammar corrections, as some of you know, I can't spell! )

Malcolm