What a glorious day. Clear blue skies and very little wind. We had a good turn out and many many rockets were launched. I had my son Tom with me today and we flew 4 rockets in total. Estes Navy went up on a B6-4, Tom's scratch built "Cidie" stayed put on the rail with a D12-5 but he won the closest to the Pad (See the photo gallery as we have pictures and video of this!!), next came the Coffee Cup's from a breech launch on D12-5's. First one was great, but the second one was a bit unstable. Again videos in the gallery.

I also did some of the RSO'ing which was then followed by Mel and then Ray.

Just before Tom and myself left the site, Mark attempted his L2 cert and passed. Congats to Mark. Video in gallery.

Sean

Hi all

Sunday was a great day for me after a long wait I finally got to do my HPR level II flight. The rocket was a scratch built, 80mm in Dia, and carried a radio tracker (Traxa) and a beeper to aid recovery. The chute was a Skyangle Classic 44inch. The vehicle flew on a gifted Congreve 720J270 std with a 16 sec delay and was simmed to 1390 meters. The rocket weather cocked slightly into the wind as expected and on chute deployment drifted back towards the launch site finally settling into a tree about 400 meters from the spectator line. Then there was some head scratching as the tree was one of the tallest on the site and the clubs recovery poles only reached about half way up the tree. However Chris Jones our host at Milson saved the day - with a chainsaw, he said at the time "I was going to thin out the copse anyway" Despite being in a tree that had been felled which then fell into another tree which to had to be felled the rocket was recovered without a scratch! All I have to do now is send off the paperwork and cheque and wait for the certificate to arrive!

Many thanks to all the guys at Congreve for the generous donation of 2 J270's (I assembled the first under instruction and this was static fired. After the static firing, see photo in the gallery, we cleaned up the casing and I then assembled the motor for a second time, but this time for its
flight!) It was a nice contrast to see a motor test fired and then flown on the same day. Thanks also to Ray Hancox who acted as the certifying RSO.

It was a busy flying day with lots of flights so the RSO's had plenty to do. Thanks to Mel Sharpe, Sean Arrowsmith and of course Ray again for RSOing all the rest of the club flights on the day. I am afraid I did not take many pictures at this launch session as I was a little busy with the assembly of the static firing motor and my flight.

Thanks to Mrs Carter and Mrs Whitfield for sorting out the flyer registration and last but not least to Hugh Whitfield and new member Charles Wilson (welcome to the club by the way) for there donations to club funds.

Mark