Hi all,

Sunday the 18/08 was a hot sunny day with little wind, ideal-flying conditions. During the flying session the following people took part in the UKRA Model Rocket Achievement scheme and were successful at their tasks:

Level 1

• Simon Robinson
• Mark Cartwright
• Ray Hancox
• Rob Beavan
• Mel Sharpe

Level 2 - Mandatory Task

• Alan Meredith
• Mark Perman

Congratulations to everyone. The results have been passed to UKRA and certificates should be out soon. We had a three-way tie for frequent flyer this month between Ray, Rob and Alan. With Alan winning based on the combined highest Total Impulse flown on the day of approximately 150 Newton seconds. Alan's Mean Machine flew well on a D12-3 and he at last got to fly his Initiator after two years. He commented after the flight that it had been worth waiting for. An interesting part of Alan's Initiator recovery was the bleeper which became detached at Chute deployment and fell the 900ft to the ground and was still working, not a bad advert for the bleeper (By the way the club has plenty in stock, with a discounted rate for members.) Ray flew his Polaris a number of times on a range of motors, all nice flights. He also flew his Initiator on an E11-3. Ignition of this motor proved troublesome thanks to a couple of "iffy" Copperhead Igniters Rob Beavan successfully passed his MRA level 1 on his second attempt but had problems as well on the day. His Monarch suffered a nosecone separation and his Estes recon with a replacement nose cone followed a most unusual trajectory landing in a large patch of nettles. A number of us looked for the rocket which we found after a while. Rob was heard to say that he wouldn't be wearing shorts again while searching for rockets. Mark Cartwright had a long walk to recover his Estes Heatseeker after a nice flight on a C6-5. Simon Robinson and daughter Kirsty flew a scratch built rocket called Kirk 2 on a B6-4 (first flight) and then on a C6-3. This was only Simon's second flying session and he turned up with a scratch built rocket! Look out Mel Simons after your title as chief scratch builder!! ;-)