On a cold afternoon in December, we conducted our first launch.  We launched 10 rockets, our egg carriers twice.  We gained a lot of experience that we will use in the January launch.

• Launch operations went smoothly.
• We used our launch rod from last year for the egg carriers. We tried to compensate for the wind by tilting the rod.
• One of our egg carriers had separate recovery chutes for the engine and egg modules, and it worked.
• We launched 4 eggs with none broken in recovery.
• We flew two altimeters with the eggs and downloaded data for the second launch to a computer.
• We tested a streamer, but it broke in the cold.

Lessons

• We need to do better at keeping launch records (weight, duration, height, distance, direction).
• We need to make check lists for launch process.
• We could not use the computer in the bright snow on just batteries.  We needed to use the computer in the car on the car battery.
• Some of the parachutes and the streamer were stiff in the cold and didn't work.  We need to do some experiments with parachutes in a freezer.
• We can't have fins on the cargo container.  The range safety officer called them unsafe.
• When video recording, we need to start with a circular pan of the site to record landmarks for subsequent video analysis.
• Drifting from the high altitudes caused us to come too close to the trees.  The wind at ground level was almost still, but we need a way to understand the high altitude winds. (Try using a tethered balloon at 400 ft.)
• The igniter dropped out of a rocket as it was igniting.  We need to understand the igniter plugs better. (Check with the Estes web site to get a mapping of plug color to engine size.)

Our Modified Fatboys

Our Modified Alphas - Video

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Standing and working