PREVIOUS CROCK
NEXT MEETING Date to be announced shortly. Watch this space. [more info] CROCK VENDOR CROCK LINKS		As always I like to have a rant about the weather and this is no exception as for once the rocket gods were on our side! Weather forecasts were predicting sunny/cloudy spells with a 5mph wind, in rocket terms this means solid cloud at about 2Kft and wind that will impress Michael Fish, call my pessimistic. Sunday arrived and the sunny/cloudy prediction was correct with superb scattered cloud amongst the blue skies providing great visibility. The wind side of things I wanted to hold my judgement until I arrived at the launch site. Luckily the wind was reasonably light in which during the day became lighter and provided a superb day for flying. PANORAMA: Walland Marsh (North)  [Launchsite Information] Located to the far North of the launch site provided loads of downrange recovery, this was used to great success with rocket launches ranging from Estes low power to Cesaroni Pro54 high power. Various rocketeers arrived to take advantage of this glorious days weather and launch a wide range of rockets between us. Michael Jennings started the day?s events by launching an Estes Big Daddy on an Estes E9 that made a brilliant flight, this was the best flight I have ever seen from one of these rockets with a great long boost. Pete Williams launched his superb looking Rebel Rocketry Buccaneer on a Pro38 I-class motor that shifted very fast off the pad on a Smokey Sam. Michael had an old Aerotech G44W (White Lightning) that he wanted to fly in a great looking rocket. On ignition the motor spluttered a little, Aerotech lovers will know this well, and being an old single use motor it took about three seconds to build up to pressure and lift the rocket off the pad. I had prepped my PML Aurora (copy) the night before and finished off the final motor prep with a Pro54 J295 (brilliant 4-second burn). On ignition the rocket lifted off a lot quicker then previous flights on this motor and made a superb boost in to the blue sky. The rocket was recovered relatively close to the pads due to 2-stage recovery and the onboard altimeters were bleeping out approximately 4700ft. Pete Williams launched his PML Sudden Rush on a Pro54 J380SS that leapt off the pad and just kept coasting. Unluckily the main chute deployed at apogee and the rocket drifted for a very long time but luckily the wind was low and it was soon recovered. Pete said that the altitude could not be concluded as the altimeter was switched off upon landing. Michael Jennings prepped a dragrace with two of his rockets, one loaded with a Congreve H240 and the other loaded with a classic Aerotech H238T. When the countdown reached zero the Aerotech kicked in to life as always with these Blue Thunder reloads with a loud bang and a pure blue and white flame (see photos). Unluckily the second rocket loaded with the Congreve motor didn?t ignite so there was a clear winner. Michael reloaded the Congreve H240 with a bigger igniter and tried again. This time the motor kicked in to life and the rocket boosted quickly off the pad although the ejection charge went off less then a second after ignition damaging the upper half of the rocket. Malcolm Jennings finished off the days flying with Malcolm flying his Christmas Cracker rocket on a Pro54 J380. The rocket had a textbook flight with much greater performance on this motor compared with Pro38 flights as expected. This was a great days flying coupled with the fact I managed to get some great launch photos which is a miracle for me with my slow capture mode on my digital camera. Looking forward to the next CROCK flying date and hope to get more if this rocket weather during the years flying. Gary Meakin With the club website fully up and running it would be great to hear your opinions, suggestions and any comments you have. See you at the next meeting. REVIEW PHOTOGRAPHS SLIDESHOW VIDEOS FEATURE NO VIDEOS NO REPORT FEATURE
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