Kathy relaxes with our daughters (Jen's) new kitten, Antonio.
One of the first racks of the day. When I flew, I only flew one rocket at a time as you had limited recovery until the entire rack was clear. Here I have the Mercury Deadstone (ACME Spitfire) on pad 6
I don't have rocket names, owner names nor motor used on any of these. Any help would be greatly appreciated!
What looks like a Maxi-Alpha on a D motor.
The Mercury Deadstone puts in a perfect flight. Everyone just LOVED it!
Here is a picture of our booth between Wildman Rocketry and The Rocket Garden. Good neighbors!
A closeup of our booth. We've had those vinyl signs for over a year but never had a good way to display them. Here they are in all their glory. They were great and easy to see from across the flight line.
My Vern/Gleda signed Deuce's Wild! (I've yet to have the time to build a replacement). This is also the original boilerplate for the kit.
And off to a perfect flight. Even in the high winds you got a good view of the dual smoke trails. However, this picture only shows one as it is seen edge on...
The CAUTION! Rocket Launch In Progress got a lot of attention, mainly because of its long name LOL
Odysseus (one of the three kits in the Triple Threat) waits on the pad
Another shot of Odysseus on the pad
Whoop! There it is!
Something cool on a black-jack
(Please help with a name!) This was one of several models I was asked to sign. It's great fun and the kids and adults both enjoy it (so do I)
L-R Jim Flis, Don Magness, James Gartrell pose with the NSL commemorative kits. Art Applewhite had left the field and was not available for this shot or launch.
Here is the rack of commemorative rockets, L-R, FlisKits Stingray, FlisKits paper rocket (included with registration), Squirrel Works Spirit of Texas by Don Magness and another Spirit of Texas made by James.
First up is the Stingray with a picture perfect flight.
Next was the paper rocket with an incredibly high flight on a B6-4 motor
Don (and James) chose to fly with C6-5 motors. 15-20 MPH winds, minimum diameter rocket... No, really, they did! Perfect flights that I simply could NOT track to apogee. They got them back though!
James' Spirit of Texas turns in a perfect flight as well!
Doug Sams was the proud winner of a Tres in the raffle drawing
With all the excitement about the Deuce's Wild!, I just HAD to pull out my Deuce of Hazzard for a flight!
A beautiful Estes Mercury Atlas takes to the air for a great flight
And the Deuce of Hazzard didn't dissapoint either, turning in a great flight on A3-4T motors.
It was at this time that we launched the Texas leg of the Tour de Deuce. Rather than have that event report lost in the middle of this one, I opted to keep them separate. I urge you to take a moment to see the launch report and photo album for this leg of the most exciting national tour model rocketry has ever seen!
Kathy's sister, Sue, mans the booth while testing my trademark black hat... Notice the "Free Ice Pops" in the cooler there. I thought we'd be hero's with that. We brought 300 with us and came home with over 250 left... go figure.
One of several great boost gliders flown at NSL.
The Long OverDue takes to the air on a B6-4 (I likes flyin'em, I's don'ts likes chasin'em)
The Richter Recker loaded with D12-5's sits on the pad waiting for the countdown.
With all 3 motors burning, she turns in a spectacular flight to the delight of all.
The Praetor on the pad
Perfect flight for the Praetor on a C6-5. Arrow straight flight and a beautiful profile in the air!
Don Magness flys his Red Baron boost glider. Boosted great but had problems during boost.
Can't recall his name, but this is a 2-stage Ciner-Roc carrier
Perfect boost for the Ciner-Roc. The lower stage landed in the tall grass, but I had a bead on it and went to retrieve it.
The Deuce Goblin, 24mm ... Not sure whether to call it a clone, an upscale, a mix-breed... Had a great flight too, but I missed the picture!
Another off the HPR pads
The new Estes Lander turns in a great flight
A super sized Star Wars ship (wish I had gotten a better launch shot of this beast!)
I got a great recovery shot though :)
Royce? (no last name) with his upscale of the Astron Omega with Cineroc payload. No camera aboard, just a static upscale, but BEAUTIFUL!
Our booth on day 2. After strong winds blew over our display, blew all the models off the table and darn near tore my signs in half, we have a very plain booth today...
Perfect boost and flight on the upscale Omega
An SR71 (Don's I beleive)
The tail end of the Tres wired up and ready to go!
Sitting on the pad, she looks anxious to get into the sky!
4 wonderful large kits on the far pads. The one on pad 2 has a digital video down link. great stuff!
And a beautiful boost too!
And a high power Der Red Max is just *sweet*
Another perfect flight for the upscale Omega
The Tres turns in a perfect flight on C6-5's. The wind caught the chute and I had to hike nearly a mile to retrieve this guy. I was lucky that there was a boy scout and his mom out hunting rockets and the Tres landed very close to them.
A rather odd looking rocket.
A Deuce's Wild! takes to the air!
The Freedom Forge Missile gets ready for her debut flight
And a perfect one it is too!
The Maelstrom Stingray sitting on the pad
This is the young boy who helped find my Tres. He won an ACME Spitfire in the raffle. I asked if I could take his picture and he looked at me oddly, then glanced at his mom like "some strange guy wants to take a picture of me". She said "do you know who that is? That is Jim Flis". Blank stare, *no* recognition. Then mom said "look at the name at the top of that kit". NOW he understood! He proudly posed then ran for a marker so that I could sign it for him.
The Stingray really gets moving and is hard to capture on film.
Having heard many comments about there not being very many Micro Maxx flights, I thought I would break out my Micro-Deuce (Note the ignitor jig I made for the MMX ignitors.)
Sitting on the pad
Perfect boost of the Micro Deuce, though only one motor lit.
We had a small mishap on the field when an M powered bird started to chuff. With each chuf, it spewed burning fuel onto the grass. With the last chuf, the rocket was boosted, without power, to about 300 feet only to crash on the tarmack. As soon as the rocket event was concluded, a crowd of people manned with water and fire extinguishers ran out to control the fire.
While tense and exciting at the same time, the AARG folks had no problem bringing this under control quickly as they were well prepared for such an event.
On our last day, the winds had died down quite a bit, but we still did not set up our full rack. Rather, Kathy had this neat idea about hanging the kits from the edge of the tent cover. This worked very well.
The last flight of the weekend, the Drake. Perfect boost, perfect recovery!