The day started at 8.00am when Laurie arrived and helped me to load his car with the various rockets including Hart Attack and Bail Out as well as the newly built and painted rocket for Red Nose Day called "Astro-Frog-One"
At around midday we arrived in Portsmouth and after a quick search we found Steve Ross who was busily covering some scaffolding with silver foil which was going to be used as a backdrop to the launch site.
We then met with Bob the frog, but sadly he was ill and was unable to fly in the rocket as he hoped and so the pilot of the rocket was his smaller brother Tim.
Steve told us that a T.V. News crew were coming at around 1.00 p.m. to do a interview with us and record a test rocket launch. He then gave us the Quest Big Rage rocket kit to build for the launch.
Laurie and myself soon were busy making the rocket and parachute and a little while later the T.V. news crew turned up and had a quick chat with us before asking if they could film us preparing the Big Rage for the test flight.
Then we found out the test flight at 1.30 p.m. will be going out LIVE on the news.
At around 1.20 p.m. we set up the pad area and chatted with the cameraman and reporter who told us what they intended to do during the report.
At 1.30 p.m. the Live broadcast started and the woman reporter had a quick interview with the Men in Green (Steve and Nigel) before the cameras pointed to us and a five second countdown began.
My hand were shaking as I heard Steve count down from 5 and the seconds seemed like minutes until finally Steve said lift off and I pressed the two launch buttons and prayed.
With a lot of relief the rocket engine immediately came to life and the rocket headed skywards.
The T.V. crew then asked us and Steve to do some T.V. links with them which took around 10 minutes before Laurie and myself went looking for the rocket. We both watched it coming down and we had a good idea where it had landed so we both thought that we could return it to the pub.
But a good search of the area found no sign on the rocket and we can only assume that the rocket was picked up buy someone and taken away.
After we had lunch, we went to the hotel and booked in before going around the sea front and visiting the arcades for a while as we were not due back to around 5.30pm for the main launch of Astro Frog One.
The evening soon came and with it the rain, when we returned to the site and chatted with Steve and the other staff for a while before a local newspaper reporter and photographer arrived and chatted with Steve and us about the launch.
At around 6.45 p.m. I armed the F36-5 engine while Laurie glued on 4 mini glow sticks to the rockets fins which were kindly donated by Bob of Economy Tackle.
The rain finally stopped at around 7.00pm and a small crowd of about 40 people soon gathered around the launch site and waited and listened to the countdown taken from Apollo 13.
At 7.30 p.m. the P.A. played the last few minutes of the countdown from Apollo 13 while the photographer took a few more photos of the rocket and the Men in Green.
I was given a full 30 second countdown and after the countdown reached one I again pressed both buttons and prayed. My prayers were soon answered as the rocket engine ignited into life and Astro frog one leapt into the air under a small but bright orange flame and headed skywards. We all tracked the rocket for the 5 second burn time then the rocket deployed its parachute and was gone.
Laurie and myself then chatted to the reporter a bit more before we all went into the pub and watched the comedy acts before returning to the hotel for some well earned rest before heading home the next morning.