The third meeting of HART in 1999 could not have had better weather, the sun was warm and the wind was either dead or blowing gently.
The first to arrive and launch were James and John with their dad Steve. James launched his Nike Arrow and even though we all tracked it until landing it vanished. After a few minutes searching I went back to the launch site and then walked in a straight line to where I thought it came down and luckily walked right up to it.
James then launched his Sabre rocket, which did a nice high flight on a B engine which then the 2 boys ran off in hot pursuit to recover it.
When they returned they were carrying 2 rockets !! Amazingly they found Ivan's Maniac which was lost at last months launch meeting.
The next rocket to head into the heavens was my HART Attack rocket on 7 D12-3 engines.
This was my biggest rocket even flown and after having my last 2 rockets cato, I prayed that one of the D's would not give me a third in a row.
After the 5 second countdown I pressed the two launch buttons and the 5 foot rocket came to life and lifted into the sky. The rocket soon reached around 500 feet before deploying the 45 inch parachute and started its slow decent.
We all watched as it seemed to silently home in on the pad and finally it landed just 10 feet from its launch pad with the parachute actually landing on the pad.
John then launched the Astrosat rocket with its two small satellites. The rocket landed safely a short distance from the site but the two small satellites drifted further and so the two boys again sprinted off on the recovery mission.
I then rearmed HART Attack for a second flight but I had to use 5 D12-3 and 2 D12-7s as they were all the engines I had left, I was at first a bit unsure if only 5 D's would be enough to deploy the parachute but on checking Laurie footage of the first launch we noticed that you could hear at least 3 more ejection charges going off just after the parachute had deployed so I knew it was safe.
The rocket was soon on the pad and I waited for a brief moment before again giving a short countdown and launching. The rocket jumped off the pad again and headed skyward, it was another perfect flight as the rocket reached its apogee and deployed the chute. This time the rocket drifted a short distance down range and unfortunately landed hard and broke one of its fins.
The last launch of the day was James with his Sabre again on a B4-4 and again the rocket did a nice flight and slow recovery.