For the first time this year H.A.R.T. had great weather for their launch meeting. The Sky was clear with only a few clouds, the temperature was nice and warm and only a light wind blowing.
The meeting soon grew to over 30 with the members not wanting to waste the great weather and the number finally reached a healthy 42.
We had to many launches to mention here but the highlights were as follows.
Laurie launching another one of his great Mach 1 rockets - this as usual got everyone’s attention and after a few small ignition problems the rocket vanished of the pad with a quite loud crack of the sound barrier being broken by a model rocket for about the 15th time.
Tony's launch of a great looking scale version of Thunderbird 3 - this rocket looks amazing and we all hoped the hours of hard work would not be destroyed when it was launched. Tony armed the rockets three engines and set the rocket on it's own made to measure launch pad with a blast plate in the form of a roasting tray !!! Tony pushed the button and prayed but the rocket stayed firmly on the pad with the engines unlit. He then realized he was missing the safety key. On the second attempt the rocket launched perfectly and climbed just over 30 feet before going madly out of control and making the crowd of onlookers scattering in all directions. Luckily the rocket landed with only a little damage and no one was hit.
The worse launch of the day was a Tomcat which had already flown three times and crashed three times. We hoped for fourth time luckily but again on launch the Tomcat spiraled out of control and crashed on the side of the hill. Then something happened which all rocketeers dread - a GRASS FIRE. Laurie was the first to spot it and with his quick warning shout everyone ran to the fire and quickly stamped out the fire before another member brought over a fire extinguisher and made sure the small burnt patch of grass was really out.
The other really great launch of the meeting (but all launches were good and I would loved to mention them all but I would write a book instead of a newsletter report) was Mike’s Fat Boy on a D engine.
The Fat Boy's engine mount had been modified to take D engines and Mike had taken the last few days to get it ready for the Saturday launch.
With a small push of the launch button the D powered Fat Boy climbed off the pad and reached a great height and went almost out of sight before deploying it's parachute and landing nearby.
The weather was still nice when the time came to leave and for the first time this year the club had been flying rockets for over 4 hours.