The last meeting at the Stubbers Adventure Centre was on a perfect flying day, the weather was warm and the wind was just a light breeze. The first rocket to be launched was my well trusted Hijax on a A8-3 engine and it did it's normal nice but short flight.
The next to launch was Gary with his Fat Boy on a B6-4 Engine. After the rocket landed safely I tried to launch my Bail-out on a B4-4 engine but on launch the engine mount broke and the engine shot through the nose cone leaving the rocket on the pad while the engine flew on its own before landing a short distance away.
Gary then launched his Redi-Rock on a 1/23A/2T while I armed the Broadsword and Robert built a small chuck glider which the Broadsword was going to give a lift to.
The Broadsword took of nice and slowly and took the glider skywards, soon the rocket was at around 300 feet and the parachute and the glider were deployed. At first I thought the glider had broken but soon we all watched as the glider did tight turns and slowly glided back to earth while the rocket drifted down on it's parachute.
Gary then launched an Firebird rocket on a B6-4 engine and the rocket did a great straight flight and flew almost out of sight before returning to the hill and landing just off the top of the hill, so Gary had a nice short walk for retrieval.
The next launch was a new one for H.A.R.T., we have had Radio controlled launches, and airborne launches but today was the first Rocket being launched by a computerised Lego Truck.
The truck was programmed to raise and then launch the Gnome rocket. The Truck also had motors to move it forwards and backwards as well as steer but the grass was unfortunately too much for the truck so it stayed stationary and just raised the rocket before launching.
After a few small modifications to the computer program and final checks on the truck the start button on the control panel was pressed and we all watched as the rocket was slowly raised to the vertical launch position and then after a slight delay the rocket was launched into a perfect vertical flight. The rocket then worked as normal and soon tumbled back to earth before being recovered from the side of the hill by a very happy Robert.
The last launch for this year was going to be the Broadsword but even though the rocket did a nice flight the parachute failed to deploy and the rocket came down and impacted the top of the hill with a large crunch. I did not want to leave Stubbers on a bad flight so I rearmed my trusted Hijax with a C6-7 engine and after a quick countdown we watched the rocket power itself to well over a 1,000 feet before it deployed the long streamer and slowly drifted back and landed on the side of the hill.
The last meeting of Stubbers went well and I lastly must give a big thankyou to Stubbers and their staff for all their support that they have given to H.A.R.T. and it's members.