H.A.R.T. members have again entered the Technogames events.
But this time there was three events and not just the one.
H.A.R.T. has entered a TEAM of three this year, but a few other members are also thinking of entering.
The TEAM members are :-
PETER BARRETT - Captain
LAURIE CALVERT
TONY BAILEY
All three members entered a Dragster into this event, but due to a shortage of time the producer of the programme has to cut the number of entries to just one per team.
The Team members had already decided that if only one car was allowed into the event then, LIGHTSTORM, the dragster built by Laurie was going to be entered.
Many thanks goes to Robert Felstead who built and designed my entry (ROCKET BRICK) and was the first ever H.A.R.T. Dragster
Tony also had a great car (THE CHOPPER) which he built for the event in under a week.
20th January 2001
Well today I got up during the "middle of the night" also known as 5.00 a.m. to get ready for the second part of the Technogames 2001 filming.
Laurie came round at 6.00 a.m. and after quickly loading the car, we set off to pick up Tony and then on to the
E.A.R.'s launch site where the programme was going to be filmed.
The long drive was in quite heavy fog but we still arrived at 7.50 a.m., which we was happy about as we had been asked to arrive by 8.00 a.m.
After a little while another member of H.A.R.T. turned up and had also entered the competition so we had 4 members of H.A.R.T. in the events.
Filming was due to start at around 9.00 a.m., but at 9.00 a.m. the fog was still heavy and only showed a slight sign of slowly lifting.
Eventually at around 11.30 a.m. the rocket launches started, the first few rockets were test flights to help the cameramen get used to tracking the rockets and also to check the height of the fog.
We found the fog base was still quite low and the rockets headed into it before appearing a few seconds later drifting slowly down.
The H.A.R.T. teams entry into the Egg Lofting event was my newly built rocket "H.A.R.T. Eggspress", I had designed it to fly on a "C" engine but after weighing it I was thinking seriously about using a more powerful "D" engine, but the engine mount gave me a big problem and as I was still building it the night before, I had to go with the smaller C engine mount with the option to do a 2 stage rocket instead.
But the judges decided the rocket would be rather unstable as a 2 stage rocket and so I had to go with the single "C" engine.
I simulated the flight on my P.C. and the rocket would only do around 120 feet and was on the limit of the engines max lift off weight.
Tony Betts of rockets and things (a great mail order company) and also a good friend was at the site and was also in the competition.
I went over and chatted to him, but when I found out he had some 18mm D engines, he only had long 7 second delay engines left.
With this delay my rocket would be very low or more likely would have even hit the ground before the parachute had been deployed so I had to go with the original "C" engine.
At round 1.00 p.m. it was finally time for my rocket to be launched, I had already seen a number of rockets launch to around 800 feet so I knew I had no chance of winning, but I was not too upset, it's the fun of taking part.
The time came to launch the H.A.R.T. Eggspress, and on the command "Fire" from Mat Irvine, I pushed the launch button and watched as the rocket slowly left the pad and headed into the sky.
It arched over and started to head earthbound just as the parachute was deployed, the 18 inch parachute deployed perfectly and the rocket landed after it's perfect but rather short flight.
After lunch they filmed the spot landing competition and Tony's rocket was entered into that for the H.A.R.T. Team and Michael entered one of his smaller rockets after talking tactics with us.
Both rockets performed well but the competition was cut short due to the light fading and so we only managed to have 1 launch instead of the normal best of 3.
The whole day was enjoyable but rather cold.
Many thanks must goto Julia Miles at Ripmax for helping me with getting the rocket parts to build "H.A.R.T. Eggspress"
Barrie Jones for the great rocket logos.
Laurie Calvert and Tony Bailey, who without their support, H.A.R.T. would not have had such a great team and who helped solved a few last second technical problems.
Lastly Michael, and his parents for also helping to promote and support H.A.R.T.
Well H.A.R.T. again came away with a Silver Medal, this time in the Rocketry Drag Race. We did well in the other two events but unfortunately did not get into the medal positions.