LAUNCH REPORT 1999-003 Date: May 7 Time: 8:15 pm Place: My backyard, Stow, OH Weather: Sunny, 70-75 Degrees F Winds: South ~5 mph I picked up a 12-volt, 300-amp garden tractor/snowmobile battery at K-Mart on Wednesday (05/05) along with a set of 10 gauge wire jumper cables. The boys had baseball practice from 6:00 to 7:30. My youngest didn't get to pitch, so I got on the catcher's mit. I was finally able to convince him to do rockets before the sun got too low. Out came the PD3L with 3/16" rod, five-lead launch controller, the new tractor battery and the jumper cables. The boys (mine and neighbors) went nuts--a Tim Taylor kind of thing. Shadow 5 1 D12-5, 2 C6-5 (equivalent to E24-5) Boosted straight but slightly NNE of vertical. Altitude >600' AGL Ejected just past apogee. Landed ~500' NE of the launch pad. What an attention getter! At T minus zero there were four boys in the backyard plus myself. At T plus three seconds the kids across the street started yelling "Rockets, rockets!" (with glee, not fear) and a chase ensued of at least 10 people. It drifted north across the street and into an unfenced backyard three houses east (home to two of the chasers). I beat the kids to the landing spot and caught the rocket as my youngest son approached (rocket body in right hand, nose cone in left). I've had rockets go higher, but the previous 3 flights of this bird have all been sub-250' flights. WRASP said over 600', but man was it up there. My wife wanted the kids to come in for a bath, but the neighbor kids wanted to see another launch. My oldest son has been waiting for the maiden flight of his Hijax, a Christmas present, which we finished building about three weeks ago. I wanted to send it up without a payload, but my son said "We've *got* to put something in there, Dad." So I grabbed a nearly empty tube of Super Glue Gel out of the range box and he put it in the clear payload bay. We had to take it back out when he popped off a fin while loading the engine. TTWTTMMT construction, but it's plastic to plastic and that airplane cement can be so brittle. Hijax A8-3 Nearly empty tube of Super Glue Gel in clear payload bay. Vertical boost Altitude ~150' AGL Landed ~75' NNE of the launch pad. This was our first twilight launch. The engine exhaust looked like fountain fireworks coming out the back of the rocket. My youngest son caught it near the purple lilac tree at the SE corner of our deck. The neighbors were sent home and the kids came in for an ice cream treat, a bath, and went off to bed. I had a celebratory home brew with my ice cream after they were in bed.