It was another fine Saturday morning at our secret launch location. This time we had a fleet of rockets lined up and ready to go, including the little Swift 220! It was our first day with the little Mini ‘T’ motor rockets.

4 Rockets in total are on the schedule for launch.

Estes Swift220

As you can see in the video, it lifted off very quickly with a 1/4A3-4T motor, the smallest one Estes makes for any of it’s rockets. Even with that tiny motor is was GONE! It took us 30 minutes to find the rocket.

When we finally did locate it, this is what we found. The rocket did not execute a tumble descent, but instead came straight down like a dart, embedding itself, nose down in the grass. Glad it only weight .56 oz.!

FireStreak SST

I originally bought this rocket for my daughter, but she totally refused to even look at it, much less show ANY interest at all in such things. However, when you listen to the video you’ll hear her helping with the countdown. I’m glad she changed her mind

Sadly, this rocket did not exactly ‘perform’. The only person I have to blame for that is myself though. The smallest recommended motor is a 1/2A3-4T but nobody in town had any, so I just put in one of the 1/4A3-4T motors thinking… so it won’t got really high. Won’t go high. So, when they have an engine recommendation, it’s probably best to stick with it.

Hi-Flier

The Hi-Flier was next on the pad. This rocket has flown a number of times already, but only on the smallest A series engines I had. Even using a small A, it really get’s some height, and the first one launch we had, it was almost lost, coming down on the edge of a fence quite some ways down range. This video only shows the lauch… because I just could not keep up with tracing this little missile.

It landed quite a ways away on the field, but recovery was pretty easy. By this time both kids were running around the field tracking, chasing and recovering rockets. 🙂

Taser

The last rocket of the day.

The last time we flew this rocket on B series engine, we lost it to the roof of the school. Since that time I’d made some modifications to the parachute, removing quit a bit of it’s drag. This should have dropped it from altitude much faster, and landed it closer to our launch location.

In the end, it landed almost atop the same roof we lost it on last time. Missing it by maybe 6′, probably less. We did get it back. Later that night I further modified the chute with a 7th opening in the top center to hopefully further reduce the glide (float?) ratio on descent.

Next round of launches are scheduled for September 26th.