Saturday, June 25, 2011

Working with wind and an audience

This morning turned into excellent weather for rocketry!  I was rather worried that I would have to limit my launches to the Porta-Pot since it barely gets above the treetops.  We were already entertaining one of my son's friends for the day since his mom had to work.  I then decided to just go for broke and make a big play date out of it and invited one of his other friends and his brother.  I would not have felt safe launching with four high-energy boys around if it was just me, but the siblings' mom accompanied us and did the lion's share of the kid wrangling thus letting me focus on the rockets.  I made the stroller that I brought the gear in with the limit to how close they could get to the launchpad.  I let each of them push the launch button and only that person could go past the stroller.  Having controls like this for kids is very important.  As long as you make them simple they will generally follow them.

I would have liked to have explained to them the physics involved with making the rocket work, but such things are easily lost on those not yet five years old.  I simply explained what you did to launch them safely.  At this age you can focus on the tool and establishing it as something cool rather than clue them in to the principles involved.  I'll work on that as the interest and maturity level grows, but I doubt it will be long.

One thing I did explain was wind.  Today was a good day to showcase its importance.  Yesterday I checked the weather to get a general idea of the weather picture to see if launching was even going to be a possibility.  I saw that the forecast called for 9mph winds by 9am.  9am was going to be about the time that I could get to the field.  10mph is my cut-off for the rockets that clear 300ft.  The field is about 270ft on the shortest side and the winds usually blow along it making for some harrowing flights.  Most of the time the way you deal with wind is to launch directly into it so that the parachute will let it float back towards you.  Since I'm working with a large field I decided to take a slightly different course of action.  My idea was to launch at a 30 to 45 degree angle to the wind so that the rocket would be at apogee over the trees in the direction of the wind.  Then the wind would carry the rocket into the recovery area and hopefully drop below treetop level after clearing those trees.  I ended up not needing this tactic because the winds died down while I was launching the highest fliers that I brought.  I was using first flight engine selections to stay safe.

The Estes Big Bertha took and unexpected turn off the launchpad and looked to be heading into the south side trees, but a fortunate swirl of wind kept it safely in the field.  I prefer to play with fire on the launch, not the recovery!  That flight did well to illustrate what I had been telling the boys about the importance of paying attention to the wind and how unpredictable it can be.  The final launches became a timing issue since the winds picked back up as expected.  I can't complain about seven launches and seven recoveries with the only casualty being one of the new wood fins on the Quest Future Launch Vehicle.  I also figured out a great new job for the stroller frame that my daughter is about to outgrow!

I intended to take pictures, I even brought the camera out there.  Then I promptly forgot to take any pictures.  Sometimes there's just too much to pay attention to!

To top off a great day of rocketry I got some new Dr. Zooch kits in the mail much earlier than I expected from Apogee Components!  I had remarked to the brothers' mom that I had cut too big of a center-hole in the Porta-Pot's parachute.  Lo and behold but Apogee sent me a free parachute with my order!  Tim, I'm not sure if you're a rocket scientist or a mind-reader/fortune teller.

Some time soon I hope to check out a new launch site at a friend's family farm.  He said he also has some land in Bland County, VA.  I hope that one of those locations works out so I can push the current fleet to greater altitude without worrying about whether I'm going to be littering a city park.  I'm not interested in going so far as to get into high-power rockets, but I would like to explore mid-power and aerial videography.  I just can't do that on the current field.  I also got some insider information on some land that my future employer is attempting to acquire.  It may offer a decent launch site.

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