Another Successful Launch

While home to visit the family a week ago the Scranton Space Program convened for another launch. The last time we were together we launched three rockets each with pretty different designs. One burned in half upon launching, one had bits of its fins break off, and one went into the sky never to be seen again.

That last one kinda bothered me. It had two engines in it and it was the first time I got both engines to ignited. Of course since it was lost to the woods I didn’t know that both engines went off  until I got my film (yes film!) developed. This time I hoped it would be different. I whipped together a dual engine rocket in a day and a half. I also converted another one to use some D engines I had laying around. They weren’t pretty but they’d work….I hoped.

They actually did launch pretty well. We seemed to have trouble keeping nose cones attached but we didn’t lose a single rocket! The double engines went off and were recovered. Check out the photos:

Check out the rest of the photos and some videos here.

Blast Off

This past Easter I got to launch a few model rockets with my niece and nephews. It was a pretty interesting launch for a couple of reasons. First of all I was trying some new designs and materials for the rockets themselves. The other difference this time was I set up my holga right next to the launch pad in an attempt to get some cool pics. Since I have a cable release for it and I didn’t really care if the rocket burned a hole through it I figured my holga was the perfect camera for the job.

The picture to the left is the only one that came out. I took about 4 or 5 shots total. The other ones were either blown out or my timing was off and the rocket was already out of frame. I’m pretty sure that this shot was actually taken by my niece or one of my nephews. I’m really glad this one actually came out good. This rocket had two engines in to. I shot off like a bat outta hell and was gone. It was a fairly cloudy day and once it got high enough the rocket vanished from sight and was never seen again.