Southern Thunder Starts Saturday

Manchester, TN is recovering from this past weekend’s Bonnaroo Festival, but this weekend (June 22 and 23) a number of SoAR members will be heading there for Southern Thunder 2013 hosted by the Huntsville Area Rocketry Association and Music City Missile Club of Nashville.

Weather for the weekend in Manchester:
Saturday: Partly cloudy, with a high near 87. Wind from the south-southeast at 5 mph.
Sunday: Sunny, with a high near 87. Wind from the south around 5 mph.

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Mill Springs Launch Report

The June 8th Mill Springs launch saw over 154 rockets (as well as a few saucers, spools, and cones) take to the skies.  Interestingly there were 34 B6-4 engines used and 33 C6-5 engines, while the A8-3 only saw 17 launches.  Another popular engine was the A3-4T at 22 launches.  The most powerful engine was the F27-4R launching Steve Bellio’s Amraam 2 on two flights.  There were 98 parachute recoveries, followed by 41 Streamer and a few tumble recoveries and some helicopter nose cones and some gliders.  The day saw 2 cluster rockets, a couple of multi-stage launches, video camera, altimeters, 12 drag races, 31 first flights, 10 heads-up alerts, and one payload of an armless lego man… and finally a single french-fry was sent skyward as payload and thought to be still edible upon return.

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Dale’s Bucket O’Rockets Still Here!

At each SoAR launch there is usually a bucket (white, about 12″ diameter), whose location on the field is chosen at random, that is designated as Dale Windsor’s Bucket O’Rockets. Land any part of your rocket in that bucket (after a safe flight and recovery!) and you’ll win a jackpot of rocket kits. If no one gets in the bucket at a launch, the prizes will roll over to the next launch, and another prize will (seldomly!) be added!

In the six+ years that we’ve been doing this, only a couple of rockets have come close: a young girl landed her rocket about four feet away three years ago, and a few weeks later, David Klinkman’s rocket draped its shock cord across the bucket, but after consultations it was determined that it didn’t count. You have to get a piece of the rocket physically into the bucket. Dropped stages count; dropped motors do not.

The current list of prizes (as of June 25, 2012):

  • Roachwerks Saturn IB kit (limited edition)
  • Estes SpaceShipOne
  • ASP WAC Corporal
  • Estes Scissor-Wing Transport (the latest re-issue)
  • NOVA ASP
  • FlisKits Drake!
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Where Do I Fly My Rocket?

(Updated 9/7/12, see below) A dilemma faced by many: “I, or my son or daughter, received a model rocket for Christmas (or birthday, or graduation, or other occasion). Where do we go to launch it?”  So here is a short guide to flying a model rocket in the metro Atlanta area.

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