Like every year, the weekend begins with frantic rocket completion in the garage. This year it meant the finishing touches on the Standard Missile, our team project. We had a lot to do, including paint, wiring, rail buttons, trim, etc.
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Unfortunately the paint fumes created some unanticipated behavioral changes in our children. Mark flew in from Denver with his son, Joey (left). Stefan is shown twitching uncontrollably on the right.
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Always the prankster, Mark embeds a flashlight into the center of Rick's forehead...
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in preparation for the Night Launch scheduled for Saturday evening. We flew the Halloweener, among other rockets.
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This sequence of photos is taken late Friday night. Believe it or not, the first time we assembled this rocket was a just few hours before we flew it on Saturday.
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The rocket was built in pieces in Denver and Minneapolis, then shipped to Phoenix for final assembly. Because of 9/11, shipping was uncomfortably late.
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Fortunately, it all fit together perfectly!
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For more background on this project, click [HERE!]
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Brad sews some Nomex chute protectors out of fabric from an old raceway jumpsuit.
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Rick poses proudly with the booster -- his contribution to the team project.
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The ubiquitous Gila Monster on display. It appears at every GHS but has never flown at the event.
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The lineup of rockets built by Hillbilly Rokitry. They do this just to make RTV look like amatuers. Which we are.
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Cory lectures Brad on the design superiority of Kosdon motors over Aerotech. Brad nods every few minutes, feigning interest.
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Cory got a new truck just before GHS. The target was placed there by marketing representatives from Aerotech. Everybody missed.
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Cory points at the fins of the Standard Missile, wondering aloud what they do and why they are there.
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The motor comes to life on the Standard Missile. We don't have a lot of photos of this flight, but it's just as well
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front: Stefan and Joey. back: Cory, Brad, Rick, Mark. We are posing with our Drag Race rockets -- simple 38mm 3FNC models, each loaded with a G64.
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The results of the 2001 RTV Drag Race Challenge. Mark is the leader off the pad with the 'Peppermint Stick Suppository of Righteous Indigestion'. Click [HERE!] for video.
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Brad loads his Thunderbird Missile onto the pad. It is a scale model of a British surface-to-air missile deployed during the Cold War. Brad first built one of these when he was fourteen.
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The Thunderbird is a very complex project with four parallel-staged boosters. All five motors ignite on the ground and the boosters deploy separately. The twelve fins rendered Cory incoherent.
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This will always be one of our favorite rockets.
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All five motors lit and the flight went exactly as designed!
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Rick brought one of the cooler mid-power rockets seen all weekend, Kid Plasma's Flaming Atomic Meteor of Justice! If you love retro designs, you'll love the KP!
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The Kidd Plasma is a kit-bash of the Estes Silver Comet. This rocket flew several times on G motors for neck-snapping launches.
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