Flight

The only flight to date came on a day when normal men would have packed up and gone home.  Blustery doesn't really cover it, and if you look at the launch pics, you'll notice that the pad is actually tilted into the wind far more than would seem safe.  Or smart.  That said, I wanted to fly, and I'd driven 45 minutes to fly, so fly I did.  The flight itself was perfect and quite impressive.  Tearing off the pad into the brisk breeze, the GGG looked perfectly at home under E9 power.  The flight path took it well to the south and quite a bit higher than I'd anticipated.  This became an issue during recovery.  Even with a reefed chute, the GGG passed back over the flightline with several hundred feet to spare, heading for the lake at the north end of the VOA property.  I watched it descend, landmarked the spot, and headed out on my recovery mission.  I looked forever on both sides of the water, in the water and all along the walking paths.  I found an R/C plane floating in the lake and retrieved it for the owner, but no Guppy.  Just as I was about to give up, two kids came up and asked if I was looking for a rocket.  They led me to the edge of the lake in a spot that was hidden from my view by a patch of reeds.  The Guppy hadn't gone completely into the water, but had hit the path and bounced to the water's edge with the rear end sitting in the water.  The E9 casing was swollen in the motor tube, and at first I thought it was going to be stuck for eternity, but I was able to dig it out with my multi-tool.  The fact that the rocket stood up to the extraction process impressed me greatly.  This fish was tough.