Flight

If the build had made me a bundle of nerves, it was a cinch that the first flight would be worse since Tony had talked me into attending NARAM 43 in Geneseo, NY.  All the cool guys were there, and I was deathly afraid of making a fool out of myself in front of them.  I envisioned the rocket leaving the pad in a rush, then skywriting a message across the sky while the fins fluttered to earth.  Didn't happen.  Tony and I took our Lil Nukes, both loaded with Aerotech F20-7s, to the pad for a drag race after he instructed me in the fine art of mid-power engine and igniter installation.  The time between the on-pad picture I took and the launch seemed like hours, but eventually the rockets were announced and the countdown started.  (I'd given my LN the name Mourning Would in hopes that I could trip up an inattentive LCO, but it never happened.)  My Lil Nuke leapt off the pad in an impressive cloud of smoke and climed to an equally impressive height.  Tony's bird spit the igniter.  Mine windcocked considerably to the right when the initial thrust dropped off, so it was well out over the field by the end of the flight.  It tipped over at apogee, and I had a bad moment when I thought the ejection charge had failed, but in actuality it had barely started down when it blew, launching the chute and riding the breeze back to the cornfields to the left of the pad.  Finding it was no problem, as it landed short of the corn, bouncing impressively and making me wonder if it had held together, but it was intact when I arrived at the landing spot.

The second flight didn't come until the following year after our club moved to the expansive new gigs at the Voice of America Park in West Chester, OH.  Loaded again with an F20-7, the Lil Nuke left the pad and immediately began riding the wind.  Ejection again occurred with the nose down near the old control building, then the recovery drift began.  It ended near the north edge of the field, a drift of 1/4 to 1/2 mile.  I was quite impressed.  And tired.