The 24^th annual LDRS launch became a true international launch in 2005 by virtue of being held outside of the USA for the first time.  It was held at Canada's premier launch site near Lethbridge Alberta on July 14-19.   Visit the LDRS-24 web site.

I would like to personally thank the entire Canadian organizing committee and in particular Max Baines for all the hard work and selfless dedication toward putting on an outstanding launch. Thank you one and all, it was a great event!   The photo below shows the entire group of flyers attending LDRS-24 on Sunday afternoon July 17. 

It seemed to me that attendance was down a bit at this LDRS.  That's too bad because it was a great venue.  Anyone that elected not to attend LDRS missed a very fun time with some really great hosts in Canada. The lack of attendance was probably partly due to the long distance for some people to travel but probably also due to the perceived difficulty of getting motors across the border.  However, we had no problems at all.  I imported quite a few commercial motors for myself and some friends I was traveling with.  The LDRS organizers made it very easy to get the proper paperwork filled out ahead of time.  The Canadian border official asked to see our paperwork and was very satisfied with it.   Our re-entry into the US was a non-event.  The topic of rocket motors never even came up.  (Although we were ready with my LEUP paperwork if it had.)  At the US border crossing they just asked some of the standard questions about where we had been and where we were going and then wished us well on our trip. 

Besides flying rockets in Canada, the TRA banquet on Saturday night was a real hoot.  We got to meet and chat with lots of new folks and especially enjoyed the Mark Clark and Robin Meredith "show" during the banquet. Mark provided a very funny running commentary during most of the evening and the two of them were just hilarious at times during the raffle.  

Mike Dennett (Cesaroni Technology) also put on a great fireworks show one night at the launch site.  The nearby gravel pit was a perfect place for setting off all his fireworks.

A group of five of us rented an RV together and traveled the 1750 miles from Boise Idaho to the launch site and back.  It was a thoroughly enjoyable time!  We got to see some old friends as well as meet a lot of new people and fly our rockets at one of the best launch sites anywhere.

It was usually sunny and warm (even hot) most days. Some of the days were a bit windy too, but not so much as to completely shut things down.  And it usually went dead calm toward the end of each day. Unfortunately, it rained on Saturday but the launch organizers adjusted for that by switching Monday from an experimental day to a commercial motor launch day.  That was greatly appreciated by those of us that fly commercial motors.  Thanks!

Angelfire was built in the spring of 2005 with the intent of making its first flight at LDRS.  It is 11 feet long and 5.15 inches in diameter.  It is all fiberglass construction, weighs 33.5 lbs without a motor and sports a 98mm motor mount. It has two MissileWorks altimeters that are used to deploy a 24" SkyAngle drogue chute at apogee and a Cert-3 XL SkyAngle main chute at 1000 feet.  It also carries a Walston radio locator transmitter in the nosecone to help find it after the flight.

The M1450 is a four grain motor with 9955 Ns of impulse, a 6.9 second burn time and 543 lbs of peak thrust.  Angelfire weighed 52 lbs with the motor installed and reached 16,146 feet.

Mike Dennett from Cesaroni Technology personally helped me assemble the M1450 for Angelfire.  It doesn't get any better than that.  Thanks Mike!

Angelfire was launched at almost 9:00pm local time as the sun was setting.  This made for a spectacular boost with the bright motor flame in the fading light,  but it also made it very difficult to see the rocket near apogee.  Unfortunately, the main parachute was deployed at apogee. The root cause of this malfunction has not been found.   The sink rate on the main chute is 20 feet/sec so it took over 13 minutes for Angelfire to reach the ground.  By then it was a very long ways away!  It was also dark, so recovery had to wait until the next day.  The next day, Scott Carter and I went on a long hike to find it.  At 2.5 miles we picked up a signal on the Walston and at 3.5 miles we found the rocket in perfect condition. We then hiked another mile to a nearby road and called for help.  Chuck Pretto drove out to pick us up. Thank you Chuck!!  Chuck is from San Diego and he and his son were camping next to us at LDRS.  We really enjoyed trading stories and just hanging out with both of them at the launch.  Visit Chuck's rocketry web site.

My only other flight at LDRS-24 was to launch Starfire on an Animal Motor Works M3000 "Super Tiger" motor.  Starfire is 12.5 feet long, 7.7 inches in diameter and weighs 45 lbs without any motors installed.  It has a central 75mm motor mount and six 38mm out-board motor mounts. It carries a mini-DV camcorder in the aft payload bay and a digital still camera in the forward payload bay.

This photo from the on-board digital camera shows the main Starfire body tube hanging from the recovery harness as it descends under parachute. 

Cody Neal and Scott Carter help Vern put Starfire on the launch pad.

Can you identify the sound track?

Play high resolution video     (19.1 MB mpeg2 file)

This video was captured by the on-board camcorder.  A mirror allows the camera to see down the side of the rocket toward the ground.

Play high resolution (full flight) video   (27.5 MB mpeg2 file)

Play low  resolution (full flight) video   (6.9 MB wmv file)

Play high resolution (liftoff only) video  (9.9 MB mpeg2 file)

This video was taken by Rick Clapp by placing a camcorder out near the launch pad.

Play High Resolution Video   ( 4.4 MB mpeg2 file )

Play Low  Resolution Video   ( 0.5 MB wmv  file )

Scott Carter installs the igniter into his "Thug" while the pad manger (red hat) helps out by holding it up.  Scott launched his Thug on an Aerotech H97 blackjack motor,  ...only not quite as planned.  After installing the igniter, the continuity check did not pass.  But then it didn't pass with the launch leads shorted together either, so the pad manager started working to figure out what was wrong.  Eventually he tried wiggling the connections to the launch battery to make sure they were okay.  At that point the system immediately fired the igniter and launched the Thug with him and Scott standing only about 6-10 feet away!  Fortunately, it was a small motor and no one was injured but it was definitely not the way to launch it.  The RSO immediately asked everyone to clear the range while they tried to figure out what had just happened.   The problem never repeated again for the remainder of the launch.  The Thug made it's normal flight and was safely recovered.

Scott just completed his junior year at the University of Idaho.  He also runs a computer consulting company.

Jennifer Kane prepares her Binder Design "Galaxy" for it's maiden flight. 

Frank Ross was another of the flyers from Idaho attending LDRS.

Frank heads out to the launch pads.

The liftoff was spectacular but everyone lost sight of the rocket until the main chute deployed just before touchdown. Everything seemed fine until Frank recovered the rocket and discovered the motor was gone!  Somehow the rear snap ring had failed to retain the motor inside the rocket.  Furthermore, the altimeter only reported 10,086 feet and the rocket was expected to go closer to 18-20K feet.  It is not exactly clear what happened.  The exhaust of the motor may have somehow worked the rear snap ring loose.  Perhaps by some combination of temperature expansion and physical exertion.   If the motor slipped out at burnout, then the rocket would not have coasted nearly as high as expected due to the lighter weight.  Or perhaps something like an early ejection or early separation caused a somewhat violent event that may have helped kick the motor out.  In any event, the motor was never found and Frank will have to try again for his level-3 certification.

Very high res versions of these two photos are also available:    Liftoff photo1    Liftoff photo2   

Some Closing Thoughts

The Canadian rocketry rules require a large unoccupied "splash zone" to be set aside at the launch site as an area where the rockets can impact into if the recovery system fails to deploy and a rocket comes in ballistic. They were also very very strict about launch rail angles.  The rails were required to be angled toward the splash zone.  The pad managers were responsible for setting the rail angles and the flyers had no real say about it.  (You don't like it, you don't fly.  Pretty simple.)  This launch also required all high power rockets to be launched from rails.  Rods were not allowed.  The explanation was that rails provided a much more predictable ballistic trajectory into the splash zone.

Safety was taken very seriously at this launch.  More so than at any other launch I have ever attended. Sometimes some fairly minor things (my opinion) would shutdown the range until they were resolved.  But safety was always the prime consideration.  Not flight rate or lines at the check-in table.  And if a rocket ever ended up over the crowd then the head RSO (Vince Chichak) would be talking to the pad manger and the flyer to figure out why.  The goal being to determine what went wrong and to prevent it from happening again.

If a major accident or death should ever occur at a launch it could easily shutdown our entire hobby.  I think TRA and NAR launch organizers could probably learn some things by consulting with the CAR on some of their safety procedures.   I have seen many "close calls" over the years at launches in the US.  Without a doubt, this can be a dangerous and hazardous hobby.  There is certainly an element of unpredictability to it.  But let's be smart about the risks and minimize them as much as possible.  I for one would like to keep flying rockets in the years ahead!

Fly safe!