OregonRocketry held the Summer Skies launch on June 10-12, 2005 at their launch site near Brothers Oregon.  The site is about 45 miles east of Bend Oregon.   Friday was devoted to experimental motors and then Saturday and Sunday were for commercial motors.   The crowd on Saturday was estimated to be about 80 people, which is a lower turn-out than usual for the June launch.  That was probably due to the very well attended and very successful FITS launch held over Memorial Day weekend in Washington.  None the less, the Summer Skies launch was a ton of fun!

Two of the highlights of this launch were the two flights on N2000 motors made by Rick Clapp and Adrian Carbine.    Rick's beautiful Cherokee-M roared off the pad and went straight up to 13,442 feet reaching a top speed of 681 mph.  That part was awesome!   However, it failed to deploy the drogue chute at apogee so it started coming right back down on a ballistic trajectory.  It was traveling extremely fast when the main chute deployed at the last second just several hundred feet off the ground.  The chute was instantly ripped apart and turned into a streamer while the recovery harness zippered a good length of the forward end of the airframe.  Fortunately there was no other landing damage.  Rick plans to repair it and try again.

Adrian's N2000 flight was in his seven foot long, carbon reinforced, 98mm minimum diameter rocket.  It was an awesome display of raw power as it lifted off the pad and climbed straight up, eventually reach 22,206 feet.  Unfortunately, the main chute was deployed at apogee so it ended up landing 4.7 miles away.  It was successfully recovered using Beeline and Walston radio trackers.   Adrian plans to fly this rocket as the sustainer on a two-stage N2000 to N2000 flight at Black Rock later this year.

This is a view of the flight line on Saturday afternoon.  This image is cropped but a full 360 degree view of the entire launch site can be see at the links below.

View low resolution 360 degree panorama.   (1 MB file)

Starfire was setup for launch on Saturday morning with an AMW M2200 Skidmark motor.  It carried a mini-DV camcorder in the lower payload bay and a 4MP digital still camera in the upper payload bay. 

View Starfire construction details here.

See other Starfire photos here.

Starfire is a scratch built rocket 12.5 feet long and 7.7 inches in diameter.  It weighed 70 lbs on the launch pad with the M2200SK motor on-board.

Starfire uses two MissileWorks RRC² altimeters to deploy a big SkyAngle Cert-3 XXL chute at apogee.

Starfire liftoff on an Animal Motor Works M2200 Skidmark motor at the Summer Skies launch at Brothers Oregon on June 11, 2005.  Starfire reached 4781 feet.

Click here to see a high resolution version of this same photo. (It's a 2.2 MB file.)  Make sure you display the photo "full scale" on your screen.   Many browsers will auto-scale photos to fit your screen.  Take the time to zoom-in on this one.   It's worth it!

Please note:  For some reason the PDF will not usually start the animation if it is activated from inside a web browser.  Therefore, it is recommended that you right click on the link below and then 'Save Target As...'  to download the file onto your system.  Then open it directly and it should start-up properly. The slideshow is 16 consecutive  images of the liftoff.  It will probably run in full screen mode so you may have to use the 'esc' key to return to normal mode. If it does not automatically sequence through the images on your system, then you can still right click on the images and manually advance through them.  This document requires Adobe Reader 6.0 (or later) for the animation feature to work.  If you don't have it, you can download the latest reader free from the Adobe web site.

These next three images are individual frames taken from the on-board camcorder.

This on-board video was captured using a mini-DV camera mounted in the aft payload bay just above the motor.  A mirror allows the camera to see down toward the fins.

Play high resolution (full flight) video   (34 MB mpeg2 file)

Play low  resolution (full flight) video   (8.7 MB wmv file)

Play high resolution (liftoff only) video  (14.4 MB mpeg2 file)

This is the video taken from the ground during that same launch.

Play High Resolution Video   ( 33.3 MB mpeg2 file )

Play Low  Resolution Video   ( 7.8 MB wmv  file )

This view was captured by the digital camera on Starfire while looking north and slightly east from the launch site at Brothers Oregon.  The road into the launch site from the main highway is in the lower left corner.

Wildfire was launched on Sunday morning under ideal conditions.  It was sunny, warm and calm.  The selected motor was an Aerotech L850.  

Wildfire is 9 feet tall, 5.5 inches in diameter and weighed 42 pounds on the pad with the L850 and the six pound video transmitter module on-board.  This was the 17^th flight of Wildfire and it reached 4415 feet.   It was a very nice flight.

View Wildfire construction details here.

See other Wildfire photos here.

A complete set of Wildfire liftoff photos is presented in this animated slideshow PDF document. 

Please note:  For some reason the PDF will not usually start the animation if it is activated from inside a web browser.  Therefore, it is recommended that you right click on the link below and then 'Save Target as...'  to download the file onto your system.  Then open it directly and it should start-up properly. The slideshow is 16 consecutive  images of the liftoff.  It will probably run in full screen mode so you may have to use the 'esc' key to return to normal mode. If it does not automatically sequence through the images on your system, then you can still right click on the images and manually advance through them.  This document requires Adobe Reader 6.0 (or later) for the animation feature to work.  If you don't have it, you can download the latest reader free from the Adobe web site.

Wildfire always carries a 1.2 GHz transmitter that transmits live video and audio back to the ground during flight.  It's always fun to watch the video while the flight is still in progress.  You get to see the rocket from the ground and then the ground from the rocket.

The camera in the transmitter module uses a mirror to look down the side of Wildfire during launch.  The module is then ejected at apogee and descends on its own parachute while still transmitting video. The video image is normally overlaid with GPS information showing altitude, speed and location.  However, the GPS was not working properly during this flight so the information overlay is incomplete.  Despite that, it was a very nice flight overall.

Play high resolution (full flight) video   (29.2 MB mpeg2 file)

Play low  resolution (full flight) video   (7.1 MB wmv file)

Play high resolution (liftoff only) video  (7.5 MB mpeg2 file)

It is interesting to compare this ground video to the on-board video.  The ground video seems to show Wildfire going well past apogee before deploying the parachute.  Yet the on-board video clearly shows Wildfire was still mostly 'pointed up' when deployment occurred.  I've noticed this on some previous flights as well. I conclude that it can sometimes be very difficult and even deceiving  to tell if deployment timing is correct by just watching from the ground. 

Play high res ground based video   (15.9 MB mpeg2 file)

Play low  res ground based video   (2.4 MB wmv  file)

Jane Fossen and Chris Beekman are the land owners at the Brothers Oregon launch site.  They also own and operate ACME Rocketry.  ACME sells motors, kits and many other rocketry supplies.   If you're looking for Cesaroni,  AMW or Aerotech motors, then ACME Rocketry is the place!

Here Chris is ready to fly his PML Cirrus Dart on a Cesaroni three grain  I205 motor.  Chris has his Walston radio tracking antenna at the ready too. The little Cirrus went over 9000 feet high and was successfully recovered.