The Wright Rocket Site

BALLS 14 - 2005 - Black Rock Desert, Nevada

This year was our first trip to BALLS and what an adventure!  We made the drive from Seattle down to Gerlach, NV in just over 13hrs.  (route) Note Bruno's stops serving food at 8pm - we got in at 745pm.  :)  Exactly how much can you cram in an Expedition with five people in it?

The drive down was beautiful!

There were some amazing launches including one that I got to be more directly involved in as a helper.  That was Team Numb's P Project.

But Friday was tough with winds all day at 20-25 mph.  Try setting up a tent in that!

Well if you can't launch rockets you can fly kites!

It then turned into a sandstorm for 3 hours and we gave up when the storm turned into 40-50 mph winds and rain with the sand.  Back to Bruno's we ran with what we could carry as the tent was destroyed.  To get a better idea of the viciousness of this storm checkout Robert Pollor's video.

As this was an experimental launch and I'm not a motor builder I didn't have much to launch however on Saturday Fred Azinger gave me a K-1113 motor he had built and I got to put my Hawk Mountain Beast up for the first time! Here's the video with images below.

Putting it together and heading out to the range.

Setup, igniter and recovery.

Successful return and downloading flight data from the computer.

We did the return trip Sunday afternoon and evening getting in at 330am Monday morning.  Stopping in Eagleville, CA on the way back makes for a nice break too.

Can't wait till next year!!!!