The Wright Rocket Site

FITS 2006 - Mansfield, Washington

FITS 2006 was it's usual great weekend of launching in central Washington state.  Even with the rain, wind, hail, traffic, forgotten items, electronics failures, etc. it was just the best.  One of the biggest events in the Pacific Northwest for rocketry the event was attended by a good sized crowd.   For the details of each launch and the fun involved click HERE for my launch report for pictures keep looking below.

For me this was a weekend of personal firsts in a lot of ways.

Much thanks to Andy, Kent, Jim Wilkerson, and Scott Bowers for helping carry out (and back) and setup the big projects. Thanks to Kent for carefully RSO'ing the two big birds. Thanks to Roy for motor mentoring, charge holders and an igniter. Thanks to Dave Randall and family for helping setup camp before the rains Friday night. Thanks to Michael Dennis for some great photos of the flights (yes I will post them soon). And thanks to many more for all the little things. And a special thanks to Jim Pommert for being launch director for the event and as far as I can tell never sleeping for 3 days. :)    

Below I've attempted to chronicle the weekend and have included some detail sequences of some of my launches on some additional pages.  Red did all the photography and of course since she took them all there's no images of her keeping everything running, everyone fed, everything clean, etc. Thanks Red!  (no video yet as I'm having trouble editing - stay tuned)

Packing up to hit the road.....setting up camp in the rain....and the inconvenient weather of the first day. 

The new rocket-wagon :) and base camp for the weekend.

Prepping Corinne's (Core) rockets, she did three flights with two rockets with no help from me!

First flight was the Small Endeavor as usual. No worries, no problems, no photos. Next was the Wildman which for some reason we only have a recovery photo of.

Next, setting up the big stuff!     The Beast......the Ultimate Endeavor.....and the Tomahawk

Prepping the Tomahawk and my first 98mm motor the CTI L610 (thanks for the help Roy!) This would also be my first use of a deployment bag and pilot chute.  I learned that attaching the pilot chute and bag to something in the rocket would have really helped bring it all down together :)

Getting it inspected (thanks Kent!) and out to the pad......

Checkout the Tomahawk launch sequence look HERE! This would be the second attempt given the "fun" of the previous evening of dismantling live charges on the pad.  See the commentary HERE.

The Beast on a CTI K570 ready to go.  See the launch sequence HERE! And of course I need to checkout how it did right away but couldn't figure it out because of a very confused altimeter.

Then my special winter project, the most "expensive" project believe it or not.  It's called The Ex and went up on a CTI I350SS.  Unfortunately it came back close by and was found again..... :)

Next up was my next really big project, a 4 motor cluster with a central CTI K660 and three CTI J400SS.  This was my first for such a project and I was really kind of nervous.

First getting it all together.  Four big motors all firing at once! But there was a sign it was going to be good - see the motor number :). 

This is a good way to end your rocket career as well as your family career - note the moron (your's truly) using his midsection to shove the AV bay into the airframe with a 6 gram BP charge facing him!!  Really, really dumb!!

For the launch sequence click HERE!

Lastly was the Maker's Mark rocket.  Special design to honor a great whiskey.  It was powered by a cluster of 3 CTI I285 motors.

A great launch weekend with some interesting weather.  I can't wait till next year!