BALLS 2006

[Ray]

It was an amazing trip. 30 hours of drive time over 4 days with 3 good friends.

I had several motors prepared for this event. A 6 grain 75mm "M" class motor 2-5 grain 75mm "M" class motors a 2 grain 75mm "L" motor and a 7 grain 54mm "L" motor. All of them burned flawlessly.

I started flying with a commercial 2 grain 75mm L-700 motor from Animal Motor Works. In the 4 inch fiberglass rocket I flew it in, it acheived 6992 ft.

One of my friends flew the 6 grain and the 5 grain in a two stage rocket. The 6 grain motor lifted the stack nicely and the 5 grain motor lit too early (he set the staging timer for too short of a time) but burned great! The booster came in ballistic, it didn't like being crushed between two burning "M" motors. The sustainer suffered from fin flutter at about 1700 fps and tore apart. Some of his electronic survived.

Then I flew a 5 grain 75mm motor in my 4" rocket to around 14,600 ft.

Finally my friend put the 54mm motor in a rocket with too small fins. It became unstable and failed at the coupler.

In spite of the crashes my buddy had, the motors worked as I thought they would. It was an amazing event.

The 2 grain 75mm motor didn't get flown, the wind at the event prevented us getting in all the flights we wanted too.

The black rock desert in Nevada is about the best place on earth to launch rockets.

The largest motors at the event were 3 "Q" class motors...they were amazing. One CATO'd and the other two flew great. One made it to 93000 ft AGL.

Mulitple "O" motors, a bunch of "P" motors and a ton of "M" and "N" motors rounded out the event.

If you are into making your own motors THIS is the place to be in September.

[Greg O'Bryant]

14,600 ft Not bad at all! Sounds like it was pretty fun. I didn't even know about the event until it was too late to go. It really isn't that far from my neck of the woods. Hopefully I will make it next year.