Jump to content

Just caught the moment


joe_hodge

Recommended Posts

@tomspielman @glen_h

 

Staging and recovery were both successful, although recovery DID involve a slightly hairy tree climb while wearing jeans/long sleeves/gloves for protection from poison ivy. :)

 

About 10 years ago, my son had just finished building one of his rockets and wanted to launch it. We walked down to the local baseball fields where we had launched rockets before but some kids had the nerve to be actually playing baseball there so it was a no go. My son was determined though and not far from us is a small clearing with a smattering of trees.

 

I warned him that it there was a good chance a tree might snag his rocket on the way down but he really wanted to launch it so we did. And of course the chute just barely caught the last tree branch it had to clear to make it down. It was about 40 feet up. We spent about 2 hours trying to throw stuff at it to knock it loose. Dejected we went home but I was sure that a strong wind would be all it took for it to come down.

 

So for the next couple of weeks I'd make extra trips by there to see if it was still in the tree. And one night it wasn't. I found it in the grass and it was it pretty good shape. The shock cord had broke so the nose cone and chute were still in the tree. A new nose cone and chute were purchased but he decided the rocket was cursed and never launched that one one again. :)

 

One of the best places around us to launch rockets is a frozen lake. No trees.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...