LUNAR Launch Photos and Video

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LUNAR Launches 2005c

This photo gallery contains pictures and video submitted by LUNAR members. The pictures were taken at different launches. We have identified the launch where possible, however, by the time the pictures get to this website, the photographers are often a little hazy as to exactly which launch they took the pictures. I can usually figure out the year the picture was taken so that seems to be the safest organization for this list. Clicking on a picture will display the full size one.

April 2005 - Snow Ranch

Every seven to ten years there is just the right amount of rain and sunshine. On those special years the hills at Snow Ranch are covered with wildflowers. This was one of those years. You couldn't walk anywhere without stepping on flowers. There were fields of yellow, orange and purple, and, oh yes, some really cool rockets too.



Now, this fence may look really picturesque but is a snake heaven and not a good thing to get close to on a warm spring day.	Here we have one of the Orviss getting her picture taken by the spillway of the lake.

The Marino and Cooper kids got to know some of the critters. While these horn toads look like monsters they are really very gentile. The kids put them back before going home.

In addition to being a beautiful day, it was an incredible day of rocket flying. Jack Hagerty summed it up with his post to the club's general mailing list.

There's been quite a bit of chatter on the "lunar.general" list over yesterday's launch, and well there should be. It was the biggest confluence of events that I've ever seen in my 13 years with the club (which means all 13 years of the club :-)

...here is a list of all the "special" things that went on:

TARC flights.

This was the last chance for teams to fly with full LUNAR support at a regular launch before the deadline of April 11. We had five teams from three different schools participating who made a total of 19 flights. Seven of those were official qualification flights, and I'm pleased to report that all of them produced a qualification, a couple of which are almost guaranteed to make the finals with scores of 1 or 2 (zero is perfect).

Student Launch Initiative (SLI)

There were also two SLI teams out there doing R&D flights. This is a much more intense contest than TARC in that the teams have to do some actual science data gathering. They have to write a proposal on what they are going to do, and the ones selected are funded by NASA to carry out the experiment. The two teams made three HP flights ("J" motors) as part of their development process.

Advanced Scouts

Rob Briody brought out a Boy Scout troop who are doing advanced rocketry. They built two carbon-fiber "J" powered models which they planned to fly twice each. I only counted two flight cards for them (one for each), so I'm not sure if they got all their planned flights in.

Certification

Seems we were awash in cert flights! We had five L1 cert flights (one of those a Jr. HPR cert), and one L2 cert.


George Wagner got a nice shot showing the flower covered hills and the great crowd we had today. And, unlike March, no stuck cars.


George also got to fly his Galaxy which flew very nicely. George has more pictures at http://www.wagnerg.com/hobbies/SnowRanchApril05/


George caught me prepping my Lawn Dart, which I proceeded to fly to 2000 feet on a D12-0 and an E9-7.



I caught this blue rocket on the way up and back down again.

Next, I caught a red and white one. Note that the color you see on the hillside is not dry grass but flowers.


This one is yellow on the ends and black in the middle with some horizontal white stripes.




Here come the Pinata rockets. They were extremely cool this year. For Easter, Tony (Pinata Man) Cooper filled dozens of plastic eggs with candy and then put little parachutes on each. We were all treated to a rain of parachuting eggs which were shared with everyone. Tony has a video of the launch at: http://uscoopers.org/Pinata.wmv

David Flournoy got some great shots of the high-powered flights.

David got a new lens and is having far too much fun with it.

April 16, 2005 - Robertson Park Night Launch

Twice a year we get a waver to fly after dark and everyone puts lights on their rockets. Many are quite amazing.



In the afternoon, a lot of special groups (scouts, etc.) came by to fly with the club. Because of enroaching housing, we have had to move our launches from the soccer field to the far side of the parking lot.


As things got dark, the night festivities began.

I (Bill Orvis) finally got to launch my new night rocket. This one has lots of lights, which was lucky because that made it easy to find in the bushes. You could see the colored lights shining in the branches above it. While it was easy to find on the bank of the creek, it was on the other side; not more than 10 feet away across fast moving, 8 inch deep water. I really had not planned to go wading this evening and almost got a bath.


Aaron also got a few pictures at the night launch. That looks like Jack helping out.

And, a couple more by Aaron. These must be his rockets.

All images on this page by William Orvis unless otherwise labeled.

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David got a new lens and is having far too much fun with it.