About a month ago I was walking around the park with Adri and I saw someone launch a rocket. This made me think back to when I was a kid and we used to launch model rockets behind my house with my dad.
The next weekend I went to Toys R Us and bought a model rocket kit. Our first attempt didn't go as planned. Toys R Us sells the rockets but no plastic model glue so I had to use super glue and it dried too fast, messing up the whole rocket (the assembly where the engine goes was really easy to mess up). So I returned it for a new rocket and had to go to Hobby Lobby for plastic model glue. Our next attempt went much better. Everything came out perfect this time.
I remembered when I was a kid we had a couple times when the chute didn't open up right. So I was very careful when I put this thing together. I wanted to make sure everything was perfect so we could recover the rocket. About 2 weeks after our first stop at Toys R Us we finally had a rocket ready for launch.
That Sunday as we got out of church we noticed it was pretty windy outside. That afternoon I looked out and thought we would be fine doing a launch. Not the best call I've ever made. The park is in a flood basin so the wind is a lot lower down there then it is 1100+ feet up where the rocket would be going. We did our first launch, watched the rocket go up until we could hardly see it, Adri did her victory dance, and I started running to recover the rocket. The problem is Natalie had the gate key and the rocket went into the apartment complex. When I ran back for the key I lost sight of the rocket. We looked for 45 minutes but it was no where to be found. I'm guessing it probably landed about a mile away.
Adri kept talking about getting her rocket back. She didn't quite understand what happened. She said "Maybe it will come back in the morning". I told her I don't think it works that way. I made up a story that it went to get Mexican food, which she kept repeating, and thenI promised Adri we would get a new rocket. As soon as we got back home I got on Amazon and ordered a new rocket, while Adri fell asleep on my arm. I tried to pull her off to lay her down on the couch and she just grabbed on tighter. A couple days later we got our new model rocket kit. Unfortunately I didn't have a lot of time to get it put together in time for the next weekend. So as I was working on the next rocket I went to target and bought a pre assembled rocket for ten bucks.
This last Sunday, after painting our model rocket green, we decided to go launch our pre assemble rocket. This rocket ended up working out great. We did a total of three launches.
The first launch went up, then turned back down towards the 101 freeway. I thought the chute wasn't going to open and it would land on the freeway. Well a second or two later the chute opened and the rocket came back towards us. You can hear me in the video saying I lost it. I didn't actually lose sight of it, just on the camera I couldn't see it. It ended up landing at the base of the hill by the apartment. It came down in almost perfect shape, just a couple small holes burned into the chute. More wadding for the next launch.
The second launch was into the wind. It came back and landed right next to the runway for the model planes. And now for the third one. After the first two Adri was done. She didn't want to hear the noise and she wanted to go home. However, I was ready to launch and nothing was going to stop me, except a bad primer. After changing the primer I launched the rocket. This time instead of using a C engine we used a B. It came down really close to the launch site and I was able to catch it before it hit the ground. This made Adri all excited and after seeing me catch it she wanted to do another launch.
This was our first launch, the rocket we lost.
After losing our rocket. This is when I was ordering a new one. Adri was out in less than two minutes.
Our new green rocket. Painted and waiting for the next phase.
Our pre assembled rocket from this last Sunday.
Launch #1. Check out Adri's victory dance.
Launch #2
Launch #3. This is the one I caught coming down.
In another week we'll be trying out our little green one. It doesn't have a parachute, just a streamer. We'll see how this works out.
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