How I became a Born Again Rocketeer

Back at the beginning of May Lori and I were trying to come up with something fun to do for my 30th birthday. While at Hobby Lobby we saw some model rockets and I commented on how I used to launch them. She suggested that maybe we build/launch some for my birthday.

So I sent out the information to everyone. We setup a few build dates before the "launch day" and got to work. When it was time to launch we had 20-30 people including friends and neighbors. We had 5 separate launch pads setup and must have burned through 40+ engines over the afternoon despite the high winds.

We had a lot of first time build/launchers and I think everyone had a lot of fun. To cap the day off I launched an Estes36 D Squared carrying a PerfectFlite altimeter. Due to the wind it only hit about 875' but then it drifted for over a half-mile. I retrieved it the next morning in the middle of a neighborhood thanks to some kind person who found it and set it out. The rocket was damaged but it is now being re-purposed to act as a booster "Useful Idiot" for my lander "Triad".

If you'd like to see all the pictures from my "Birthday Blast" check out the flickr group.

Here's a sample of the mess of rockets we built:



PS Kudos to whoever picks up on the new rocket naming theme, more to come.