Flight

The Ve

ntris required a field bigger than B6-4 Field, and by the time I finished the build, flying season was over at the TORC cornfield.  I was thinking that I might have to wait until NARAM to be able to launch it, but then another factor entered into the equation.  I'd dutifully kept a log of all my flights since 1977 over the years, early on in a savings & loan notebook and in later years using the Flight Log feature at EMRR.  As close as I could figure it, I was approaching 1000 flights over my 36 years.  I think I was within 17 when I made the discovery, and I probably should have just kept flying at B6-4 Field and dusted off my Beta clone for the 1000th flight, but I decided that I wanted to do it big.

Boy, did I do it big.

When the final launch at the cornfield was rained out, I started looking around for other fields within a decent drive.  Turned out that ROCI had a flight weekend at AMA Field in Muncie, a 2.5 hour drive for me, but also a field I'd flown at previously and had been very much impressed with.  Weather permitting, I decided that I'd make the drive and make my 1000th flight with the finished Ventris.

Launch day arrived wet, cold and windy.  I had an internal struggle over whether or not to fly, and launch fever won.  Much of the 2.5 hour drive was done in conditions ranging from a nasty mist to a steady drizzle, and I was close to just following my GPS on a photography tour of east central Indiana.  I stopped at a McDonalds for an iced tea and my leg hair froze when I stepped out in my shorts.  Luckily I had brought a pair of jeans, and I found a deserted spot in the shopping plaza next to the McD's and changed, luckily without anyone figuring out what I was doing.

Things at the field started poorly.  REALLY poorly.  The first flight of the day, and #996 in my flight career, was the first flight of my just completed Estes Rascal upscale.  An E9-4 CATO absolutely killed the rocket.  Two flights later an E9-8 CATO killed flight #999, my FSI Dart clone.  Confidence?  We don't need no steenking confidence.  I never wavered.  I was sure flight #1000 would be one for the books.  I loaded the Ventris with an F50-6T, one of the motors listed on the package, bought on the same day as the rocket.  MY BIRTHDAY.  What could go wrong with all this good mojo flowing?  I was so confident of a successful flight that I allowed myself to be photographed with the Ventris.  I HATE having my picture taken.  Yeah, this was going to be big.

Everything looked normal at first.  The Ventris left the pad with authority, and for a moment I was very impressed with the new Estes motors.  The motor stopped burning with the rocket still heading rapidly upward, and I began counting off the delay.  1.  2.  At 2 things happened fast.  The ejection charge fired and everything tried to come to a halt in the air.  Not happening.  The chute filled, allowing the lower section of the rocket to scream past, then attempt a violent turnabout.  The parachute reappeared, looking normal as it drifted with the wind, nose cone and payload section firmly attached.  The lower section did a spinning free fall toward the ground, trailing the shock cord.  I did a quick check of the angles and realized that the unfortunate tumble recovery was going to bring it in dead in the middle of the asphalt that it had launched from.  I might have been able to salvage something if it had hit in the grass, but it wasn't that kind of day.  The lower body landed flat and violently on its side, bouncing about three feet in the air.  One fin took the brunt of the impact, which not only tore the epoxy fillets loose, but also shredded one edge of the fin and left it with small rocks embedded in it.

The good news was that Estes more than made up for the carnage.  I reported the two explosions that happened on new motors, the Rascal and the Ventris.  Estes sent a package of E9-4s and an F50-6T in place of the F50-2T that killed the Ventris, along with a replacement Ventris. 

Finding the interest in getting the Ventris back on the flightline wasn't difficult, but finding a day when I could fly it and not lose it was another thing entirely.  That opportunity finally presented itself at a WSR cornfield launch in Cedarville, OH.  A seventy degree day with light winds is not one to be wasted, so the Ventris made the traveling team for the umpteenth time.  The difference was, this time it would actually fly.  It was flight #3 in a seven flight day on the road to 200 flights on the year.  (The only reason I didn't make the 200th flight with it is because it didn't fare well on flight #1000.)  Flying from the mid-power pads is a fairly new experience for me, and I made sure I got all the detail boxes checked.  The Ventris was loaded on pad next to an NCR Archer, and they'd go back to back in the flight sequence.  Loaded with the F50-6T that Estes had sent to replace the F50-2T several years back, the Ventris left the pad quickly, with a gentle lean to the right in the breeze.  It crossed the creek to the adjacent cornfield and topped out around 1100'.  Ejection came just as it tipped over and it began a gently swinging trip back toward the high power pads.  As it crossed the creek, the Archer took off, and passed close enough to the Ventris that it undoubtedly felt the breeze.  The Ventris carried on toward earth and at the last second swung to the left and touched down.  The nose cone and parachute followed to complete the textbook recovery.  Then the Archer came in and hit the Ventris from the top rope with a piledriver, landing hard right on the body tube.  Neither rocket was damaged in the melee.