Rock Lake XVII - 26 June 2015

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Traveling east of Lethbridge on Hiway 61... a familiar landmark... Ferruginous hawk... Rock Lake, Ab... a three-day event held in <br />June every summer... that attracts flyers from across <br />Western Canada... the launch control area... Kevin, with one of several rockets <br />he brought to the launch... weighing in, necessary for <br />thrust-to-weight ratio calculations... Dale weighing in his rocket, a 5:1 thrust-to-weight <br />ratio is considered a safe margin... heading out to the launch area... setting up a launch rail... Kevin's rocket... nice straight flight... under perfect weather conditions... chute deployed... descending... descending... keeping a watchful eye... nice canopy... and landing on target... Dale's rocket... beautiful liftoff... nice ascent... Rock Lake XVII... Rock Lake XVII... Rock Lake XVII... the rocket drifted a bit far <br />downrange however... but Dale came prepared... Roberts rocket... Paul checking in his <br />Saturn V model... with a five-motor cluster. It had a spectacular flight, <br />since not all the motors ignited.... our workarea, in the shade... since this airframe hadn't flown before, it was necessary to perform a ground <br />test to ensure the main chute would deploy successfully. This shows <br />the upper end of the avionics bay with terminal <br />block and deployment charge.... for this test, the wood block keeps the coupler bulkhead tight to prevent gases<br />getting into the av-bay, while allowing access to the ignition wires... two nylon shear pins are installed <br />in the nose cone... the shear pins prevent premature separation of the <br />upper section when the drogue is deployed... ready for ground test... clean separation... the main also deployed nicely,<br />so we're good to fly tomorrow... prairie Thistle... sunset... sunset... until tomorrow.