DocAndersen
Given the title of this particular folder full of pictures, we were supposed to be sharing and enjoying our first rocket launch. We selected a spot (just north of the Boy’s Elementary School Sugar Grove). We carefully measured how far into the farmer’s field we needed to go to not overshoot our target range. We picked a glorious day. I figured I would share that first rocket launch not the images of me in the pond.
But somehow the images and the folders were mislabeled and we got instead of the initial pictures of me and the pond. A sad tale as I said in my previous post mixing overconfidence and an unstable craft on its maiden voyage. I am better with Kayaks now, then I was then, but that was then, and this is now. Our first rocket launch involved a winter project, the boys and I had worked several hours assembling and then decorating our rocket.
I have launched model rockets for years. It started with my love of NASA. It grew into something I did with the children of the classes I had (I was a teacher for seven years of Elementary Aged children in Public School) and finally full circle as my father had done, introducing my sons to the fun of Model Rockets. Our initial launch was on a perfect day. Like the earlier pictures though, my overconfidence resulted in a rocket trajectory that wasn’t what I thought it was. First off, I miscalculated the wind by 250 feet. As in the drift created by the wind when the parachute of the rocket was deployed. We also tilted the launch pad rod a little too far off vertical. We ended up finding our rocket, but more than 300 feet from the projected landing spot. Oh well, what’s 300 feet amongst friends?
