MB Rocketry Research - Media - BALLS 2004

Balls 2004 had many "BIG" projects this year. There where several big rockets projects the three biggest being Wedge Oldham's 107% scale Black Brant II, The Community's Space Projects full scale Honest John and Jeff Jakob's R10,000 hybrid project. Several other projects were on display and flew which made for some great rocket flights. Ken flew his first ANCP "M" motor in his Colossus rocket.  I even flew Johnny Bravo at Balls on my Lemon Line Ex motor that was about a K480. Don was not able to get his camera project off the ground due to timing and some major weather issues (wind and blowing dirt) this year.

The drive out was a little hard this year. We decided to save money and gas by taking Ken Expedition pulling a trailer rather than taking my RV. This worked out ok, it is just a long drive straight through. We got to the playa around 10:30am on Thursday morning and a lot of the burning man clean up was still in process. The launch site was about 7 miles north of where burning man was so we didn't have to deal with them at all. Right as we pulled onto the playa, we decided to relieve ourselves and I noticed the sound of air leaking. After a quick check it was official. The right rear tire had a screw in it. Now back to Bruno's to the only gas station in town to repair the tire. After a half an hour and $25.00 (just to patch tire) later we were back on the road towards the playa. We meet up with Jeff Jakob at the gas station and he followed us out to the site. Following the GPS coordinates we drove straight to the site.  There where only a couple of people there so we all started to setup the flight line. We got our camp up, but now the time was about 11:30 and the winds started to pick up. Have you ever tried to put up a tent in 25 to 40 mph wind? After several tries and some help, we all got our tents up and got the compound the way we wanted it.

As the day continued Jeff Jakob's truck was having some trouble. The belt was making all kinds of noise and the engine was not running very good. After taking the belt off, we discovered that the air pump (smog) had seized up. Great stuck out here with no air pump. Ken and I said we could take Jeff into town to get a pump ordered so he could use his truck and be able to get home. He also wanted to check as see if his nitrous bottles had arrived.  On our way into town we see another truck with the hood up having trouble in the middle of the playa. Low and behold, it was Wedge Oldham. His rental truck transmission was having trouble. We checked the fluid level and it was way low. So now we also had to pick up some auto transmission fluid while we where in town as well for Wedge. We get into town and stopped off to talk Bill at the Shell station. Jeff's nitrous bottle's where there. Bill happened to have an air pump that was for an international, but it was real close to the one Jeff needed so we took it. On the way back we dropped off the transmission fluid and made sure Wedge got going to the site ok. We got back to the site and started fixing Jeff's truck. After some small modifications we made the air pump work and Jeff had a truck that was working again.

Ken prepped his rocket for a commercial flight on Friday morning. Morning was the best time to fly as every day except Sunday the wind picked up around 11:00 am till about 5:00 pm. Sunday was windy all day long. So the morning hours were the time to fly. Ken's flight on Friday was great, even when the main chute barley made it out just in time to land (real crowd pleaser) due to some bad switch settings on the altimeter. For the rest of the day on Friday Ken, Don and I spent the day prepping rockets to fly on Saturday morning. I loaded up Johnny Bravo with my Lemon lime formula motor, Ken got Colossus ready with his ANCP "M" motor and Don got Copper Top with project X (video camera) ready to go. Ken's M motor was awesome and Johnny flew well. Johnny had a little trouble with the drogue ejection charge, and was coming down in a flat spin but it was slow fall and the main had no trouble coming out and the rocket landed without a problem. Don didn't have his rocket ready in time before the winds came up so he decided to wait until Sunday to launch his rocket.

Several rockets flew the rest of the day including Wedge's BBII and the Honest John project. Wedge's rocket had an interesting flight. As the rocket was going up and gaining speed, fin flutter started to happen. The rocket was about to go mach and two of the back ends of the fins blew apart and then the rocket continued on its flight. He has a zipper and couple of other problems, but he recovered most of the rocket. It was a really cool flight. The Honest John project did not have as much luck. About 1-2 seconds into the flight, one of the motor cases had a burn though in the side and two other cases sheared in half and burning grains went flying through the air and the rocket just broke up. Too bad as it was a huge project that took a lot of time and looked really cool.

Ken and I prepped rockets to fly on Sunday was well. Ken got SATV1 and SATV3 ready and I had Johnny ready to fly on a Grover Purple motor. Well Sunday came and the weather was not good at all. The sky was mostly overcast and the wind start up at sunrise and got worse as the day went on. Sometimes the wind and dust were sssooooo bad that we couldn't even see the 500 foot launch pads from our trailer. Several people still choose to fly their rockets and many had troubles so there where some rockets lost.  The worst was Jeff decided to fly his hybrid because the $1000 he spent on nitrous was non-refundable. He got every thing setup. At around 10:00am when they opened up the high altitude waiver Jeff started to fill and then the countdown. After they pushed the button nothing happened for about 20 seconds, then the rocket just blew up on the stand. I was real sorry to see that. I feel bad for Jeff. As bad as the weather was we decided to start heading home. So ends Ball 2004 year of the wind.

Pictures from the launch:

Balls 2004 Pictures

Here are the videos from the day.

Here some videos I took at Balls 04 using Ken's video camera. There are 27 videos of various rockets some of which I'm not sure who's rocket there are, so if you see an video with your rocket let me know and I will change the description. You can run these from the web site or you can download them (recommended) and watch them when you want. Notice: My upload speed is capped at 256 kbps so it takes a little time. Please be patient.

Fridays Videos

 

 

Saturdays Videos

 

Sundays Videos

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