NEFAR's July 2008 Launch

The sun never really made an appearance, but the sky cleared enough for use to fly rockets.

Jim Harris, of Gorilla Motors, provided the motors for two large rockets including a "sparky" L motor for Robb Haskin's Patriot.

Brian Coyle launched his Thor using a hybrid motor.

The flight up looked good, but the parachute did not deploy. The rocket made a loud "thud" as it hit the ground somewhere in the wooded area near the launch site.

I flew my Tikva on a J motor. "Tikva" means "Hope" as in "I hope this works" (which is what I thought as the rocket was launched). The rocket is about 7 1/2' tall and 4" in diameter. It weighs, without the motor, about 16 pounds. It has clear Lexan fins and carries two small video cameras.

The (not quite) fin-less rocket arced into the wind and only reached 895 feet. The drogue parachute deployed then, just a few seconds later, the main chute appeared.

Unfortunately, the video cameras stopped recording 30 minutes after I started them and the rocket was launched 10 minutes after that. So, I didn't get any onboard video from this flight.

Click the icon below to view a video I made from high-speed (slow-motion) videos of several of the day's launches.

Additional photographs from the July launch are in the gallery at http://www.payloadbay.com/gallery/v/nefar-launches/2008-07-12/.