TTRA's "March Madness" 2009 Launch

The Tripoli Tampa Rocketry Association held a two-day "March Madness" launch on March 21 and 22, 2009.

Bracha and I arrived Saturday morning in my parent's new RV ("Rocketry Vehicle").

The weather wasn't bad for flying. The wind was a bit stronger than we would have liked, but the temperature was nice and the skies were mostly clear.

My first flight was my "Upscale Alpha III" (actually a NCR Phantom 4000) on a G64 motor. The rocket carried a small video camera. The video will be posted soon.

After that, I bought a J327 motor from Jim Harris of Gorilla Motors and spent some time getting our Big Daddy Akavish ready to fly.

Using my recently-patented, high-tech camera attachement technique, I attached an old P&S camera to one of the Akavish's legs.

In spite of the wind, the Akavish flew straight up. The parachute deployed right at apogee and Big Daddy floated gently to the ground.

View Video

On Sunday, our daughter, son-in-law, and grandson came to watch the launch.

Riley proudly showed off his new astronaut outfit as he watched the rockets being launched.

Bracha and I flew our Big Daddy Akavish a second time. This time we used a K327 motor. Again. it was a perfect flight. According to the altimeter, the Akavish reached 684 - exactly 300 feet higher than the previous J327 flight.

The TTRA March launch was a great success and we had a terrific time. Addtional photographs from the launch are in the PayloadBay Gallery.

I'm slowly adding videos from the TTRA launch to PayloadBay.com. Please bookmark this page and check back to see what has been added.

Videos:

[Posted: 2009-03-25 | Updated: 2009-03-26]