Big Ears

Big Ears 2006

Some pictures of the event before my camera ran out of memory

Photos of the Gamma at lift off taken by Niall Oswald - thanks a gazillian!

Huge Space plane above (Flown by Ben Jarvis) not very good video, sorry.

My L2 Blog

Saturday morning I woke at 5 and started to get ready for Big Ears 2006, I had a plan....

The weather report said it would rain by 10am so I thought, get there early already prepped and pass my L2 practical while the weather was good. The plan was to fly and recover my PML Gamma on the Skyripper J144 hybrid motor. I set off at 6am after packing the car quietly.

When I arrived at 7am I was first surprised to see huge fields with really thick and tall rape, this worried me no end as I don't use a tracker or beeper. I pulled up to find everyone still sleeping in tents, everyone except Malcolm from Rockets And Things who was up and bouncing around in shorts and a tee-shirt :)

By 11 am things were well underway, with the pads all set up etc and people starting to fly I though it was time to make a go for my L2 attempt. The weather was really kind and the rain had held off and there was next to no wind so off I went with Damian to assemble and prep the rocket. Daman was to be the RSO for my L2 attempt so he was present throughout the event.

With the Rocket on the pad and the final prep work done there was only one thing to do......

The rocket flew beautifully screaming off the pad at a terrific rate of knots and roaring high into the sky, it was a moment I will never forget :) 20 seconds after the launch I herd a pop indicating the G-Wiz LC 400 had done its job at apogee, I still couldn't see it but Damian was already announcing over the radio that the chute had deployed and it was returning safely. Then I spotted it decending under its 36 inch chute it wasn't going to land far away but now the crop thing was starting to sink in as it touched down into the rape field. Luckily someone spotted where it landed and pointed me in the right direction. There it was, I could see the chute lying on the top and was able to recover it with absolutely NO damage. PERFECT.

It flew to 4718feet on a Sky Ripper J144 (660 Ns total impulse) and returned undamaged.

It was the first 38mm 580cc Skyripper hybrid fight in the UK!!!

It was way cool :)

A HUGE thanks to Damian, Mike, the Ears crew and everyone else for a truly unforgettable, safe days rocketry.