Happy New Year!

Believe it or not, MARS has already held the first launch of the year, this is my first launch report as your new President.

MARS hosted the annual New Years Day launch this year (in past years held at the Colby Farm) at our regular flying field in Geneseo.  We got a bit of a surprise the day before in the form of 8-10 inches of snow... well, who didn't get that snow?  The launch must go on........

The bitter cold temperatures were tempered by crystal clear sunny skies and dead calm winds.  We put up a rack of LPR and one HPR pad- would you believe there was a line waiting for the HPR rack at times?  Two tents with side walls enclosed the launch control table, two propane heaters, and a mountain of food and drink.  We flew from under the power lines at the edge of the field.  Parking was in a long row on the side of Big Tree Lane.

Remember all that snow?  It made rocket recovery super easy, thanks to Doug and Douglas Vileria and their snowmobile.  All you had to do was prep your rocket, rack it, watch it fly, and sit back and enjoy watching 60 MPH rocket recovery!  I must confess to doing it the old fashioned way on a pair of snowshoes, but only because I flew my rocket before the Vilerias arrived.

 
Some highlights:

John Shusdock qualified for two banquet awards with one flight-  first HPR flight of the year, and first lawn dart of the year. 

Quantum tubing shrinks when it's cold!  His LOC Norad survived its first flight and flew again later in the day with a more ideal recovery.

David Reidel and Tom Koszuta flew mostly white rockets in the snow....... and got them back.  Tom's Phoenix is nice on F39 motors and he's got the delay drilling down to a science.

Russ Hughes showed up ready to go- he burned an H165, H180, G71, G40, and a spectacular I284 to over 4500ft.  Russ, please get some paint that isn't orange- I can't tell your rockets apart! 

John Osborn flew a cluster of 2 E9 motors in his Estes 36DD, I mean D-squared rocket.  His OatMobile (a ring wing boost glider) made a flight and John brought delicious Oatmeal cookies to match.  I guess you have to do something with all that oatmeal before you can use the box.

Ken Allen made the drive up from down south and sold kits and components and motors and while he wasn't making sales he was hovering over the heaters in the tent.

John Derimiggio flew a Loki I405 as a test flight for his latest altimeter project.  The new altimeter sports 4 programmable outputs, an LCD screen, and both barometric and accelerometric sensors.

The Clune Family arrived with a van stuffed with 5 Clunes, tons of rockets, food....... and left with all that and a 7.5" nosecone.  Look out for big rockets in the spring.  Sadly their Estes Cluster Bomb remained behind on the powerlines.

  Chris and Krista Prinzi were on site with cameras in hand.  A few of their over 400 photos are on the MARS website in the gallery we don't have going just yet. 

Thank you to all who came out and made this New Years launch a great time.

 It was good to see everyone again and laugh and fly rockets!

Nat Kinsey
MARS President

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