Article: 2084
By Robert Krausert & Keith Packard, March 2010

Wilsonville Memorial Park Launch Event March 13th, 2010

Arrived at the park at 10:45am and parked over in the Southeast parking area. Stefan Jones drove by and took his dog for a walk. Listened to NPR until I noticed clear over on the West end of the park, Mike was setting up the pads. Drove over and helped with setup. Great location this time, as wind direction used the balance of the field to the East.

Between 12:00pm and 2:00pm, I did the vast majority of LCO duties. Thank you Tim Ryerse for giving a couple breaks. I was amazed at how many people were there to fly rockets. We loaded all 5 rods consistently rack after rack. It was a lot of fun. Many kids were very interested in pushing the button today. I hope they all got a chance to push the “go” button.

What an amazing group of people today. Tim’s count at one point was we had 68 people at the events. Guessing half were kids. Handed out tickets to all the kids for a drawing. We had about a dozen rocket kits. All kids found a home through a drawing. Congratulations to the winners. Runner ups got to get a cupcake that Mary Anne Ryerse made for the event.

Hope Keith sends out the official report with the flight tally. What a great day. Had a fun time.

Cheers,
Robert

Thanks to the great efforts of Mike Ward and Robert Krausert for getting the launch going this month! I couldn’t be there at the start, so Mike drove my minivan down to the park full of GSE and Robert showed up early to help set things up.

What a great day though! It was a bit cloudy, but there wasn’t any rain and it seemed like we had a few sun breaks. We had a huge crowd this month, Tim Ryerse said he had counted 60+ people at one point. Rack after rack of rockets made us start to wonder if 6 rods was enough anymore. If this keeps up, I’ll need to invest in a larger launch controller and some more PVC piping and drill chucks!

We usually set up in the middle of the ball fields, but this month the city asked us to move to the western edge of the park. The last time we were over there, the winds were out of the east, and we had quite a number of rockets in the trees. This month, the winds were from the west, driving rockets down the long axis of the park. Even still, a few rockets made it all the way to the other side of the park.

And, the usual stats:

• Launches: 88
• Successful flights: 83
• Flyers: 42
• Rockets: 66
• Most Flights: 8 Abraham K
• Biggest Motor: F20 Steve Tarr

Abraham came with two quarks and just kept loading motors and flying. I’m amazed that he was able to find them after each flight. And, of course, Steve was flying saucers with the biggest motors he could safely use.

Thanks to Mary Anne Ryerse who sent along green-frosted cupcakes for St. Patrick’s day; she bakes a mean cupcake. And, thanks again to Mike and Robert for setting up, and then to the huge crew who stayed to help pick things up afterwards.

We’re back next month, but with the warmer weather, we’re moving to Sunday April 11th from 2pm until 5pm. Come out and fly with us!

-keith