Rocketman

I *finally* did it! I finally got to shoot off a rocket! Mikey got me a basic Estes Rocket set for my birthday because I had mentioned I had *always* wanted to build and shoot one, and I had never been allowed as a kid (it was a "boy" activity - no girls allowed). We had to wait 4 months until we had Shootin' Weather :-D What can I say? It was AWESOME! I was definitely not let down... If we had more engines/fuses/etc... we would have shot off more! No videos, we got too excited to take the pathetic little 30 second soundless videos our camera takes... The first rocket (the big, more "snap-together" one) went off without a hitch, not exactly straight, but fairly straight up and the parachute deployed perfectly. It even landed on the edge of the parking lot: I was impressed... Now for the little rocket we named "Doogal" (Google the BBCs "Father Ted"): It was soooo cool! It went straight up 1400 feet (or whatever) until it disappeared - really really straight. There was a puff of white smoke, and it came straight back down like a bullet... Parachute Deployment Failure! It "landed" maybe 20 feet from the launch pad, driving the nose about 2 inches into the hard packed parking lot. The problem? Too much wadding! All in all, I'd DEFINITELY do this again. It was so cool!