We had relatively good results.  The biggest problem was the crash of team 8189's green rocket.  We did recover most of the rocket and parts.  The best results was the qualification score of 17.35 for team 8186 and their black/white rocket.  Teams 8188 and 8296 need to work on delaying descent a little more.  We are now ready to do more qualification launches in March.

Thanks to all the parents and NAR members.  It has been difficult getting this done in February.

Objectives

• Each team was launching one test flight and then one qualification flight.
• All the streamers had been ironed with starch.
• We tried to use a tube to sight the camera on the descending rockets.
• Teams 8186, 8188, and 8189 assembled their F24-4W motors on Wednesday, February 24.

Lessons

• We had two launches that lasted beyond 40 seconds, perhaps due to thermals rising from the field.
• Team 8189's failed ejection charge needs to be examined.
  (We looked at the motor on Wednesday, March 3 and discovered there was very little black powder in the red ejection cap.  It either fell out when being assembled, or there was very little in it from the manufacturer.  In either case, we need to check the remaining assembled F24 and any future ones when we assemble them.)
• Team 8188 had the best descent rate around 46 seconds, but we are not sure why - perhaps a rising thermal..
• We angled the rails about 5 degrees with the wind to reduce cocking into the wind.
• For the ill-fated green rocket we straightened up the rail so there would be more wind cocking.  We tried to reduce the height because we thought the rocket might be too light (413g).  It only went 799 feet, so maybe we didn't need to.
• We did better with the igniters - no failed igniters.
• We believe the booster recoveries were all acceptable.
• Zooming in with the camera on the descending rockets is still a problem.  We don't have good video of the deployments.