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On Saturday, January 17, members from all four teams traveled to the Great Meadow VA launch site for test flights. The day was clear, cold, with some wind gusts around 10mph. We used the NOVAAR launch rails. We conducted 7 flights. It was a rather disappointing day. The flights were not as consistent as the previous launches, and we left one rocket in a tree. We are going to need more testing before we qualify. Four weeks later we received a phone call from a team mentor in Virginia. They found the altimeter from the rocket in the tree on February 14 at Great Meadow. They only found the back of the altimeter holder with the altimeter attached. They mailed it back to us. We don't know what happened to the cargo body, nose cone, and egg. They got our number because we wrote it on the altimeter holder. Objectives Test flights of all our team rockets. Team 15406 will try a larger parachute. Team 15265 will try their new rocket - unpainted. Lessons

• Team 15265 needs to figure out why their rocket flies so inconsistently. Their descent was fine.
• Team 15266 had two flights, both had sputter ignition - perhaps the igniter was not in tight or the ignition pressure was light. The second flight had some wind cocking and could have used an launch rail angle.
• Team 15267 tried an E30, but it flew too high. It also got tangled during recovery. They went back to an E20, but with the wind and a launch rail angle to avoid the trees, the flight was too low.
• Team 15406 had one flight and it landed in a tree. We tried to recover it with a bow and arrow, but the wind and faulty fishing reel failed to recover. We did recover the booster and streamer.
• The return of our altimeter shows we must write our name and phone number on every part of our rockets.

Launches

Altimeter Data (Excel format)

Pictures

  Team 15266                                                                              Team 15267
      

  Team 15406                                                                                Loading