ESTESLAND, Colorado USA — Monday, the first contest day, dawned clear and calm, and the air was soon filled with B streamer duration and 1/4A parachute duration models. As a first time competition attendee, I was awed by the amount of organization and sheer effort that goes into these things. If you've been to major rocketry meets, skip on ahead, but for the rest of you, here's a set of impressions.

The contest range. Click to enlarge.

The competition range was about 100 yards from the sport range (which remains open, all day, every day, with 20 pads available). The competition range has 18 pads arranged in a huge circle, with at least 20 feet between every pad and a bit more than that to the safety line around the outside of the circle.

At one side of the circle is a large official's tent where competitors go to check in and get their pad assignments, and eventually to return their models in those competitions that require a check after the flight. The LCO faces the circle, and the RSO stands in the center with a safety spotter. Timers stand next to the official's tent. Each competitor's flight card is attached to a clipboard with the pad number on it, which is placed on a queuing table once the competitor enters the range.

Small and Dangerous Rocket Ships? [Note: the fire was actually caused by a crashed helicopter rocket, whose owner will remain (temporarily?) anonymous]. Click to enlarge.

The competitor sets up his or her model, and when ready, holds up a paddle with the pad number on it and retreats to the safety line. When the officials see the paddle, the clipboard is placed in a rack (first come, first served) where the RSO can see it. The RSO then calls for timers (for duration events) or trackers (for altitude events), and when they signal they're ready, the RSO gives the countdown and the LCO launches the rocket. At any given time, some people are waiting to see their rocket launched, some are setting up their rocket, and others are watching their rockets in flight.

There are two teams of two trackers and six teams of two timers, so it is possible for many models to be in the air at once. Organization makes it work. Each range duty shift is staffed by more than 30 people, each playing a small role in a big system. [Imagine if your club had 30 people volunteering for range duty simultaneously! ) There are four such teams of 30, doing two and a half hour tours of duty each day. I was a timer, and watched lots of 1/4A parachute models achieve 60 second max flights (several soared out of sight), and lots of B streamer models take minutes to come down.

Tuts Tomb -- Another variation on a popular theme, this on an E28. Click to enlarge.

Tuesday dawned clear but with a fresh breeze from the West. This died for a while around 11:00 AM, and then turned around and became strong from the East. Despite the breeze, 1/2A helicopters and 4xA Cluster models were out in force, and there was quite a bit of carnage, especially in the cluster event.

A preview of some of the fine scale models entered in this year's contest. Click to enlarge.

Very few contestants are content to put four Estes minimotors into a nice, safe, stable, Big Bertha, because they believe that someone is likely to have two successful flights with sleek, light, 10.5mm models using long-burning Apogee micro motors. So everyone builds sleek models, and a lot of them end up disqualifying (especially for shredding, not deploying, becoming unstable, and separating).

But successful flights in these events are an awesome thing to watch. Ever see a rocket with a B motor in it go to 2000' and then take more than four minutes to come down -- on a streamer? Ever see a 24" parachute successfully deployed from a 10.5mm body tube? Ever see a 1/2A helicopter model climb out of sight? In the last three days, I've seen all of these!

The sport range was again active all day, and again the variety of flying projectiles continued to amaze. There were a few, er, interesting flights (including a pinwheeling LOC Lil Nuke belonging to yours truly that was later traced to a crooked nozzle on an F25. I put an F50 into it and made it fly again right away. You do NOT want your rockets to get away with such bad habits...

Despite the extremely dry conditions and the huge number of flights put up, the biggest incident all day was a 15 square foot grass fire, which was out before the brush truck could get there.

Stay tuned for information about Mark Bundick's town meeting, A Boost Glider, and D Superoc flights.