00ballunar

Ballunar 2000

Thundering Roar of Model Rockets Echo Through the Canyons of Johnson Space Center:

Model and High power rockets lit up the skies at the 8th annual Ballunar Liftoff Festival held on the grounds of NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston on August 27th and 28, 2000. The Festival features the largest hot air balloon gathering in Texas, and celebrates the link between the most primitave and most advanced forms of aviation and space travel. Along with skydiving contests, ultralights, gyrocopter, powered parachutes, and radio controlled aircraft and helicopters, 96 rockets were flown in four 20 minute windows. The Space center also held an open house to show off much of the work going on behind the scenes there. The Ballunar Festival attracted record crowds, over 100,000 visitors over the weekend .
Overall, there were 28 rocketeers on the launch manifest in addition to about 10 people that helped out in other areas, launching 96 rockets over the weekend. Not bad for 80 minutes of launch window!

Motor count for the weekend by Total Impulse:
D - 5 E - 13 F - 23 G - 21 H - 20
I - 10 J - 4

Some of the notables:

Saturday morning's launch window at 9:50 came up quickly after the balloons flew and had the least number of rockets flown, but still brought most of the festival attendees to the flight line to watch.

Flight #3, an upscale Vulcanite on and I 161 - early ejection (I think) shredding shock chord and falling harmlessly near the pads.
#5   beautiful V2 built for no material cost from on hand materials - equally beautiful flight on G-64
# 6   Mail Box Express, from same manufacturer as above - postal mailing tube on an F39
#8   Thoy Falcon, perfect altimeter flight, drogue at apogee (2400 feet), main at 250 feet        I 154
#9 PML Eclipse also on an I 161, this time a beautiful flight, arcing toward the middle of the recovery field, continued arcing after apogee, now mostly straight down, if the altimeter didn't fire at the top of the flight, what are the chances that it will fire the main chute at 400 feet? None. Nose cone buried 10 inches in hard packed soil, top half or rocket demolished. Amazingly, altimeter still intact after impact estimated at Lots of G's. Tested perfectly well three days later without recharging battery in home-made altitude chamber, reporting 2200 feet pressure altitude by manual sucking method.
#10    Pokemon Rocket by junior rocketeer   E 18
#12   9 year old "Funky Phantom" for it's 80th flight       H180
#16   Aerotech Arreaux flies on woefully short delay G-35, shreds into three pieces, masterful job done by recovery crew.

Saturday afternoon's 3:30 PM launch was larger, and attracted the largest
crowds - several thousand, at least. 26 rockets were flown:

#2    Rebuilt Loc Vulcanite renamed Black Death after last month's nose dive. H128
#3    Beautiful HV Arcas - scale model of the NASA sounding rocket. G40
#4    Funky Phantom    81st flight     H180
#6    Upscale Vulcanite rebuilt after morning's shredding - spectacular! I 161
#10 Betsy Ross special   beautiful US flag theme   H 123
#11 Huge 1/2 scale Patriot missile, major construction by fourth grader, returns in two parts under two huge 'chutes    J460
#16 "Guess the Altitude" contest rocket, G 80, Estes starter kit awarded to guess of 1301 feet, one of over 80 entries.
#22 Revell 1/96 scale Saturn V plastic model converted to fly on H 128. Autographed by Gene Cernan, the last man to walk on the moon. Will the Ballunar Festival help inspire the next person to do so?
#24 LOC V2 modeled after V2 #54, launched at White Sands in January 1951, Spectacular Blow-by engine failure shortly after launch. Returns undamaged close to the pads under seriously burned 'chute. Suspect problem with dual O-ring arrangement in delay sleeve, or loose fit of delay sleeve within the forward closure. New forward closure required.

Grand Finale 8 out of 9 remaining rockets launched in masse as launch
window runs out. Rockets went off in spectacular sequence, each about 1/2
second apart, to the roar of the huge crowd!

Sunday morning: After a spectacular balloon competition was held, 23 rockets flew. As for the balloons, it's really worth it to show up at 7 AM to see. There were two targets for the balloonist to hit with bean bags, and winds were just right as they had to hit the first target, climb quickly to catch a westerly wind above about 150 feet, then swoop down low at the right
moment to drift south onto the second target at nearly ground level. Quite a sight to see this done over and over again by the nearly 100 brightly colored balloons including some of the "special shapes" balloons. The first target was too far away to see, but many of the balloons were right on the second.

Back to the rockets:

#1     13 year old's Silver Comet D12-3
#2      12 year old's Initiator        F 22
#3      1/2 scale Patriot       another perfect flight    J460
#4      15 year old's Loc Graduator        G 80
#5      upscale Vulcanite   3rd flight of the weekend   I 161
#6      Upscale Centrix soon to be upper stage of two stage rocket? Perfect altimeter flight, main deploys at 400 feet. Recovered by off-course parachutist who was in turn recovered by JSC security!
#7       Thoy Falcon again, again perfect altimeter deployment      I 211
#9       Revell Saturn V again - still looking for that next person to walk on the moon <G>
#10      Scratch built 1/3 scale Phoenix - another beauty on long, long burn I 195 , about 1800 feet, WOW
#11- # 15      Continental Airlines pilot and family tries to beat Southwest Pilot in total rocket count - succeeds by a count of 15-11 for the weekend
#17     Another Pokemon rocket - cool!
#18     Scratch built wooden oil rig "Texas Tea" flies on F-24, spouts gusher deploying large black parachute and black streamers at apogee, also flew during saturday's mass launch.
#21    Detailed AAMRAM flies on H 242, found many hours later

By Sunday afternoon, the crowd had thinned out pretty well, but more rockets were flown than in any other window - 31 flights, with a pause for parachute jumpers.

#1   10 year old flies Big Daddy on D12-3
#2    Betsy Ross, again   H123
#3    "Guess the Altitude" contest for Sunday using the upscale Centrix flown earlier, won by La Porte girl guessing 1875 feet, actual was 1327? - (forty other guesses for the day were higher)
#11   Pokemon flies again
#14    Stumpy - I guess it keeps coming back shorter than the last time.
#16   PML Endeavor   J180 Altimeter fails, surely NASA will understand :(
#18   Fourteen year old flies JB Purple Monster on F 24 with Radio Shack Personal Alarm as a Sonic Locator - didn't need it, recovery crew was again right on the spot.
#19   Houston Rocket's Rocket - Modeled from the local NBA teams' logo straight up on a D-12
#20   Arreaux that came apart on saturday morning is flown for fourth time at this Festival
#26 - 28   Family launches salvo of high altitude rockets, recovered in same general area on the far side of the field!

Overall this was a fine and rewarding weekend for all those involved.Clear skies and 100 degree heat were overcome with careful planning and generous support from the Ballunar Festival. Club members were given access to the air-conditioned VIP tent throughout the weekend, where there was plenty of water, soft drinks, and food including breakfast burritos, sandwiches, pizza, hot wings, fruits, salads, etc. I don't know how we did without it before! The club also used family band radios to stay in touch while spread out over the Festival grounds. We were able to set up a large display tent, as well as a large covered area for prepping rockets, which helped keep everyone comfortable.
Oh, yes, we were even entertained, as I mentioned the balloons were awesome, the new Space Shuttle balloon sponsored by the United Space Alliance was especially appropriate. Also, there were sky divers competing in speed star formations throughout the weekend, as well as all sorts of powered parachutes, ultralights, a gyrocopter, and Radio Controlled
airplanes and helicopters. Some of us were even able to sneak away to see some of the Johnson Space Center open house, where many of our club members had there projects on display!

Finally, the whole thing came to an end on Sunday were many club members once again chipped in to pack up all of the equipment, followed by a post launch de-brief over a few (free) cold ones in the VIP tent.

Special thanls for helping in the NHRC Display booth:
Lee Spinner, Ron and Steven Ammons, David Ghere, Casey Smith, A.C. DeBlanc, Mirriah and Suze Benson, Joel Rosenzweig and his wife, Michael, Barbi and Jennifer Martin, Chris and Linda, DeHart, and others.
All together they gave out 88 club applications and spoke to many more about rocketry in general and our club in particular. Yes, it looks like Ron will have his work cut out for him with new memberships!

The Recovery crew was an awesome sight spread out across the launching field, some were so far out there I'm sure they barely could see their own rockets launch! Of the 11 rockets that I launched, all were recovered by other individuals besides myself. Many, Many, Many Thanks go out to Rob Ellis, Jim Jares, David Ghere, Chuck Webb, David Bacque, A.C. Deblanc, Ben and Chris Sumpter, Kerry Wilburn, Mitch Levy, Robert Angel, Bill Schoolmeyer and his son, and many others too far out there for me to see who they were. Thank You, Thank You, Thank You for your selfless support.

Andy Eng, Jon Rhuele, and Linda DeHart helped me most of the day Friday in setting up the pads, club display, and rocket prepping area. Andy, David and Kendall Funk (I think), David Ghere and Michael Martin did most of the launching. David Bacque kept us all in line with his careful oversight as the weekend's RSO. Of course Andy has been a huge help throughout the month with organization and in keeping everything running on time during the festival. Again, thank you to all!

The Festival is dedicated to funding "educational activities that encourage young people to learn about aviation and space", I'm happy to thank these young rocketeers who were able to show what they can do in this field: David Angel, Ben and Chris DeHart, Justin Butler and friends (relatives?), Joe Eng, Mirriah Benson, Chris Sumpter, Alex Scanlon, and Kendall Funk.

Thanks again to all that helped out, photos to come soon. Y'all come back next year, Y'hear?