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Here are a couple of my hobbies. |
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High-Powered Rocketry
One day while I was working for the engineering department of a local city, I noticed one of the engineers working on a small cardboard rocket. Intrigued, I asked my husband if he'd ever heard of this hobby. Turns out he used to do it as a kid, so he bought me a rocket and we flew it in a local field. I was hooked!
I then went to a local club launch and learned that rockets don't stop at the small local-field stuff. You can get rockets that are much bigger and more powerful.
I built a Binder Excel Plus as my first high-powered rocket. I call it the Starry Night, and I still have it. I was able to do my Level 1 and Level 2 certification flight on it. I've flown it at least 40 times.
Here is a picture of it on the launch rod at the LDRS on the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah.
Here is the flight. I LOVE Black Jack Motors. They are loud and smokey!!! That's a good thing!
Another thing I did at that LDRS was attend the motor casting class. I really learned a lot and the class attendees were very nice folks. I am proudly holding up my self-cast propellant grains in this picture.Unfortunately, the motor I made wasn't certified, but we did do a static test of it back in Dallas. It would've flown beautifully.
Here's another picture of my rocket taking off on a Kosdon I255 Dirty Harry motor.
I feel that I am very lucky to have a spouse who shares my enthusiasm for high powered rocketry. Here is a picture of John with his "Perfesser Fate". This is a picture of it just before it flew on an Ellis Mountain L330.
Here it is taking off on an Aerotech K550.Here's a movie of it taking off on a K1100. Sorry about the quality, but it's an old video.
Reading
Some of my favorite authors include Orson Scott Card, Arthur C. Clarke (the Rama series), Terry Goodkind, Thomas Paine, and Robert G. Ingersoll.