Hi folks,

last weekend (june 19th-21st) the first German Space Festival took place at an airfield near the small thuringian village Laucha. Weather was overcast with strong winds and more than enough rain.

The Festival was organized by the Deutsche Gesellschaft fuer Luft- und Raumfahrt (DGLR = German Association for Air- and Spacetravel) and sponsored by Daimler Benz Aerospace and Fortis, a swiss watchmaker who is also producing the famous wrist watches which the MIR crews wear during their flights.

The DERA, Berlin - to which I belong - was invited to do demo flights of some bigger birds and to provide transportation service for some thousand postcards for the philatelists. It was my part to take over that 'duty'.

The Festival was quite different from the rocketry meetings you US people know. As y'all know from my part of the rmr FAQ, rocketry is quite limited and regulated here in Germany.

The Festival was intended to interest young people in rocket technology and model rocketry. They had to form small teams of 3-4 people and send in a small essay about "Die Bedeutung der Traegerraketen heute und in Zukunft" (the significance of payload rockets at present and in future). After judging the quality of their essays around 20 teams qualified for the next round. They then got the specification of a rocket motor (a genuine german D8-3 BP motor) and a payload capsule which barometrically measured height and transmited it down to a base station. This service was provided by a local HAM group.
The goal was to reach maximum height at deployment and achieve maximum duration of the payload ('satellite') which had to have their own parachute of specified size. They had to build their own launch equipment too.

To round up the program there were some experimental rockets (cold water, steam etc.), the DERA launches, VIPs (like a former MIR cosmonaut, a former minister and officials from the sponsors, local politicians etc.), HAM connections to MIR, a disco tent and a firework display on saturday night. Press and TV showed up in several crews too.

On friday the Space Festival started in the evening with official speeches and greetings and a buffet for the participants.

On saturday morning the team rockets were inspected and weighted. The competition of the team rockets started at 13:00. 5 teams had to set up their launch equipment and then got their motors for the first launch. After the 5 launches there was a short break while a recovery team gathered the rockets and payloads. Since the areal was chosen for an airfield because of the steady and strong wind, there was quite some drift but all rockets and most payloads were retrieved successfully. Two payloads drifted too far to be found immediately, but the HAM operators were still able to receive their signals so a later retrieval should have been no problem.

Many teams suffered separation ot their parachutes and were DQed. They obviously underestimated the forces of the parachutes when deployed from a moving rocket.

In the recovery breaks some specials were shown: A test stand of a steam rocket motor (kinda boiler with a nozzle: Water was heated by a 5kW electrical heater to a temperature of ~260 deg. Celsius and ~50 Bar) and then a valve blocking the nozzle was released. Impressive, but very short thrust duration.

In two of the breaks I did demo flights with my LOC H76 on G64-7 and G33-5 reloads flying one of the sponsors' watches in the payload section. People were appropriately impressed since most of them have never seen a motor bigger than C in action. Both flights went flawlessly allthough the G33-5 was more like a -8.

In the evening there was a 'Space Disco' set up in the tent and at 23:00 a nice firework display was held.

Sunday started at 10:00 with the grant of the prices and certificates to the winners of the team rocket contest. At 13:00 some of the team rockets were flown again, but this time just for fun. Meanwhile several groups with experimental rockets set up their gear. There were flights of D-clusters, a rocket with a genuine german BC360 motor (double base propellant, 360Ns, BAM T2 certified), a steam rocket and my mail rocket.

The steam rocket went off prematurely (it had to be launched 'now or never' due to a developping leakage as the crew said afterwards) and many rockets suffered recovery failures.

Then it was my turn with the mail rocket.

Some words about that:
It was a 4" rocket based on a modified USR MegaRoc. I swapped the weak elastics from the kit with 4m tubular nylon. The payload tube was cut and got a rectangular section of 11x17x41 cm^3 (l w h) embedded to house a staple of 1000 postcards. I then built two transitions from the round tube to the 'letterbox'. The booster was built stock. I had ordered a second payload section so I can fly the rocket in its normal configuration too. The loaded rocket weighted around 5.5kg and had a 2m parachute for recovery.

I first intended to fly it on USR motors which I had ordered together with the rocket several weeks before the Space Festival. But when the Festival date neared I still had nothing heared from Jerry. Several e-mails and messages on his TAD left unanswered and so I ordered some I211 reloads (I have all AT RMS casings from 18 to 38mm, except the 38/600 and 38/720) from Hobby Metro in Florida as an backup 2 weeks before the Festival. They should have arrived in time since USRs airmail packages always reached me from California in around 5 days. Thursday, the day before the Festival, still nothing had shown up and by friday morning I called the customs office whether there was something pending for me - but nothing!

What to do now? The biggest reload I have in stock is the G64 and I only have 1 casing for this, so even clustering was no option. I called the organizers and told about my problem. They were very disappointed and told me that the philatelists already had spent DM6000 during the preparation of the mail flights (have the cards printed and the Deutsche Bundespost set up a special stamp etc.) and that all this efforts would be spoiled should the mail flights not take place.

I then remembered that there was 1 single other person in Germany who could probably have some bigger motors at home. I called him and told about my problem and guess what: polite as most rocket people are, he offered me his I284W-M reloads and casing. The only problem was that I would have to drive to Hamburg and pick them up (glad he wasn't living in Freiburg!). Well that made up for 6 hours driving (we don't have speed limits on some of the german Autobahns and Berlin-Hamburg is one of them) and around DM70 for gas, but it solved the problems. Short after hanging up the phone I was on the road. We had a nice but short meeting and by saturday 2:00 a.m. I was back at Berlin. Packing up everything and I was ready to go to Laucha at 5:00 a.m.. Sleep? Well, someone please wake me up when it's time to leave the Autobahn... (kidding!)

Well - back to the Space Festival:
I have never flown something bigger than G64 and so I spent most of sunday morning reading the instructions of the I284 and sorting the parts. When I partially inserted the liner in the casing for a test fit, I was almost unable to pull it out again. Neither the instructions nor the FAQ nor recent postings to rmr mentioned that severe sanding is necessary to have it fit into the casing. A second try with some grease had the same result as the first one. Ok, I sanded it until it fit (what a black mess!) and everything was ready for my first big motor! It went together without further problems and fit perfect into the rocket. I screwed on the positive retention bracket and was ready to go to the distant pad. I chosed not to use the included copperhead and inserted a boosted e-match after the rocket sat on the pad. A 2m long 15mm copper piping (a spare from the reconstuction of my house) served as launch lug. The pad had been clamped down to the ground and a metal bar was rammed into the lawn to support the rockets weight. I only had 10m cable, so I placed my car at about this distance so that I could duck behind it. I then set up the wiring. Contunuity was ok and I signalled readyness.

The 'show master' came over with his microphone and I had the opportunity to tell some facts and WRASP data about the rocket and the expected flight. Then everybody was warned to keep their eyes on the rocket and after the last photos and TV records were taken, the range was cleared. Everybody held its breath and suddenly even the wind calmed down (no it was no imagination due to high adrenalin level, but a rain front approached and short before the rain starts the wind often dies down for some minutes). That was a sign from heaven and after a countdown via the speakers I pressed the button.

A small puff of smoke - some more smoke and suddenly the I284 came to life and the rocket leapt from the pad. A straight flight with a very visible bright yellow rocket riding on a column of fire and smoke into the dark grey sky. Boy is that motor loud when you're that close! The forum started screaming and went absolutely quiet again when the motor burned out. The rocket proceeded to a height of about 400m and then right at apogee the drilled to 7 seconds delay fired the charge and deployed the chute. Since the rocket was almost at zero velocity then, the chute took some time to open, but after it showed its full size people got wild and applauded frenetically. I got a big relief while I watched the rocket descend very smooth to a spot into the field about 200m downwind.

It was the last flight of the Space Festifal and a true highlight for the people here (me included). It is very rare to be able to legally fly non BAM certified motors here in Germany (the RAMOG, one of the co-organizers, got a one time exceptional permit for the Festival) and therefore you don't see many flights with motors bigger than C over here.

Bottom line:
It was a very exciting time and well worth all the efforts. I spent countless hours and about DM600 in preparation of the flights, but so what? It's a hobby!
But I'm very disappointed about the way US Rockets let me hang out in the wind. I have no problems if a manufacturer/dealer tells me in time when there are problems in delivering some ordered goods. I then have time to find alternatives. But not responding at all is not the fine english art! I think I'll follow Jerrys own advice in rmr and vote with my money: I'll continue ordering kits from USR (they're ok) but I won't order any more motors there.

PS: On monday I got a call from the customs office: There is a packet from Florida to pick up! Arrrghh!!! (Is Murphy an airfreight pilot??)

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