The Umerg team L to R, Greg Oseid, Gary Stroick, Rob Grygar, Dave Leininger, Steve Anderson, Bill Assimies, Tom Tweit.

The UMERG team (Upper Midwest Experimental Rocketry Group) traveled to launch our rocket, Locomotive Breath, at the Tripoli Rocketry Association’s Research rocketry launch, BALLS, on the Black Rock dry lake bed, in NW Nevada, near Gerlach.  The trip out was fantastic, without any mechanical problems, and the weather & driving was great.  We made probably our best time traveling out to this launch on this trip.

With that being said, the rest of the time was interesting to say the least.  We had colder weather than anyone recalls, and wind, which you expect at the Black Rock; but adding the cold to the wind made the trip memorable.  Saturday’s launch was scrubbed at about 1 pm because of the wind.  Temps plummeted overnight to the teens or low twenties, causing trouble with many of the large projects which spent the night on the pad.  Apparently, even though it warmed up a bit on Sunday, the batteries were still cold enough to loose much needed power for staging and deployment charges.  Sunday afternoon’s weather was not much better, with occasional snow squalls randomly moving through the area.  Snow & ice in the mountains east of Salt Lake City made for a white Knuckle drive on the return trip.

UMERG’s high altitude project, ‘Locomotive Breath’, was launched on Friday like many of the projects were, as reports of the upcoming bad weather created a sense of urgency.  The rocket screamed off of the pad much more aggressively than any of us had expected, only to rapidly shred in the air at about three seconds into the flight.  The longest portion of time for the flight, was all of the “rocket rain” fluttering or spinning down in an elongated debris field.

After analyzing the wreckage, it appears that a weld in the aluminum fin to the base flange, may have had a flaw that could not be seen.  The result was a spectacular, but disappointing flight.  Sometimes the things that go wrong are more interesting to watch than the rockets that perform as they should.  It has been said, “You only learn from your mistakes, not your successes”.  Next time we will be using a bolted fin design.  Analysis is still in progress to improve motor performance.

Locomotive Breath at Launch, about 3 seconds before the shred.

Immediately below is a link to a video of the launch and ‘Death Dance’ of Locomotive Breath.

Locomotive Breath

Here is a collection of videos from Balls that you may enjoy.  The videos, ‘UMERG Balls18‘, and ‘Various flights Balls18‘, show a collection of video clips from the UMERG team, and other flights that were videoed.  The videos with the individual rocket names are full length footage of the rocket flight, as much as I could get.

UMERG Balls18

Skydancer III Balls18

Spike Balls18

T2 Balls18

Heads Up Balls18

Cross-eyed Mary Balls18

Lightspeed Balls18

Robert DeHate 2 Stage Balls18

Tim Covey O Hybrid Balls18

And below is a compilation video of rockets that were not with our group, but I had the ability to capture them here.  If you flew at Balls18, you may see your rocket here.     enjoy.

Various Flights Balls18