LDRS is a tongue-in-cheek acronym for "Large and Dangerous Rocket Ships".  However, despite the name this launch was run with the safety of the participants and spectators as the number one priority.  In fact, it was probably the best organized and most skillfully run launch that I have ever attended.  It was a lot of fun.  I have been to five LDRS launches in the last ten years and in my opinion this was the best yet.

Three of us traveled together to LDRS this year.  From left to right it was myself (Vern) and my friends Scott Carter and Nadine Burgemeister.  We sure had a great time together!

We stayed at a hotel in Primm that was a short drive from the launch site. It's so nice to have good hotels, good food and most importantly air conditioning, showers and a pool so close to the launch site.  All those amenities really added to the overall quality of this whole event.

This aerial photo of the flight line was captured by a camera on-board Starfire during a flight on Saturday morning, July 14, 2007.  Starfire flight details are available here.   The flight line was 0.4 miles long!  This view is looking south.  The 'away cell' for some of the bigger projects is also visible in the lower right corner of the expanded version of this image presented at the two links below.

Click here to see a large high resolution version.   (1.0 MB file.)

Click here to see a smaller low resolution version.   (270 KB file.)

This view is looking towards the flight line from the 500 foot pads.  It was taken on Saturday afternoon.  The full panorama is much wider than the image shown above.  It spans the entire flight line. Click on the links below to check it out!   Be sure to zoom-in and pan across the image to see it just as if you were standing there looking over the full length of the flight line.

Click here to see a large high resolution version.    (2.3 MB file.)

LDRS 26 Flight Line Video

This is a short video that combines the aerial and ground level photos of the flight line into a single presentation.  It's a bit redundant given that the full resolution images are presented above, but it's still fun to watch.

View High Resolution MPEG2 version     (14.7 MB)

View QuickTime version      (15.1 MB)

View Low Res  Windows Media Player version   (3.4 MB)

Flight Trajectory Video

This video shows the lake bed and the flight trajectory of Angelfire.  It was created by processing the GPS data from Angelfire and feeding it to Google Earth.  More information about this flight can be found here.

View High Resolution MPEG2 version     (12 MB)

View QuickTime version      (7 MB)

View Low Res  Windows Media Player version   (3 MB)

My flights at LDRS 26

I made three flights at LDRS.  A couple of photos from each one are presented below but there are many more to see.  Each flight has its own page with lots more photos, videos and flight data.  Just click on any of the photos below and it will take you to the page for that flight.

Photo by Rick Clapp

Click on either photo above to see lots more about Angelfire at LDRS.

Angelfire was flown on an Aerotech M1419 motor on Friday morning, July 13, 2007.  Despite it being Friday the 13^th everything went superbly on this flight.  Angelfire reached a peak velocity of 511 mph and a peak altitude of 10,300 feet.  It carried my homebrew GPS downlink system in the nosecone and was transmitting information during the entire flight. It descended on a drogue parachute until it reached 1500 feet above the ground. At that point it deployed the main parachute. It gently touched down about a half mile north of the lake bed. This was the eleventh flight of Angelfire.  Read more about it, see lots more photos and review the GPS flight trajectory data by clicking on either photo above. 

Click on either photo above to see lots more about Starfire at LDRS.

Starfire was launched Saturday morning on an Animal Motor Works M2200 "Skidmark" motor.  Starfire boosted smartly off the pad in a shower of titanium sparks, black smoke and a very loud "crackling" sound that is pure power and excitement.  Once you experience one of these motors it will become an instant favorite!    Starfire coasted to an apogee at 4,145 feet and deployed two large parachutes for a picture perfect recovery.  It landed on the dry lake bed so we were able to drive straight to it for recovery. The onboard camcorder captured some nice liftoff video and the onboard digital cameras captured the flight line photo shown at the top of this page.  Click on either Starfire photo above to see more onboard photos and to see the onboard video. This was the 18^th flight of Starfire.  It was recovered with no damage.

Photo by Tsolo T. Tsolo from RocketShots! © 2007

 Click on either photo above to see lots more about Wildfire at LDRS.

Photo by Vern Knowles

 Click on either photo above to see lots more about Scott's flights at LDRS.

The THOR-X was definitely one of my favorite flights at LDRS 26.  This beast is 16.5 inches in diameter and 28.5 feet long.   It was built and flown by Don Ball and Scott Ulrey (and perhaps others, I'm not exactly sure who all was involved.)

 It was launched on a central 98mm AMW N4000 'Blue Baboon' motor plus three 75mm AMW M2200 Skidmark motors.  All four motors were lit on the pad.  It weighed 335 pounds (with motors) and developed 2,350 pounds of thrust.  It flew on Sunday afternoon and reached an altitude of 5,800 feet.  It was an awesome flight!  Well done guys!

There was a little bit of landing damage to the motor retainers and booster section due to the heavy weight, but that can be repaired without too much difficulty. 

Andy Woerner from What's Up Hobbies was one of the many rockery vendors on site.  Andy also had his new scale model space shuttle kit on display.  It is an absolutely beautiful kit!  In fact, this stunning model won the 'prettiest rocket' category in a contest held at LDRS. It was certainly in a class of it's own!   It launches with motors in both of the solid rocket strap-on boosters as well as with three smaller motors in the shuttle.  Naturally the shuttle separates at apogee and glides back down under radio remote control.  This kit will be available for purchase very soon.  The price is expected to be $3000. 

Sign at LDRS 26

On Thursday afternoon a very pretty dust devil danced across the range out near the launch pads.  These were very common in the afternoon heat and would range in size from a few yards across to well over a hundred yards across. 

Ones like that shown here were quite fun to watch.  They would suck up dust off the lake bed and pump it high into the sky. The bigger ones were not so much fun!  Especially if they swept through your camp site on the flight line. It would be relatively calm one minute and the next minute you would be in a very strong wind with dust blowing every which way.  Of course a minute later it would be calm again.

This was me after recovering Wildfire on Monday afternoon. It is a self portrait I took by simply holding my camera at arms length.

Are we having fun yet?

flight line on the lake bed, the winds were blowing hard and wave after wave of large dust devils were passing through the launch site.  At times you could not even see 5 feet in front of yourself.  I was holding my hat on with one hand and waving the Walston tracking antenna around with the other hand. I couldn't see where I was going but the signal  lead me right to the LCO station. Of course no one was there.  It had been temporarily abandoned due to the high winds.  I ended up standing right next to the nosecone section but didn't recognize it at first since it was covered in dust.  Someone else had obviously found it and returned it to the LCO station, nicely wrapped in the parachute but totally covered in dust. 

Want more LDRS photos?

Photos from LDRS 24 can be found here.