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We’ve cancelled our January 21 launch. It’s too cold to be standing in a field all morning. But we’ll try again in February – with Ohio weather, it could happen.

The weather for our September launch, Saturday 9/17, looks excellent! We’ll be at Freedom Park, setting up by 10:00, launching at 11:00. Come join us! It will be a blast!

Visitors are always welcome at CORSA launches! They are typically held at Freedom Park in Sunbury, on the third Saturday of each month. If we are hosting a youth group, they will of course get priority access to the launch pads, but everyone will get a chance to launch. Bring your rockets and motors, but we’ll have launch pads set up and ready, so no need to bring launch gear.

Our members love talking about rocketry. We want to share our love of the hobby, and answer all of the questions you bring.

Freedom Park has a porta-john, and plenty of parking. We’ll have our tent set up, for our headquarters. You may wish to bring things like chairs, a table for preparing your rockets, sunscreen, water, snacks.

Rocketry is a fun, safe hobby that can be enjoyed by kids and adults, as an observer or a participant. Come to our launches and see for yourself!

Our May launch was a great success! It was pretty breezy, so we could not launch anything very high. And we only launched 26 times. But I think everyone who was there would agree, that it was a fantastic day. Several of the High Point Elementary students that we met with on their Super Saturday came and had great questions, and marveled at each rocket launched. We handed out rocket kits to Ryan, Walter, Nora, Eli, Tyler, Wes, and Elias. We still have more of the Balsa Machining Service “School Rocket” kits for any of the students who were able to attend our May launch.

Impulse Report:

• 1 – 1/2 A
• 12 – A
• 12 – B
• 1 – C

No rockets were lost, despite the ~15 mph winds. The one C motor that flew was in a saucer style rocket that doesn’t go very high or drift very far.

Thanks to everyone who attended! Especially to our new visitors, but also to my fellow CORSA members who helped make it a wonderful day!

Of course, the weather is beyond our control – all that we can do is to try to work around it. We knew that bad weather was coming, but early on, it looked like it would hold off until 2:00. As we were setting up, though, the forecast and radar showed storms arriving near noon. We have a lightning detector which shows how far away the strikes are, which gives warning before we can even see the lightning – if we see lightning, we clear the field immediately.

So we launched as soon as we could, and kept a close eye on the approaching storm. I haven’t counted yet, but I think we launched about 24 times. We heard some thunder, and decided it was time to quit. Perhaps we should have quit a little earlier, because even though we were rapidly closing up our launch operation, it started raining before we had everything stowed in our vehicles. We got drenched! But it was a good day anyway.

Well, it was windier than we like, but within the requirements of the NAR model rocket safety code – so we launched…

And it was a great day! We launched 88 times – our busiest launch day yet. And what a fabulous bunch of kids to fly rockets with! They had great questions, and great rockets. Check out the photos in our gallery – and if you have some to add, let us know.

That wrapped up our home launch schedule for 2021 – but we’ll be back at Freedom Park next year!

Our hosting service has discontinued the software we’d been using to maintain our mailing list – it’s now a manual process. So, if you’d like to join (or be removed from) our mailing list, please send an email to info@centralohiorocketry.org. We mostly use the list to remind our friends of upcoming launches and meetings.

Our April launch was a great success. We had 63 launches: 1x 1/2 A, 10 x A, 29 x B, 17 x C, 3 X D and 4 x E motors. One of those was a two motor cluster of A8-3s.

Our altitude contest was loads of fun, and had keen participation. Alex somehow squeezed 526 feet out of a B6-4, and won the prize. Bob came in second, with 490 feet. The first attempt was Ed’s – and his try was marred by a shift in CG, followed by a flight directly into the woods, never to be seen again!

Our March launch was fantastic! The weather was near perfect – winds aloft were negligible when we started, but picked up a little as the day continued. We had a great turnout, with many visitors, and we had a great time!

Motor Impulse used:
1/2A 1
A 12
B 19
C 9
D 7
E 2

There were a few interesting payloads, including Moana, some altimeters, and some cameras. The cameras were the new Estes AstroCam. Unfortunately, my luck with camera payloads continues, as my camera launches failed to record. I’m hoping that John’s video came out…

CORSA member Brennan has started a great rocketry podcast:
https://podcasts.apple.com/podcast/id1539351560

Check it out!