Oli 3 Test Flight Big Success

PARS member Oliver Neil Smith has designed and built his own rocket, the Oli 3. The new rocket stands four feet high and has three sets of fins. It was designed as an adaptable single or double stage rocket that takes D or E motors in the upper stage and a D motor in the lower stage.

The Oli 3 is the most high-tech of all PARS rockets to date. It has a sealed compartment so that we can measure apogee using an electronic Altimeter. SpaceCAD software was used to check stability in both modes, with and without the Altimeter.

Before painting, Oli 3 underwent a single-stage-D test flight. We were impressed. But, as we were still waiting for the Altimeter to arrive, we could only estimate the apogee. It looked good to us, possibly reaching as much as 1000 feet. The rocket was perfectly stable.

Last known pictures of the Blue Ninja

PARS president Howard Smith snapped these pictures of the Blue Ninja during a visit to the UK of his friend and colleague, Peter Fingar, author and consultant.

One week later disaster strikes, and Blue Ninja is lost to a tree

Never fly near trees

Never launch a rocket in a small field surrounded by trees, even when the wind is low. This is the lesson we learnt with the loss of the Blue Ninja. The site initially looked promising, but appearences are deceptive, and slight cross winds took us unawares.

The rocket was dear to our hearts and a favourite among PARS members. Caught in low branches, it was recovered for a second flight. However, even after re-locating the Hellfire Pad up-field, disaster struck for a second time. It became entangled in the upper branches of the very same tree. How's that for bad luck. You can just see the red parachute near the top of the tree. Despite valient efforts by PARS co-president Mark Field, we had to accept our loss. Gone with the rocket were an excellent Recovery Technologies cloth parachute, together with a square of high quality Nomex, a fire retardent cloth manufactured by DuPont.

A service was held for for Blue Ninja in memory of its many successful launches. Oliver is distraught and vows to re-create the Blue Ninja using an improved design. The new rocket he is planning has been named the Ninja II. It will have roughly the same dimensions as the Blue Ninja but with two modifications. First, it will take Es as well as Ds, and second, it will have an altimeter compartment. Other than these changes it will look pretty similar to the Blue Ninja.