SOD BLASTER 2023
Sod Blaster V Launch Report
What can we say - another really great Sod Blaster event. We had 183 flights on Friday, 238 flights on Saturday, 191 flights on Sunday, and 66 flights on Monday for a total of 678 flights. Go figure – we had a record breaking 643 flights last year! Seemed like the count would be down because of the winds on Sunday and Monday, even though we had a total of around 225 attendees for the weekend and the parking lot was full. Our new Wilson F/X launch system for mid and high power and low power Blue Bunny custom-built system for low power worked flawlessly. Once again the launch was very busy: we many high power flights, a successful WAC project M motor flight, a very well attended raffle after the cake and ice cream social, a silent auction, BSD Diablo contests, and night flights. Thanks to the tireless help of our club members who stepped up to do registration, range setup, LCO duty, RSO duty, and teardown, the whole launch went very smoothly once again. You guys and gals are the best! Diablo contest winners: - Concours del Diablo: Dave King, 12 first place votes - Stock Class Diablo 3: Alex Juchems, target altitude 1657’, recorded altitude 1692’ - Unlimited Class Diablo 3: Joseph Stoutimore, target altitude 7671’, recorded altitude 2631’ (only entry) Congratulations, winners of the $50 gift certificates from our vendors. We had very generous sponsors again this year with well over $1000 of really great raffle prizes – many thanks to Additive Aerospace, Aerospace Specialty Products, Discount Rocketry, Dragon Rocketry, Eggtimer Rocketry, Flis Kits Model Rockets, Front Range Rocket Recovery, Lab Rat Rocketry, Loc Precision, MadCow Rocketry, Missile Works, Onebadhawk Recovery Harnesses, SBR Fusion Rockets, Stickershock 23, Tinder Rocketry, Top Flight Recovery; and to all who donated to the raffle. Loni’s Sign Services also made and donated our sponsor banner for us, as well as a stack of commemorative stickers! Thanks to the very generous donations from our sponsors and club members, we had a really big turnout for the raffle. Jim Wilkerson took many great pictures that are for sale on his website and took the group photo for us on Saturday – thanks Jim! Special thanks to Dale Woodford who handled the L1 and L2 certifications, and to Jim Pommert who donated a truckload of ready to fly and keep low power rockets for the kids who attended. Also special thanks to all of you who really stepped up in doing LCO and RSO shifts. You helped make this once again our biggest and best Sod Blaster! |