Skye Dance 44 roared into the Kimbro skies Tuesday afternoon, April 12th, 2005. It wasn't much of a Skye Dance Launch, it was more of a Tom Launch since Tom was the only flier there. We've been trying to have a launch for the past 2 months, but the requirements of a weekend, a dry field, light winds, clear skies, and everyone in town just wasn't coming together. So, before the crops come up and the season ends, I decided to have a launch on the next perfect day, which turned out to be a Tuesday. Conditions were excellent; temps in the 80s with clear skies and calm winds. But, nobody else could make a weekday launch on such short notice. Oh well....

First up was Spectra, powered by a Kosdon J450. This was flight number 82 for the trusty 4 inch rocket, and the flight and recovery were perfect. The Kosdon boost was loud and powerful, and dual barometric recovery brought it back less than 50 feet from the pad. Max altitude was 2274 feet with a 10G liftoff.

Next up was Two's Company, the second and third stages of Three's Company. It just takes too long to prep all 3 stages, so this would be a 2 stage flight. First stage power was an Aerotech I366 Redline, and second stage power was an Aerotech H128. The flight was perfect; a fast and straight boost, about a 1/2 second coast, stage separation, another 1 second coast, then upper stage ignition. A beautiful flight to 3826 feet. Dual recovery brought it back about 100 yards from the pad. The velocity and acceleration plots are really clean and beautiful for a 2 stage flight; max velocity for both stages was around 450 feet/sec, max acceleration was 9 Gs for the first stage and 5 Gs for the second stage. Click here for a video of the flight.

The final flight of the day, right at sunset, was Stud Duck, powered by a Kosdon I300. I don't fly the Duck very often because it uses apogee deploy only, but on a day with calm winds, no problem. The boost was loud and straight up, the motor and timer backup charges fired within a second of each other, and the 5.5 inch diameter rocket landed about 50 feet north of the pad for a successful conclusion to a perfect day.