Astronaut Farmer

A frame grab from the pad cam of my extreme thrust-to-weight ratio rocket launch on Saturday.

Reminds me of my golf swing.

This video cam on mini-tripod was about 20 ft. away, and moments later, it is knocked over by the blast.

I flew a Cesaroni J1520 motor in a 4” diameter LOC Expediter that I reinforced with Kevlar and fiberglass throughout.

I’ll add a sequence of frame grabs below. Amazingly, the rocket kicks off the pad with such force, that the 8 ft. tall steel launch pad falls over completely. I have not seen that before… and am not sure how the force vector works… Perhaps once one of the rail guides has cleared the tower, but the second is still attached, there is a fleeting moment (of force) on the top of the rail…

Here is the short ground video. Unfortunately, I failed to properly arm the videocam on the rocket itself… All was recovered for next time, when I’ll use a motor with dramatic pyrotechnics…