Flight

While the Astron Spaceman is an interesting looking rocket that gives wonderfully stable flights with little muss and fuss, it really isn't built for the thermonuclear ejection charges that Estes has seen fit to burden us with these days.  I was skeptical about how much abuse the spindly arms and legs would take, and with good reason.  First flight was on a B6-4 at Voice of America Park, our old QUARK home field.  The flight itself was perfect, high and arrow straight into the calm April sky.  The ejection charge sounded like a shotgun going off just above our heads, and sure enough, the Raceman landed with an arm holding on by the glue fillet.  Other than that, everything looked fine, so I fixed the break and retired The King on the spot.

Retirement lasted for about five years.  One Sunday in the fall of 2013 I was chasing a personal launch record and decided to spend a day at B6-4 Field with a bunch of never flown or seldom flown birds.  The Raceman qualified as seldom flown, so I brought him along, almost as an afterthought.  B6-4 Field would have been the perfect place to fly the Raceman on an A8-3, but I remembered the first flight and again went with a B6-4.  95% of the flight was perfect, but just before the end of the burn, the Raceman did a big loop.  The ejection charge, another mega-healthy blast, fired as it was heading sideways and it landed on the new stretch of sidewalk on Woodfill Avenue.  From my spot down in center field I could see Petty blue balsa bounce in several directions.  When I reached the crash site, I found two of the three missing pieces, but one part of the base was nowhere to be seen.  This had likely been the cause for the loop, having come off due to previous undetected damage.  That would have been an easy fix, but the real damage had been caused by the ejection charge.  Both of the King's cheek, the facial ones, were gone.  Blown away by the ejection blast.  Like I said earlier, the Astron Spaceman is not made for these times.