Arctic Amateur Rocketry Council

01/26/2017

Join us for the launch this Saturday, January 28th 2017, and see what high power rocketry is all about! We meet at Denny's at 9 AM before driving out to Harding Lake. See you there!

03/27/2016

On Saturday March 26th we had the last launch of the season out at Harding Lake with six perfect launches and recoveries in a a row! Photos to be posted soon.

02/15/2016

Caleb launches his minimum diameter rocket on a sparky motor at our February 6th launch. I can't wait to see the on-board video!

02/08/2016

What an earthquake does to lake ice...

02/08/2016

Saturday launch continued:

The chute on my Tethys deployed properly but the hard ice took its toll and it again suffered damage to a fin and the body tube. The moral of the story is to use a large chute when landing on ice. At least I have an excuse to build another rocket. Caleb flew in style with a perfect flight of his scratch built minimum diameter rocket with dual deployment and on board video. He reached the same altitude as my Tethys using a motor half the size.
Caleb and Jesse flew some lower power rockets as well. All experience some form of recovery failure; primarily plastic chutes that refuse to open in the cold. We saw the same thing during the January launch so in the future I strongly suggest using nylon chutes rather than the cheap plastic chutes that are included in most low power kits.
Aside from some banged up rockets, we all had a great time. Afterwards we drove back to town and had lunch at Little Richards Family Diner.

See you at the launch in March!

Jeff

02/08/2016

We had another great launch on Saturday. The weather did not look promising but the fog cleared out as we left of town; the ceiling was 7000 ft by the time we arrived at the lake. I tried to drive my old Corolla junker out onto the lake but the deep ruts in the parking lot caused me to bottom out and I barely managed to back out. I then noticed that the rear suspension had given out and my right rear tire was just about touching the fender. I thought I would need a flatbed to haul it back into town but it turned out I was able to drive it back, dragging my tailpipe the whole way. That's what I get for overloading for so many years. I piled my gear into Dante's SUV and we all drove out onto the ice.
The lake was glare ice with no snow cover and much slipperier than it has been during previous launches. Cleats would be a very good idea for future operations. The recent earthquake created fissures in the ice that allowed us to see it was well over two feet thick.
After setting up we launched two high power rockets. I launched my Tethys first on a J-90. It was a perfect straight flight with almost no wind. The chute deployed properly

02/08/2016

Caleb taking great photos of of our launch

02/08/2016

Jesse Frey successfully flew his Tethys for a level 1 certification!

02/08/2016

Carl Andersen with his level 1 certification rocket

02/07/2016

Jeff Rothmans Tethys launches on an Aerotech I-161

02/07/2016

02/07/2016