The names have been changed to protect the innocent......(i.e. no names have been changed). No offence intended. If I manage to upset anyone:-

• I'm sorry, and
• feel free to punch me when you see me, or alternatively contact the wife - she doesn't need much of an excuse to hit me !!

UKRA 2002 - THE INITIATION

Well...things were looking good. I spent Wednesday and Thursday night getting all the bits together, spraying my rockets ( badly ! ) and building a launch controller ( and it even worked too...... I have a burn mark in the carpet to prove it! ;-) ).

FRIDAY

Friday morning came and went....excellent. I zipped home (via the Cider shop at work - I work for Bulmers ), and put the rest of my gear into the car. A quick goodbye to the family....and off I went, armed with an Autoroute printout. It was about 2pm. Worcester came and went.........onto the M6 looking for Junction 2 ( feeling a bit tired now - up at 5, work at 6 )......Junction 7........Junction 8........hang on. Doh !!! Wrong way up the M6 ( teach me to just follow the traffic queues... ). So, across much of NW Birmingham ( about an hour later !! West Brom is nice this time of year ! )....back on track............. ...........until the A46 disappeared ( apparently......... ).............mystery trip around Leicester........then Sleaford !!!!! A quick chat with the woman at the petrol station ( including much of her family's history in the Heckington area....yawn ! ) and I arrived at Pete's Farm !!!! It was now 7pm-ish ................range closed. Registration. Tent up. Gear sorted. Croc clips bought......and mingle.......... Quick chat with Richard Osborne, and into the hut. Recognised a few faces, and made my way to the Black Knights benches. Mel was looking extremely busy with bits and pieces strewn all over the benches and putting screws in here, cutting wires there....and I'm sure I spotted a Budweiser or something lurking under a cable loom !! I'd chatted with Andrew Bevan a little before, so this time around I got talking to Alex too. I was a bit worried at first because I thought that if I stood still for long enough I'd get hooked up to his laptop for a data transfer !! Whenever I'd seen him before, he had a laptop stuck on the end of his fingers....I thought perhaps he'd had an accident with Epoxy.......but later on I found the true sinister reason why he used that laptop so much...........more later. Anyway.....one crate of Strongbow deposited by the end of Hugh Gemmel's bench ( with that marvelous piece of rocket construction on it ) for anyone to have a can.....and Wow. I thought I'd died and gone to rocket heaven - they were everywhere !! Big ones, small ones, long ones, short ones, hybrids, AP, Estes, PML....you name it, it was there !! Wicked. Impressed, and I hadn't even seen a launch yet !! Anyway, on to Alex and his laptop...........with a bit of alcohol flowing, it turned out that Alex was into some form of Turbo Home Brewing......the laptop I believe to be part of the cunning simulation system that brews this creosote-looking concoction in about 6 days into what could only conceivably be construed as Nasty......Real Nasty.......apparently good for cleaning reload casings though!!!!! Sleep was calling however, so to bed it was. Now I don't have problems ever getting to sleep. Good job really. There was some kind of walrus mating ritual going on ( i.e. MEGA snoring ) all around, so I pretty much laughed myself to sleep. :-)

SATURDAY MORNING

Burger Bill.........Good 'Ole Burger Bill. I'd come prepared with beans, mini cooker, mess tins, etc......but Burger Bill was there. Two quid for a cooked breakfast with bread and butter, AND a cup of tea. Magic. Into the hut and more rocket speak. Mel was once again busy with the tools, and prepping....in fact, I'd probably say that out of everyone at the event, Mel was busiest of all !!! After loads of eavesdropping and butting in, I'd managed to pick up some very good information and tips about everything rocket related. So, psyched up, off I went to the range. My new GSE with two Yuasa twelve volt batteries was pretty heavy, especially with all my other gear as well. So, upon reaching the range I set about sorting my gear out, while sporting arms like an orangutan (i.e. stretched to the floor). Pad ready, cards filled in and handed to Mike Crewe (the modroc RSO), first rocket on the pad. Excellent. Time to fly. While awaiting the signal from RSO, I thought I'd just rearrange my gear a bit. Good job really, because in one of my cases, I noticed a parachute. Not a strange thing to see at a rocket event, I know. It's just that that particular parachute should at this point in time be folded neatly in the body tube of my new Monarch rocket that was currently sitting on the pad waiting for the RSO to give the Go signal...............DOH!! Discrete chat with Mike Crewe about the aforementioned cock-up, followed quite swiftly by him repeating it rather loud in parrot fashion ( embarassing or what... ). and the Monarch was removed and the chute discreetly loaded in and back on the pad. Phew !! "GO" from the RSO...and away it went. Magic. Got it back too. I only had 4 modrocs with me at the range ( 3 were in the car waiting for various adhesives to set, and the fact that I couldn't really be arsed to go and get them probably meant that was why they stayed there ), but I launched them all a number of times...apart from the Monarch : I couldn't get the bloody spent motor casing out ! During the time I was launching a Wizard and some other small rockets, Andrew was a stabilising force for me. I was using mainly B's, but was itching to bang in some C6-5's or something. Quite rightly, he pointed out that with the slight cross-winds, I would never see the buggers again. So I succumbed to his better judgement.(no sense of adventure) While all this was going on, all events were under the watchful eyes of Alan and Malcolm ( in spectator capacity at this year's event ). If they only had knotted hankies on their heads they really would look the part!.. :-)... Loads of people at the range and some really spectacular rockets. I must admit, I really do like the sound and look of the hybrids!! There was a fair breeze which meant some of the HPR rockets were drifting quite far on recovery. Unfortunately my trusty gamma ray and one of the other little ones got sacrificed to the Crop Gods on that day. May they rest in pieces ( after they've been harvested ! ) Hugh Gemmel's Level 3..............what can I say? What an absolute cracker of a beast !!! I loved it !! It even managed to get Malcolm and Alan out of the deckchairs !! How the hell can you top that? With Aidy from EARS' R2D2 Modroc, that's how. I loved this one too. The way its arcing motion described a near perfect parabola before it spacked !! Unfortunately, R2 won't be flying again in the very near future. Back to the campsite. An hour or so spent trying to help find Andy Moore's rocket in neighbouring fields ( unsuccessfully unfortunately ) followed by much mooching around and purchasing at Apollo 11, Pete's and Rockets' N' Things mean that hunger and thirst soon set in. So a visit to the CO-OP and the Chinese takeway was in order. Sorted. Time to mingle some more. It is so good to just wander around and talk to people at an event like this, purely because of the amount of information that may be gathered on various topics. Andrew Bevan was a most welcome chat companion for me. Cheers Andrew. I chatted about altimeters. Hybrids, HPR stuff, ejection and recovery methods with various people. Just looking around gives plenty of ideas about what to do next. Plans were already forming in my mind - the first one.....drink more Strongbow. So I did. I even managed to get Andrew on it. Alex would not partake. Sunday was to be a busy day. He would be flying his monster rocket with all the electronics on board. Excellent. The evening turned into night. Time for the fireworks. I bet there was much cursing by Pete's neighbours as all the airbombs, etc. were being lobbed. One thing that really stuck in my mind while all the fireworks were going on - you could tell that here was a bunch of real rocket-heads, as no-one was "ooh-ing" or "aah-ing" at the fireworks......after all they were only fireworks. Zigi had built a pretty cool clustered rocket that was covered in glow sticks. Primed for a night time launch. My GSE was used.....and even worked !!!!! Night time launching is cool too. Mel was still busy building.....does this guy ever stop ? There was a nerdy moment, when Mike Crewe and Malcolm were on about Bluetooth technology......."My phone can do this....", "My palm PC can do that..."....etc...etc.... What I did find amusing was when Mike Crewe managed to do a network search and found Malcolm's phone. At this point, Malcolm didn't seem too impressed....something about Mike Crewe possibly reading information off his phone............what potentially damaging information could be present on this little device then, eh? Alex was getting a little more nervous....... Alan was getting heavy eyelids...... Time for me to retire. Walrus chorus again, with a few farts for good measure. Of course none of this noise could possibly emanate from any member of the Black Knights.........

Sunday morning

Another early meeting with Burger Bill. Excellent. Back in the hut. Andrew hadn't slept. Not too impressed with the Walrus Chorus apparently. He'd stayed in the hut, in the chair....all night !! (Mustn't laugh.........ahem...) The weather wasn't looking too good today. Alex was busy filing and adjusting, and tweaking and fiddling. This rocket WILL fly....oh yes.....it will. Mel was still finding stuff to be busy with.........where does this guy's productivity end? I'd already decided not to fly any modrocs this morning........I was going to mingle and observe. i.e. be nosey. Again. I think I spent the whole weekend basically being nosey. It was great! Unfortunately, the flyer's brief confirmed the fears. The cloud base was low, quite strong winds......... Alex's rocket wouldn't be flying today. Although greatly disappointed, colour started to flow back to his skin! Another cruise round the rocket shops, including purchases for the kids (i.e. me, indirectly...stomp rockets, mechanical bird, etc.). Settling up with Pete - no where near what I thought I may have spent. Phew ! Time to go. Various farewells to various people. And hit the road. A wet, uneventful trip all the way back to Hereford, punctuated only by my laughing whilst I listened to my "Billy Connolly at the Albert Hall". Passing motorists thought that I was mad. How did THEY know? ................

Thanks for a great weekend, guys.

Rob