Here are a couple of my hobbies.

High-Powered Rocketry

One day while I was working for the engineering department of a local city, I noticed one of the engineers working on a small cardboard rocket. Intrigued, I asked my husband if he'd ever heard of this hobby. Turns out he used to do it as a kid, so he bought me a rocket and we flew it in a local field. I was hooked!

I then went to a local club launch and learned that rockets don't stop at the small local-field stuff. You can get rockets that are much bigger and more powerful.

I built a Binder Excel Plus as my first high-powered rocket. I call it the Starry Night, and I still have it. I was able to do my Level 1 and Level 2 certification flight on it. I've flown it at least 40 times.


Here is a picture of it on the launch rod at the LDRS on the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah.


Here is the flight. I LOVE Black Jack Motors. They are loud and smokey!!! That's a good thing!


Another thing I did at that LDRS was attend the motor casting class. I really learned a lot and the class attendees were very nice folks. I am proudly holding up my self-cast propellant grains in this picture.

Unfortunately, the motor I made wasn't certified, but we did do a static test of it back in Dallas. It would've flown beautifully.


Here's another picture of my rocket taking off on a Kosdon I255 Dirty Harry motor.


I feel that I am very lucky to have a spouse who shares my enthusiasm for high powered rocketry. Here is a picture of John with his "Perfesser Fate". This is a picture of it just before it flew on an Ellis Mountain L330.


Here it is taking off on an Aerotech K550.

Here's a movie of it taking off on a K1100. Sorry about the quality, but it's an old video.

My Level 3 attempt (the PowerPuff)
Girls Rock-it

Reading

Some of my favorite authors include Orson Scott Card, Arthur C. Clarke (the Rama series), Terry Goodkind, Thomas Paine, and Robert G. Ingersoll.


shelly@civilgrrl.com