airfield scouting
Another weekend is here, and as usual i have a reasonable amount of uni work to be carrying on with. And because i’d decided to get some work done the weather decided to go into ‘mid-summer’ mode, ushering in March with bright sunshine, warmth and barely a breeze to be felt, while I sat in the loft slaving over the computer. 
Until Ben came over and started pestering about going out.
Of course, today would be the perfect day to go scout out the abandoned airfield at Ashbourne. Why go there i hear you ask! Well, for those who don’t visit the discussion board, we’ve taken it upon ourselves to do something semi-constructive, but definitely entertaining this year. Last year, Chris (MWF) built a rocket powered car from an old plastic barbie car and a model rocket (the ones you launch and they parachute back down). The car was semi successful but steered to the left far too much, as opposed to his mate’s Action Man rocket car conversion, which sailed down the road in a perfect line. This year we’re joining in, and we’re going one step further. This year we’re planning on having a rocket powered Remote Control car. Ben and Chris have the cars, stripped to the chassis, powered and working.
The basic plan: strip off all excess weight, design and attach a rocket heat shield and mounting block, remotely ignite, steer 
We needed to do some research to find a safe launch site (with room for steering our rocket assisted creation) and discovered an old airbase on a map…today, we take a look at it!
Chris kindly drove us all there in the Sierra and we had a look at the base, where people were flying model planes. Turns out the surface is a bit pitted in places, but after testing the RC out at Weaver Hill later, we all agreed the car with it’s suspension would handle the surface without any problem.
Project R-RC is a ‘go’!
After returning we probably went to the pub, but in all honest i do not remember what happened. Thanks to my phone line being very noisy recently this is the first chance i’ve had to write the diary, and it’s now thursday!
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- Sat, 1st Mar 2003 at 00:03 UTC
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