04-19-2009, 03:29 PM
Too bad it's in Maryland or I'd be there. In my errant college days a group of friends and I were building rockets. I built a 6-foot tall Saturn V. The 1st stage was powered by 5 "D" engines and the 2nd stage (which was ignited using an electric relay) had a single "D". It didn't fly very high (just a few hundred feet) but it made a tremendous amount of noise and smoke and was a sight to see. Amazingly all of the 1st stage engines lit simultaneously and it flew beautifully. We also built some high altitude rockets. We lost them all. They went up out of sight even with binoculars and drifted off on their parachutes to who knows where.