GPSL-2006 was a huge success!
 Thanks Zack (W0CZ) for a great job putting it together!

My son Chase and I left Tulsa at 1 pm Thursday. We arrived in Hutchinson at the Grand Prairie Hotel at 4:30 pm. We checked in and waited for others to arrive. Thursday night some of us who were in town met at the Grand Slam Sports Bar & Grill in the hotel and had dinner. Saturday morning we ate the Grand Slam complimentary breakfast then attended the morning seminars. We ate again at the Grand Slam for lunch then attended the afternoon seminars. The seminars were very entertaining and contained lots of good information. Friday night we all ate at the Anchor Inn in Hutchinson then the rest of the night was spent running predictions for the flight. On Saturday morning we grabbed a quick breakfast at McDonalds then drove to the launch site about 30 min north at Lyons-Rice County Airport.

ORB-21 was launched at 08:47. When the balloon inflated it had a thin side to it which didn't look good. The launch went well, but I had hoped for less than 1000 fpm ascent and it was ascending at 1000-1200 fpm which combined with the thin spot probably meant it would not achieve the expected altitude of 80k-100k feet. Tracking was made difficult because of a 1/2 to full scale open carrier on frequency. It appeared to be coming from some ones balloon, but the source has yet to be identified. ORB-21 burst at approx. 64,464 feet and I issued the cut down about 5 minutes later to expel the balloon fragments to help insure a stable descent. Several minutes later, as I calculated the descent rate, it was pretty apparent that the balloon fragments had separated and the descent rate from 20,000 ft was 1,900 ft/mn and at 5,000 ft the rate was 1,500 ft/min as expected. At 5,000 ft the balloon was less than 1 mile to our SW so we stopped and exited the car. What a pretty site, the parachute and payloads were at 1,500 ft and not more than a couple hundred feet downrange from us. The payloads were swinging in a wide circle beneath the chute. They were heading for an open pasture of high grass. My son Chase tried to run out and catch them, but the grass was too high which slowed his efforts. Landing was at 10:11. As I opened the camera payload I saw the horizontal camera had registered 26 pictures, but the vertical cameras entire display looked like it was in diagnostic mode. All characters were lit up. I figured the camera was toast. It wasn't until later at the hotel I would realize I had my polarized sunglasses on and the vertical camera was oriented 90 degrees from the horizontal camera causing the display to look weird. There were 26 pictures taken on each camera. After disconnecting the power to all the equipment and returning to our vehicle, We started tracking the EOSS flight. It was around 20k ft and descending about 10 miles to our west, so we headed that way. We were 2 miles from the EOSS payloads when I spotted their parachute at 3,000 ft. We stopped and tried to take some video as it neared the ground then rendezvoused with them as they recovered their payloads. A local lady stopped by the EOSS recovery site to invite us all to come eat at the Geneseo, Kansas United Methodist Church church which was only a few miles away. We all went to the church and had a great feast and post flight gathering.

All flights flown were recovered intact.

Back in Hutchinson on Saturday evening we all gathered for dinner at the Lone Star Cafe.
A good time of socializing was had by all.

Here is an interesting observation from Zack (W0ZC)...

"One of the waitresses was having problems taking our orders because we were all deeply engrossed in the various conversations. She remarked that normally taking people's orders isn't a problem because no one's really talking and/or listening to each other... I thought that was an interesting (but sad) observation."

Sunday morning my son and I ate the Grand Slam complimentary breakfast then left for Tulsa at 9:40 am. We arrived back at home in Tulsa at 1:30 pm.


I enjoyed visiting with old friends and meeting new ones.
Congratulations to all who flew and a big thanks to all the support personnel!

Looking forward to GPSL 2007!

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Here is the beacon with the official ORB-21 landing coordinates...
KC5TRB-11>APT310,WIDE2-1:/151231h3827.97N/09756.92WO196/000/A=001679
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73 Harry KC5TRB
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   UTC     ALT-FT  DIR MPH   FPM
--------  ------  --- ---  -----
13:47:31   1,912   67   6
13:48:31   3,119   70  23  +1207
13:49:31   4,340   45  22  +1221
13:50:31   5,613   57  29  +1273
13:51:31   6,840   50  20  +1227
13:52:31   7,975   64  25  +1135
13:53:31   9,057   51  19  +1082
13:54:31  10,133   80  18  +1076
13:55:31  11,239   69  10  +1106
13:56:31  12,397   22  14  +1158
13:57:31  13,565   14  13  +1168
13:58:32  14,589   35  25  +1007
13:59:31  15,658   17  23  +1087
14:00:31  16,806   57  23  +1148
14:01:31  17,968   68  13  +1162
14:02:31  18,971   72  25  +1003
14:03:31  19,972   61  29  +1001
14:04:31  21,015   66  25  +1043
14:05:35  22,101   33  18  +1018
14:06:35  23,036   35  18   +935
14:07:31  23,971   38  17  +1002
14:08:31  25,054   30   8  +1083
14:09:31  26,015   48  17   +961
14:10:31  26,901   58  18   +886
14:11:31  27,793   50  12   +892
14:12:32  28,630   64  18   +823
14:13:31  29,522   58  22   +907
14:14:31  30,657   68  14  +1135
14:15:31  31,799  101  20  +1142
14:16:31  32,911  112  13  +1112
14:17:31  33,895  122  11   +984
14:18:31  34,827   80   8   +932
14:19:31  35,942   51   5  +1115
14:20:31  37,077   59  14  +1135
14:21:31  38,265   73  18  +1188
14:22:31  39,393   65  22  +1128
14:23:31  40,384   98  11   +991
14:24:31  41,473   56  13  +1089
14:25:31  42,589  118  17  +1116
14:26:31  43,862  126  10  +1273
14:27:31  45,174   79  13  +1312
14:28:31  46,460   60   8  +1286
14:29:31  47,621  119   6  +1161
14:30:31  48,861   95  12  +1240
14:31:31  50,037   76  31  +1175
14:32:31  51,238   98  13  +1201
14:33:31  52,320   33   8  +1082
14:34:31  53,327   40   8  +1007
14:35:31  54,334   61  29  +1007
14:36:31  55,374  106  13  +1040
14:37:31  56,477   70   4  +1103
14:38:31  57,372   66   4   +895
14:39:31  58,317  146  10   +945
14:40:31  59,393  202   6  +1076
14:41:31  60,692  224  17  +1299
14:42:34  61,785  204  12  +1041
14:43:31  62,661  265  13   +922
14:44:31  63,546  191  11   +885
14:45:31  64,465  172   5   +919
14:46:31  64,186  186   6   -279
14:47:31  59,285  323   6  -4901
14:48:31  54,853   94  28  -4432
14:49:37  50,424  105  24  -4026
14:50:33  47,119  107  14  -3540
14:51:31  44,058   52  14  -3167
14:52:31  40,942  128   6  -3116
14:53:31  38,012   65  25  -2930
14:54:31  34,955   56   4  -3057
14:55:31  32,078   70  20  -2877
14:56:31  29,328   42  26  -2750
14:57:31  26,671   45  14  -2657
14:58:31  24,089   53  20  -2582
14:59:31  21,977   59  16  -2112
15:00:31  20,041   70  25  -1936
15:01:31  18,174   79  22  -1867
15:02:31  16,380   28  17  -1794
15:03:31  14,638   36  22  -1742
15:04:31  12,965   33  17  -1673
15:05:31  11,334   18  10  -1631
15:06:31   9,671   66  17  -1663
15:07:31   8,126   53  25  -1545
15:08:31   6,626   60  28  -1500
15:09:31   5,150   57  23  -1476
15:10:31   3,690   57  17  -1460
15:11:31   2,250   31  19  -1440
15:12:31   1,679  196   0