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Old 12-06-2018, 01:57 PM
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Earl Earl is offline
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I remember Jonathan well as part of the 'Our' Project ('R' motor) flown at Black Rock in '96 to nearly 100,000 feet; an amateur record at the time.

Jonathan did much of the work for the on-board electronics as I recall, including the on-board live transmitting video camera and the GPS system. I recall all of us (I was doing the video documentation of the launch prep and flight at Black Rock) in one of the rooms there at Bruno's in Gerlach (the small town at the south end of the lake bed) and out by the gas station next door until the wee hours of the morning the night before the flight testing out the live camera and GPS.

On launch morning the next day, Jonathan was stationed about 50 yards away, monitoring the live on-board camera signal. After liftoff and a verrrrrrry long motor burn, the 650 pound vehicle disappeared out of sight into the clear Black Rock skies right above us. Suddenly, Jonathan came jumping and hollering out of his monitoring post screaming "We got video!! We got video!!" He was tickled pink, to put it mildly.

Alas, the vehicle came in ballistic a few miles up range, but we all retreated into one of the RVs and viewed the recorded footage from the live camera on-board the vehicle. For the first time, we all saw the "black of space above, blue curvature of Earth below" footage that has become somewhat common place now. But it was very new stuff then and quite a sight to see.

It was a neat project to cover, and Jonathan's enthusiasm for his work was evident. The entire team of Jim Rosson, Paul Robinson, Phil Prior alnong with Jonathan (and one or two others it seems) was quite an accomplishment.

Rest in quiet peace John...your years here were too short.


Earl
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Earl L. Cagle, Jr.
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Rocket-Brained Since 1970
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