RStmarie@aol.com wrote:

The cannon? How'd it go?

The cannon turned out to be a high pressure gas cylinder with one end cut off and the cylinder strapped to a support. As he was setting it up the owner noted he had not fired it since the thing went off early and burned off his hair, caught his shirt on fire and blinded him for 3 days a couple of years ago... However, crude as it was, it worked well. For the first shot we all hid behind some equipment while the owner's assistant lit the fuse. Fuse burned. Pause. Held breath. Nothing happened... So after a few minutes of milling about, the aforementioned assistant rolled the bowling ball out of the tank, inserted a new fuse and again we all hid. This time it worked. No loud bang. More of a heavy thump and the ball headed up (the "cannon" was point up at about a 70 degree angle), over and down. Thump. For the second shot President Dave Bennett, Chris Clark and I went out to the impact area to watch. As we were walking out many wondered if the club's vice president would soon be replacing the club's president. <g> This shot went much higher. It was fun to watch it head up and start to disappear into the clouds, pass high overhead and then fall to Earth behind we "test subjects" with the wind whistling in the bowling ball's holes. THUMP! Lots of dirt was thrown into the air. All in all it was fun but, I, for one, would not want to see the "cannon" at any official SLAS function. Patrick :-)