An early morning attempt to achieve a record altitude with a Water Rocket turned into a lengthy vacation for one Water Rocket payload compartment, which will probably extend well into October.

The launch crew for the U.S. Water Rockets team stood by helplessly as their possibly record breaking rocket payload drifts slowly off into the sunrise over dense wooded area after what appeared to be a perfect launch on a perfect day with their newly constructed X-10 Water Rocket.

The team chose an early morning launch for their record attempt because the wind at that time of day is perfectly calm. Previous flights with similar designs up to 1,079 feet on other days indicated that this would be an ideal time for the launch. Unfortunately, the record attempt was designed to go over 300 feet higher and at that height on this particular day there must have been a very strong air current or an updraft of air known as a "thermal". When the rocket reached peak altitude, it deployed a dual parachute system designed for safety and stable video. The unforseen result of using this system on this day was that the payload compartment of the rocket failed to descend at the same rate as the pressure vessel, as it had done in countless prior flights. Instead, the payload drifted over a wooded area for more than 2 minutes before disappearing from view. Int pressure vessel inexplicably descnded at the predicted rate and landed close to the point it was targeted to land in. Search parties explored the area for several days without success, hoping to locate the brightly colored payload section.

The Launch Crew for U.S. Water Rockets used launch pad camera footage and some simple trigonometry to determine that the rocket flew to between 1,300 and 1,350 feet. Until they recover the payload section, this cannot be verified. The crew has used aerial photographs of the wooded area to narrow the search area, but the foliage is too dense to see through. The team is confident that they can reproduce the flight with a different payload section employing an alternate backup recovery system which would not have this same problem. The plan is to continue launch tests until the autumn when the leaves fall from the trees, when spotting the rocket will be trivial. Only then will the team know for sure if they were on track to setting a record on this day.