LUNAR’clips
2003
Volume 10, Number 6
LUNAR’clips
2003
Volume 10, Number 6
Livermore Unit of the National Association of Rocketry November/December 2003
Copyright © 2003 by LUNAR, All rights reserved.
When I totaled up the flight cards from October's afternoon and night launch, I knew we'd set a record, but I was still stunned at the magnitude! Thanks to the four Cub Scout and Webelos Packs that joined us, plus two TARC teams out for their first practice sessions, we had 358 flights using an astounding total of 398 motors! The previous record was set at the night launch two years ago with 335 flights using 343 motors. As you can see, we had a very large number of two stage and cluster flights. Fully 70% of the flights were on "B" and "C" motors, the Cubs' favorite sizes.
Well, we had our long-awaited checkout launch at the McNeely's "Tracy" ranch on November 8. Attending were Joe and Judy Heckenbach, James Marino, Joe Pettinicchi, Tony and Sheryl Cooper, Lee Teicheira, Steve Kendall, Charles Winter and myself. A few of the McNeely's neighbors showed up as well. We did a walk-around to survey the property, and then got off five low power rounds off to check out the winds and drift. The bad news is that the proximity of the freeway, the canal and neighboring houses makes the site pretty much unusable for anything other than D-and-below model rockets.
This is a shame since we've been working on this so long, and the people are really friendly and eager to let us fly there. They have over 100 acres of property, but the south edge borders Interstate 580 and the law says that we have to be set back 1,500 feet from highways and occupied structures. After the visit and launch, we held a board meeting (you'll note that the entire board was there) and got out the maps and drawing tools. After putting a 1,500 foot exclusion zone around the freeway, and a 1,500 foot circle around their house and their neighbor's house, it left one little wedge of land down by the California Aqueduct (Delta-Mendosa canal) that we could legally set up our launch equipment. Tony Cooper did some research later, and found that government canals also come under the 1,500 foot exclusion, which pretty much eliminates every single bit of their property.
This note is a bit uncomfortable as it puts the club in questionable status for most of next year. Those of you at the meeting earlier this month have already heard this.
I called LARPD the week after this month's launch was cancelled to find out the status of the field for the December launch. The "turf committee" (the people in charge of maintaining all the fields in the park system) has decided to close it for the rest of the year to let the new seeds sprout and establish themselves. That means no launch this month either. That's bad enough, but it seems the committee is using this "event" as the impetus to start some long-planned renovations of both the turf field and the soccer fields. The field will be open in January, but after that it will be closed until May.
Our grasp on Robertson Park had been getting more and more tenuous over the past year, and this might just end it. Other than January, we currently have no local launch site until next May. While the club officers beat the bushes looking for a site, Lee Teicheira had an interesting suggestion that he presented at the club meeting last month. Lee proposed that, like the clubs in the north and east that can't fly in the winter, we hold a series of workshops on our normal launch days in February, March and April. This would be a working gathering of members who want to come out and learn more about building techniques. We have lots of expertise in the club and we could hold little seminars (concurrently) for everyone from beginners wanting to know how to cut balsa, to people working on their Level 2 and 3 HP certification wanting to learn about working carbon fiber. I'm trying to arrange a site (probably a school multipurpose room). It would be a bring-your-own tools and materials event.
Countering that last item is this good news. As many of you know, Bill Orvis, our web master and equipment manager, has a family ranch east of Stockton where his dad raises breeder bulls. Over the past couple of years he's asked his dad informally if it would be OK if a few of us came out and flew rockets (Bill did it there when growing up). Over the Thanksgiving holiday he actually got him to say "yes." His dad put a few restrictions on the activity, which are very reasonable. It's a little too long to put in this column, so I've sent it to Geoff as a separate article.
With all of the problems we've been having lately, this is tremendous news! We don't have any of the permits in place yet, but at the discretion of the Fire Marshall, this has the potential to be a full Level 2 field. The ranch is about an hour's drive from Livermore, which is a darned site closer than Fresno!
Hopefully you'll get this before the event. On December 8, 9 and 10 (that's a Monday, Tuesday Wednesday), NASA Ames is holding an educational event for middle school students (fifth thru eighth grades). Over the three days they expect to have 4,000 to 5,000 students come through. All sorts of science and technology organizations have been invited to participate. One of them is BayNAR, our sister club in the south bay, who has asked us to join them. The event runs from 9 AM to 2 PM each day.
Marty Krikorian, BayNAR's president, is organizing the hobby rocketry part. What we can bring to the party is a willingness to show off and talk to kids. Bringing a few models along would be nice, too. You don't need to sign up for the entire three days. If you can spare any part of any of those days to man a table at the event it would be extremely valuable.
Marty is on our "lunar.general" list, so he is going to be organizing things from there, concurrent with their BayNAR "ba-rockets" mailing list. If you are interested in participating, but aren't currently on the "lunar.general" list, I could add you temporarily for the duration of the event.
With everything going on the past few months, I completely forgot to open the floor to nominations for the 2004 Board of Directors at the November meeting. This notice is in lieu of that official announcement, although this newsletter announcement is also part of the procedure. The nominations will stay open until we vote at the January meeting.
Nominations can be sent to me, or to the club Secretary/Treasurer, Sheryl Cooper (contact info is in the back of this issue).
Finally, the annual NAR "Needs Fixn'" survey has been mailed out to all section leaders. This is the chance to communicate any problems you might have with the organization directly to the national level.
Those of you with web access can view the form at http://www.nar.org/nff.html, or you can just send any concerns to me and I'll include them in our club reply.
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