LUNAR’clips
2004
Volume 11, Number 3
LUNAR’clips
2004
Volume 11, Number 3
Livermore Unit of the National Association of Rocketry May/June 2004
Copyright © 2004 by LUNAR, All rights reserved.
With the Snow Ranch launches being so successful, we have to decide how to continue once flying there can resume after the fire season ends next October. At the May meeting, the members and board discussed various hardware and schedule limitations and came up with the following:
We will continue to schedule launches at Robertson Park for the third Saturday of every month for the foreseeable future. High Power launches will be scheduled the first Saturday of every month starting in November (although everyone agreed to make the first one a week earlier, October 30, so that we could have a Halloween theme launch). However, there won't necessarily be a HP launch every month; it depends on a number of factors. First is whether the field is actually available. Sometimes the ranch will be using it for other purposes (like grazing cattle!). Second is the weather. If it's raining, we can't fly, but if it hasn't rained enough, we can't fly. Finally, is the availability of someone to tow the trailer up and back. The three launches earlier this year coincided with the shutdown of Robertson Park, so we just left the trailer up at the ranch the whole time. If we are going to be trading off LP and HP launches every month, the trailer is going to have to move back-and-forth.
Since Bill Orvis can't attend every launch, our HP coordinator, Charles Winter will be running things. He will evaluate the HP launches on a month-by-month basis for the criteria listed above. If there is someone to tow the trailer, the weather is right and the field is available, we can fly. Bill will still be club liaison with the ranch, and the weather is the weather, so what we need is a pool of HP fliers with tow vehicles willing to move the trailer around. Additionally, we need people shoulder some of the responsibility of running the launch. Just as Bill can't be at every launch, neither can Charles or I. There will have to be someone willing to be RSO for a day. It can be someone different each time, but we can't rely on the same, overworked volunteers to do two launches a month, especially when one of them is remote.
If you can help, contact Charles at cwinter@communicationnation.com or phone him at 408 374-0845.
The Team America Rocketry Challenge flyoffs were held last month in Virginia. Seven of the 100 teams competing qualified on our field! Newark Memorial HS had two teams lead by teacher Tom Collette, one qualified outright and the other qualified as a standby. Fisher Middle School in Los Gatos fielded three teams, all of which qualified, and the same teacher, Steve Hum, also qualified a team from Los Gatos High. Finally, teacher Eric Johnson brought his Laguna Creek HS team all the way down from the Sacramento area and was rewarded with a trip to Virginia.
Unfortunately, Newark's standby team didn't get to fly, and the primary team had an ignition failure. One of the motors in the booster's 3 D12 cluster failed to ignite, resulting in an altitude of only 519 feet (the target was 1,250). Tom Collett said that this had only happened one other time in more that 50 development flights. C'est la guerre. Still that was good enough to finish in 69th place (26 of the competing teams didn't get a qualifying flight).
The three Los Gatos Middle School teams fared a little better, with clean flights finishing in 65th, 41st and 17th places, respectively. Tying them was Laguna Creek HS, also in 17th, while Los Gatos HS finished a very impressive 8th place.
Congratulations to all!
I knew last month's launch on the first day of the Memorial Day weekend was big due to the early start and the line that stretched half an hour the entire time, but I was not prepared for the prodigious pile of flight cards that awaited me. It took me close to an hour just to sort them into categories and another to count them!
We started setting up at noon, and for the afternoon hosted several special youth groups. The Fremont Christian School came out for their third annual class launch flying their projects made from fluorescent lamp protector tubes with Easter Egg nose cones and corrugated cardboard fins. We had two or three 4H clubs in attendance, and later in the afternoon the Y Indian Guides showed up, towing their massive BBQ grille. There were also a couple of Cub Scout dens, but not the Pack that I was expecting. Club members showed up in force around 4 PM and we had fliers all the way up to our 10 PM cutoff.
A typical LUNAR launch at Robertson hovers around 200 flights. The night launches (which start earlier in the day) are usually around 350. Here's what happened on May 29th:
|
May, 2004 |
||||||||
|
Total Flights: |
430 |
|||||||
|
Motors consumed, Known: |
437 |
Unknown: |
5 |
Total: |
442 |
|||
|
Total Impulse expended: |
4,485 |
|||||||
|
Average Impulse: |
10.0 |
A full "C" |
||||||
|
Motor Use Breakdown: |
||||||||
|
1/4A |
1/2A |
A |
B |
C |
D |
E |
F |
|
|
3 |
11 |
72 |
95 |
171 |
40 |
20 |
25 |
|
Believe it or not, this was not a record breaker. Our high water mark for launches was set exactly three years ago at the May 2001 launch. That one was also a one-month-delayed night launch with a contest and lots of special groups. On that one we flew 478 flights consuming 497 motors (201 of them being "C").
One epilog to the launch is that the sprinklers came on (again!) at 9 PM. This time, though, Nidia Iversen was in attendance. She is the scheduling lady at LARPD that I deal with, and she wanted to bring her grandson out to watch the rockets. Three days after the launch I got the following note from her:
I wanted to touch base with you regarding the problem with the sprinklers. I spoke to the General Manager, Tim Berry. I advised him of the problem of the sprinklers going off during your rental period. I can let you know that he was not pleased. We both feel that this is an embarrassing problem and feel that the communication is not getting to the appropriate staff.
Tim asked for an email from you letting us know how often this has happened to you and when. Is this a problem for the night shoots, or does it happen during the day as well? Tim would like this information so that when he speaks with the senior supervisor they can work out a plan. My goal is to make sure this does not happen to any group.
Every time we've had this problem, she's tried to inform upper management so that it won't happen again, but it is a lot more immediate when it happens to you. (By the way, she was very impressed with our well-rehearsed response to the situation by rolling the trash barrels in a non-destructive way over the sprinkler heads!)
Tom Collett, the Newark Memorial HS TARC team leader, sent the following note to the LUNAR-General mailing list after returning from Virginia. I wanted to make sure that those of you not on that list had a chance to see it, too:
Dear LUNAR members,
I would like to thank you all for the tremendous support we received from you in the Team America Rocketry Challenge. Newark Memorial has participated in the competition both years, and we have done most of our test flying and all of our qualification launches in Livermore. Your club is VERY well run, and the members have always been there to enthusiastically help my students out.
LUNAR supported six of the 10 teams from California that qualified for nationals this year. Wow! This says a lot about your exceptional club.
I would also like to commend several specific members for giving us so much. First I would like to thank LUNAR President Jack Hagerty who has always been a phone call away (and believe me I dialed it a lot) for anything we needed from materials to last second launch plans. He generously visited my classroom on several occasions over the last two years.
Lee Teicheira was a really big help last year. If it wasn't for him my two teams might never have built competition rockets in 03. He came all the way to Newark for an all day work party on Presidents Day. He also coordinated all of the TARC launch dates last year.
Another LUNARtic who was really helpful for last year's competition was James Marino. James took a day off of work to come talk to my class. He even brought his huge level 3 project...very impressive. One of our teams built a very complex 2 stager using composite motors. It was bit more than we could handle, but James saved us with an F52T, which was able to give the rocket enough acceleration (2 G) to tell the accelerometer it had been launched.
I am not sure if Robert Briody is an official LUNAR member, but I would like to commend him as well. Rob was super helpful to my teams last year. He started by giving us a 50% discount on accelerometers, and continued his support by giving us a free igniterman kit. Rob visited my classroom on several occasions, and he also attended a TARC launch where he really helped us out.
This year Craig Saunders took over the TARC scheduling duties and did a terrific job. He always had great advice and made sure we were safe. We had a lot of launches, and Craig was at all of them even on Easter and Mother's Day. Thanks Craig.
I would also like to thank Team Cooper. They were at nearly all of the TARC launches also including Easter and Mother's Day. Tony built the clip whips that a lot of teams used. He let us borrow it for the finals (I still have to give it back). Tony helped one of my teams by catching a rocket with a tangled chute that saved them some repair time and possibly a broken altimeter.
Thank you so much LUNAR. We have all benefited from the TARC, and it wouldn't have been possible without your support.
Tom Collett
Newark Memorial High School
Similarly, after the night launch, Robert Tashjian of the Bayside 4H club sent the following:
Jack,
I hope you will convey my thanks, and the thanks of the Bayside 4H rocketeers, to everyone at LUNAR who made the launch such a tremendous success. The kids had an absolutely blast (if you'll excuse the pun:^). I can say for a certainty that none of the kids wanted to leave when 10pm rolled around! We had several kids who had never launched before and now can't wait to launch again (I have a feeling the rocketry project is going to grow a bit next year...).
Thank you again,
Robert Tashjian
This is what it's all about for me, running this club. I think you should all be proud to be part of such an active, helping club.
Last issue I wrote about the 35-year anniversary event of the first moon landing being put on by the USS Hornet museum (the Hornet was the ship that recovered both Apollo 11 and Apollo 12). Called "Splash Down '04," it will be a 10-day event July 17 thru 26 with displays and demonstrations. We have been asked to participate along with BayNAR, to set up a model rocketry booth.
By the time you read this, the event will be only a month away. We will still need folks to man the tables for that period. I'm looking for some one to coordinate the volunteers. I'm going to be out of town for the two weeks immediately prior to the event, which is the time when the most attention is needed. There's not a lot of work involved here, but there is a constant stream of contacts and small problems to be resolved. If you can help out in any way (including just manning a table for a few hours, which gets you into the event for free!) please contact me at any of the contact points listed in the last page.
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