LUNAR'clips

Volume 2, Number 3 -- May, 1995

Newsletter of the Livermore Unit of the
National Association of Rocketry

New MEETING PLACE, Launch Date!
Spoils of Success, by Jack Hagerty
International Cooperation Leads to a Successful Flight, by Lynn Kissel
LUNAR Regional Contest: Impressions, by William F. Walby
LUNAR Spring Competition
LUNAR Dust
Firefox order
Lost & Found
Letters to the Editor
Lynn's Theodolite Box
Lynn's Rocket Box
Copyright Notice

comments

Note changes!

New MEETING PLACE, Launch Date!

Our next club meeting, on May 18, will be held in the Community Meeting Room, off of the main lobby of the new Livermore Police Station, 1110 South Livermore Avenue. (See the information flyer included with this newsletter for instructions on how to get there.) The folks at Hobby Haven have been super, keeping the store open for us on Tuesday nights, but, we've have just grown too big for the space that they have generously provided. However, our access to the Community Meeting Room may be restricted, requiring the presence of Mark Weiss, and we cannot hold "build" meetings there. So, we should all be thinking about a better meeting site. Our current meeting schedule posted on the last page of this newsletter indicates that you should call our Lunar message center for the location of future meetings.

Our May launch date has changed to May 27, which differs from that previously posted in the newsletter. The July had also moved, but was then moved back to July 22, so there is no net change from that printed in the last newsletter.

Spoils of Success

by Jack Hagerty, LUNAR Vice President

LUNAR has made great strides in its short history. It's been barely 2 1/2 years since our first organizational launch in October '92 and we're already issuing membership numbers in the 300's. Of course we don't really have that many members since some move out of the area, don't renew, etc., etc. Right now we're sending out newsletters to about 80 families which means approximately 150 active members. Still, this puts us in the upper 10% in size of all NAR sections. Our launches are routinely attended by nearly 100 fliers making over 200 flights plus dozens of spectators when we host various civic groups.

We are also getting some notoriety in the rocketry community around the state. Thanks to the tireless efforts of some of our senior members, you can now fly the lower end of High Power Rocketry (up to "H" class motors) from our field; the only place in Northern California where it is legal to do this. In fact, one NAR member, recently transplanted from Michigan who flew with us for the first time at our Regional contest in April, has recommended that we hold a future NARAM at our site!

Woah, a NARAM? What's that? It sounds important! Well, it is. NARAM is the National Association of Rocketry's Annual Meet; a full week of contests, presentations, tours and manufacturers' forums with fliers from all over North America. It has been a goal of our president from the beginning to host a NARAM and you don't really have to be a large club to do it (for example, this year's NARAM is being hosted by MARS, a New York club with only 40 members). What you do need, though, is lots of volunteers.

Volunteers. There it is, the ugly "V" word. Last summer we put out a plea for help saying that nearly all of the work was being done by five dedicated members who were on the verge of burnout. We did get some response to that and now we have twice as much work being done by seven dedicated members! Seven people is a mighty small base to be supporting a club this size. We desperately need more help!

On May 4th, four of the senior members (Ron Basket, Jack Hagerty, Lynn Kissel and Warren Massey) had an informal meeting to discuss the situation. No decisions were made since it wasn't a formal board meeting and only two of the attendees were board members, but among the possible solutions presented were:

1. Increased incentive - We already allow "payment" of four flight cards for each volunteer service performed (RSO, LCO, Sign-in table, Equipment Set-up and Take- down), but since these only cost 25 cents normally, most people would rather "pay to play." The suggestion was to raise the cost to $1 per flight card to make earning them other ways more attractive. This, of course, runs counter to our "lowest possible cost" philosophy to give the incentive to fly legally with the club rather than sneaking around in school yards and vacant lots.
2. Iron Fist - This would make volunteering mandatory, something of an oxymoron. In this scenario you simply would not be allowed to fly unless you had performed at least one volunteer service. Alternatively, we wouldn't allow anyone to renew their membership unless they'd volunteered at least once for each launch attended. Then again, the idea is to get people to join, not drive them away by making renewal harder! Additionally, we don't really have enough volunteer jobs for the size of the crowds we've been getting lately.
3. Public Humiliation - In this one the launches would continue as they do now, but about halfway through someone would read off the sign-up list the names of those who had not yet volunteered for a duty. Distasteful, but probably effective.
4. Faith - Hope that when you read this, you'll be sufficiently motivated to help out that we won't have to resort to any of the above!

Set-up and Take-down are pretty much self explanatory and take about 45 minutes each. The other three duties, RSO, LCO and Sign-In, have shifts of one hour each.

RSO is the Range Safety Officer who has responsibility for safety of the entire range and the primary duty is to do a safety check of each model before assigning it to a pad. This is the only position that requires any experience and we probably wouldn't let a raw beginner take this one. The RSO also has the authority to stop a launch if unsafe conditions arise (such as high winds or rain).

LCO is the Launch Control Officer whose primary responsibility is to make sure the sky is clear of aircraft and that the correct pad has been selected before the eager little fingers push the button. You must also announce the flight and do the countdown for anyone who might be "mike shy."

Sign-In registers folks when they first arrive and either verifies their membership or signs them up for a one day pass. Also, since this is the position with the cash box, this is where we sell the flight cards and take orders for T-shirts and hats.

So, come on out and give us a hand. Just think how impressive you'll be as the OFFICIAL Launch Control Officer! Don't buy that? Well, how about, if too many of us burn out and go away, then the club may go away...

US rocket launched in Russia

International Cooperation Leads to a Successful Flight

by Lynn Kissel, LUNAR #009

Since the end of the Cold War, US and Russian scientists have experienced increased cooperation and communication. Following my earlier visit with him in St. Petersburg, Russia, Dr. Andrey Solov'yov, a physicist at the A.F. Ioffe Physical-Technical Institute in St. Petersburg, Russia, visited Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory last August as my guest.

Near the end of his visit, we went shopping for some gifts for his family. We explored a local toy store for a gift for his son, Ilia. Nothing we looked at really seemed appropriate, that is, until I suggested model rockets! Andrey was quite surprised as he had not known that model rockets readily existed as a hobby item here, and we spent an enthusiastic hour considering what collection of kits and supplies would be needed. The conversation was augmented with some animated discussion of the larger field of high-powered rocketry, the activities of LUNAR and AERO-PAC, and payloads with electronics and cameras. Eventually we settled back down on an Estes America starter kit. Later, after taking Andrey to the airport, I briefly wondered about his rocket purchase and hoped that it would be appreciated by Ilia (and not cause trouble with customs). But soon, the everyday pressures and duties at work drove this subject from my mind.

Several weeks later I received an e-mail message from Andrey that told me of his experience with the rocket:

"The gifts you helped me to choose for my family pleased us very much. And of course I told about the person, who gave me the good advice. Last Sunday we launched the rocket. That was great. We invited some other children, went to the country. We found a large and bald hill and launched the rocket from its top. We made two successful starts using the weakest engines (A8-3). We shot at some angle against the wind, so that the rocket returned close to the starting point. On the third time we decided to increase the altitude of the rocket's trajectory. We put the more powerful engine (C6-5) and decreased the angle against the wind, so we launched the rocket almost perpendicular to the surface. That was really great - the beautiful start, the nice flight, the enormous altitude. Unfortunately the wind was strong enough, so our rocket flew, flew and flew on the parachute and finally reached the nearby forest. We tried to find it there, but failed. Nevertheless we had real fun and all of us enjoyed launching the rocket very much. I believe that was not our last rocket."

In February I received an e-mail message indicating that Ilia has become a real rocketeer. At first he made his own rockets. Then, on a recent trip to London they discovered rockets in some of the toy stores. A camera rocket has been purchased. I'm hoping soon to get an aerial photo of the Russian countryside from about 200 meters!

The Solov'yov Family and friends preparing for their first launch at a site outside St. Petersburg, Russia, Aug. 21, 1994. Andrey's son Ilia is the one kneeling to the right of the rocket; Andrey's wife Irina is standing on the left in the back. In the original photo, the USA decal of the Estes America can be clearly seen on the side of the body tube. (Photo by Andrey Solov'yov, image processing by Lynn Kissel).

LUNAR Regional Contest: Impressions

by William F. Walby, NAR #60661, LUNAR #200

The following are the impressions of a rookie NAR competitor at the LUNAR regional Contest held on the 23rd of April 1995 in Livermore, California.

Let me start by saying that the weather in the weeks leading up to the contest was not conducive to a true testing program. The weather was either rainy or very windy or both. This makes it difficult when you are trying to build most of the contest models from plans or scratch and all you can do is calculate CP's and CG's and test glide in your living room!

The contest had 4 events scheduled: 1/2A PD (parachute duration), B B/G (boost glider duration), C Alt (altitude), and D ELA (egg lofting altitude). I figured on flying the B B/G and C Alt initially and started building about 6 weeks prior to the contest. For the C Alt, I had no real idea of what type of rocket would work best so I decided that minimum diameter, fairly short (to keep the weight down) with well airfoiled fins and a lugless construction were what I could do best. Using suggestions from Stine's book and help from "r.m.r. folks" I put together a nice little model. The B B/G was built from NARTS plans (the Charles) and I managed to get in one test flight each a month ahead of time. I also built a nice CHAD Tower Launcher from suggestions from another r.m.r. reader which worked perfectly. I used an A8-3 for the test flight. The B B/G was not impressive, but I figured with a little more trimming it would work OK.

As the contest date got closer, I decided that I needed a backup B/G so I built a Swift, again from NARTS plans. Then I decided that I should go ahead and enter all the events. Just in time the latest issue of Sport Rocketry arrived with plans for egg lofters!! This was right at Easter so plastic eggs were plentiful. Unfortunately, the current batch of plastic eggs are just slightly smaller than the suggested size of 1.75" or are much bigger at 2.75". I decided to make one of the smaller eggs work. I built a spacer ring and sanded the inside of the egg as much as I could and a 42mm hens egg would fit! I would have to pick my egg using a pair of calipers!

For the 1/2A PD I used the upper stage of an Estes mini Cobra and made a 'chute as big as would fit from a dry cleaning bag. All my entries were finished and I still had over two weeks before the contest. All I had to do was wait for a day with no rain and light winds to test my rockets. Mother Nature has had it in for us lately and this pattern was not to change for the next couple of weeks. During this waiting period I decided I needed a backup for my C Alt rocket so I built a 2 stage design (from NARTS plans) and continued to wait for the weather to improve.

One week to go and the weather was still bad. I did not like the thought of having the majority of my entries flown for the first time in actual competition. But I had no other choice. The weather was still rainy and windy the Friday before the contest. Saturday was clear but still a little windy. I live 90 miles north of the LUNAR site so the weather can be quite different from my home to the site.

Sunday dawned bright and clear AND NO WIND. It looked like it was going to be a great day. I was very excited. The weather at the launch site was as good as anyone could hope for: low 60's to start warming to upper 70's by the afternoon; light breezes all day.

1/2A PD was the first event flown. Lots of different designs; minimum diameter for altitude but not very large chutes to large diameter/lightweight designs with BIG chutes; Mylar chutes, dry cleaning bag 'chutes, stock Estes chutes. Every thing was tried. My own entry flew just fine but lost a lot of altitude before the 'chute finally deployed. Jack Haggerty won with a time of 3:31 using a fairly large diameter model with a large Mylar chute.

B B/G was next. The weather was perfect but the temperature had not warmed sufficiently for good thermals to develop. Again a number of different designs were utilized. Apogee Maximas, Quest Flat Cats, scratch builts etc. Jonathan Dunbar entered a scratch built with built-up wings and tail surfaces covered with tissue. The winning flight was young Travis Massey with a time of 2:17. My first flight of the Swift had a little too much wing tip weight and tightened up in the turns as it descended for a 32 second flight. I took some of the wing tip weight off but the thing never really flew after separation -- too much nose weight? Only stayed up for 11 seconds. The morning rounds were completed and we held sport flights for the next 2 hours. Just time enough to go buy eggs and set up the tracking stations for the altitude flights.

The wind picked up just a little bit during the afternoon rounds, but still very tolerable. C Alt was the most diverse event -- tower launchers, piston launchers, lugged/lugless, blackshaft/paper tubes, balsa/G-10 fins; you name it and it was tried. Some of us used composites, others used BP motors. A number of very good flights were put up and most of the tracks closed. My little scratch built recorded the best altitude of 790.5m on an Apogee C4-7, followed closely by Chet Geyer at 729.5m using the same motor.

D ELA was the final event to be flown. Due to the lateness of the day, everyone would have only one flight to qualify. I must admit that this is one of the more exciting events of the day. As with the other events, there were many strategies employed. The main problem was getting 'chutes to deploy. Kicked motors, separated shock cords, tangled 'chutes, stripped 'chutes, etc. Custom built's, Apogee kits, and Estes kits were all used with varying degrees of success. Many a SPLAT was heard. Only two safe recoveries were made. Travis Massey won with Lynn Kissel taking runner- up honors. We lost many an "Astronaut" this day. But much fun was had by all.

These events are really a challenge and are not as simple as they look. This was my first NAR competition but by no means my last. Many thanks to the LUNAR members who worked so hard to put on an excellent event. Special thanks to Contest Director- Kurt Peters, and Warren Massey for the tracking hardware.

LUNAR Spring Competition

April 23, 1995

SUMMARY RESULTS

Event            First          Second       Third           Fourth

1/2'A' PD        Jack Hagerty   Jon Dunbar   Tim Maier       Bruce Shay
'B' Boost Glider Travis Massey  Chet Geyer   Royce Longacre  Bruce Shay
'C' Altitude     William Walby  Chet Geyer   Jon Dunbar      Lynn Kissel
'D' Eggloft      Travis Massey  Lynn Kissel  (rest were scrambled)

Notes:
  Egg Loft results indicate those competitors who recovered eggs unbroken!
  All other results do not take into account whether the rocket was
    returned or not.
  NAR competition points may be different, based on the qualifications of
    each event.

1/2 'A' Parachute Duration

Competitor            First Attempt             Second Attempt       Total Time
                  timer 1 timer 2 average   timer 1 timer 2 average

Jonathan Dunbar             DQ              0:03:21 0:03:20 0:03:20   0:03:20
Jack Hagerty      0:03:31   NT    0:03:31       No 2nd Attempt        0:03:31
Eric Kleinschmidt           DQ                  No 2nd Attempt
Royce Longacre    0:00:20 0:00:20 0:00:20   0:00:35 0:00:36 0:00:36   0:00:56
Travis Massey     0:00:40 0:00:40 0:00:40       No 2nd Attempt        0:00:40
Bruce Shay        0:00:43 0:00:42 0:00:42   0:00:59 0:00:59 0:00:59   0:01:41
Tim Maier                   DQ              0:01:59 0:02:00 0:01:59   0:01:59

'B' Boost Glider Duration

Competitor            First Attempt             Second Attempt       Total Time
                  timer 1 timer 2 average   timer 1 timer 2 average

Larry Basket      0:01:01 0:01:01 0:01:01   0:00:12 0:00:12 0:00:12   0:01:13
Jonathan Dunbar             DQ              0:00:52 0:00:52 0:00:52   0:00:52
Chet Geyer        0:01:54 0:01:53 0:01:53   0:00:31 0:00:31 0:00:31   0:02:25
Eric Kleinschmidt 0:00:12 0:00:11 0:00:11   0:00:10 0:00:10 0:00:10   0:00:21
Royce Longacre    0:02:12 0:02:12 0:02:12       No 2nd Attempt        0:02:12
Travis Massey     0:00:12 0:00:12 0:00:12   0:02:17 0:02:17 0:02:17   0:02:29
William Sawyers             DQ              0:01:23 0:01:24 0:01:23   0:01:23
Bruce Shay        0:02:01 NT 0:02:01            No 2nd Attempt        0:02:01
William Walby     0:00:32 0:00:32 0:00:32   0:00:11 0:00:10 0:00:10   0:00:42
Daniel Cole       0:00:12

'C' Altitude (1200-foot baseline)

Competitor         Track 1     Track2    Geodesic Method Vertical-MidPoint Method
                   EL    AZ    EL    AZ  Closure  Altitude   Closure  Altitude
                 (deg) (deg) (deg) (deg)   (%)  (feet)  (m)    (%) (feet)  (m)

Larry Basket      43.3  69.4  44.3  75.5   0.1  1905.0 580.7   0.1  1905.1 580.7 
Jonathan Dunbar   57.6  73.2  52.9  55.1   1.1  1949.4 594.2   1.0  1955.8 596.1
Chet Geyer        69.1  56.8  66.4  47.9   0.4  2390.5 728.6   0.7  2393.3 729.5
Jack Hagerty       No Track   47.8  56.6
Lynn Kissel       61.8  59.2  60.0  52.5   0.2  1916.7 584.2   0.3  1916.2 584.1
Eric Kleinschmidt 59.5  55.2  59.1  51.8   1.2  1698.3 517.6   1.4  1697.9 517.5
Royce Longacre    62.6  83.1  49.2  38.6   2.1  1634.3 498.1   2.3  1659.8 505.9
Travis Massey     56.6  65.5  54.9  56.5   1.2  1812.8 552.6   1.2  1810.8 551.9
Bruce Shay        54.2  57.1  55.2  65.8   2.4  1769.3 539.3   2.3  1767.0 538.6
William Walby     59.7  51.6  64.5  78.0   0.8  2593.3 790.4   0.9  2582.9 787.3

'D' Altitude Egg Loft (1200-foot baseline)

Competitor         Track 1     Track2    Geodesic Method Vertical-MidPoint Method
                   EL    AZ    EL    AZ  Closure  Altitude   Closure  Altitude
                 (deg) (deg) (deg) (deg)   (%)  (feet)  (m)    (%) (feet)  (m)

Larry Basket          Not Entered 
Jonathan Dunbar       Not Entered 
Chet Geyer *     53.6  58.7  53.8  59.0    0.2  1579.0 481.3   0.2  1579.0 481.3
Jack Hagerty *   55.0  62.6  54.0  57.7    0.6  1688.6 514.7   0.6  1688.1 514.5
Lynn Kissel      32.4  59.6  31.9  58.6    0.7   734.2 223.8   0.4   734.3 223.8
Eric Kleinschmidt*36.0 62.4  35.8  63.4    1.3   953.3 290.6   0.8   953.4 290.6
Travis Massey    43.9  55.7  43.3  55.6    1.3  1012.5 308.6   1.0  1012.7 308.7
Bruce Shay *     53.8  58.5  50.0  50.7    2.1  1313.7 400.4   2.0  1317.3 401.5
William Walby *  70.4  52.6  64.6  37.9    0.8  2030.8 619.0   1.5  2039.0 621.5

* = Egg not returned (intact)

bits and pieces...

LUNAR Dust

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Firefox order

At the next club meeting (May 18th) and launch (May 27th), Warren Massey would like to meet with any individuals interested in getting together a group Firefox order. (Firefox is the chemical supply house for things like igniter/thermalite/motor makings.)

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Lost & Found

A turquois men's jacket was left at the April launch. Contact Warren Massey to claim it. The club still has three rockets left over from the March launch which were apparently given up for lost by their owners. They were turned in by conscientious club members while out looking for their own lost rockets.

The first two are understandable as to why they were lost, but the last is surprising. First is an Estes Mosquito with a black body and gold nose cone and fins. The body also has an, uh, creative gold pattern on it. Mosquitos often get lost just by their sheer speed and tiny size.

The second rocket is an Estes Turbo Copter with the nose cone missing. Of course, that's the part that helicopters back, so we can see why someone might lose sight of the body while watching the neat part come down. This one has some nifty sparkly rocket decals on it near the top of the body.

Finally, the surprise, is an Aerotech Tomahawk. The surprise comes from the fact that this is a big (45") expensive ($40) kit, and the owner still managed to lose it! It has the Aerotech S/N sticker on it (SN-8901401455) but that doesn't do us much good. All three of these are being held by V.P. Jack Hagerty who has a few words on how to prevent this from happening in the future:

"On all my rockets I have a return address sticker. I bought them from one of those mail order places where you can get 200 stickers for $4.95. You can put any message you want on those things, not just your name and address, and you can get quite a few characters on a line. On mine, I have 'IF FOUND PLEASE RETURN TO:' on the first line in all caps, then my name and phone number on the second line, then my street address on the last two. You can get these on all sorts of backings from regular paper (in white or a rainbow of assorted colors) to metal foils and colored plastics. For myself I got black letters on clear plastic film since you can place it over almost any color paint job (except very dark ones) and it still shows through. This has the added benefit on scale models of looking like some sort of 'official' markings which, come to think of it, it is!"

Letters to the Editor

Thanks for the encouragement...

Dear Editor -

I attended my first LUNAR launch on Sunday, and I thought it was great! I brought my nephew and his dad, and when we arrived, I took one look at your great flying field and all your well organized activity and joined LUNAR on the spot!

I especially liked the way that you accommodated the entire range of participants and made everyone feel welcome -- all the way from a little girl launching her first A-engine rocket to the big "kids" with their G and H motors. It looks like LUNAR really provides an opportunity for newcomers like me to see the full range of the hobby and a clear path for moving up as we learn.

Keep up the great work, and I'll see you at next month's launch!

s/Dave Redell

Lynn's Theodolite Box

Lynn's Rocket Box

Please send your comments to Lynn Kissel, lkissel@starship.org.
Information date: Feb. 23, 1997 lk