The Range Head

by Jack Hagerty, LUNAR #002

Welcome to the new year! Before we go any further, I need to let you know that I'm open to new names for this column. The one above just sort of popped into my, uh, head and it seems rather cutesy, but maybe you won't take me seriously if I use it!

The LUNAR board of directors met in early December to discuss all the usual flotsam and jetsam that goes into running an organization like this. Don't worry, though. This won't be one of those marathon features like in the last issue, I'm just going to touch on each of the subjects that will be affecting the way you fly rockets with us from now on.

One of the items was a change in the dues structure. The amounts aren't really changing that much, but how we collect them is. Previously, people joining LUNAR had to pay a full year's dues when they joined (even if it was November or December) and then got another dues bill in January. The board agreed to a pro-rated dues arrangement where we broke the year into thirds and will now charge $15 for adults joining in January through April, $10 from May through August and $5 from September through December. The Youth/Junior/Senior dues were modified slightly to make them divisible by three so they would also fit into this scheme, namely from $3/4/5 per year to $3/6/9. We've also eliminated the "family plan" as being an added complication which would be difficult to deal with at the sign-in table.

This plan was approved by unanimous vote of the board but our parliamentary watchdog, Warren Massey, has checked the bylaws and it seems that we need a vote of the club members at large to enact it. For that reason, we're having our first general membership meeting since Royce Longacre's talk on finishing techniques last June!

The subject of the meeting will be to vote on this bylaw change, of course, but we also have to vote on the more mundane issue of club officers. After that, though, we have mainly fun issues like NARAM, our two potential contests, Larry Baskett's "theme" launches and lots of other stuff that fell out of the meeting. Here's the short version:

1. Launch Schedule - Our launch schedule is pretty much fixed for the year now. Mark Weiss has negotiated an all-Saturday schedule with LARPD. The actual calendar is on the back page (if Lynn follows his normal layout). The only date still a bit undecided is June. The June date was originally set for Sunday, June 22, so I suggested that this would be a good time to have the evening launch I brought up last year in order to move it back to Saturday. Someone pointed out that if the idea was to be launching rockets from twilight into the dark, that this would be the latest day of the year (being the solstice) to do so!

2. Gold Cards - Robert Taylor introduced the "Gold Card" concept to our launches in October. He picked the idea up from his visit to the Tripoli "Hayburner" launch in September. Basically, any time you volunteer to take on a range job (RSO, LCO, Sign-In Table, etc.) you are issued a Gold Card. This gives you the privilege of going straight to the front of the line when you're flying for the day. The card is good for the entire day and Robert is working on some prototype cards that we can rotate from one launch to the next, probably changing the color each month.

3. Theme Launches - Larry Baskett came up with the idea of theme launches. This isn't the same as a contest launch; it's much more informal. The idea is that we'd have a theme at each launch like Classic Rockets (old kits), Scale Rockets, Clustered and/or Staged Rockets, that sort of thing. There may or may not be prizes depending on how ambitious we get. There should be an article by him elsewhere in this issue if his schedule at Stanford allowed him the time to do it. One note for you cluster fanciers: One of Larry's suggested themes is "Mini Motor Fest" which is to see who can cram and successfully ignite the largest number of the Estes mini (13 mm) motors. If you decided to get really ambitious, you should realize that the "H" motor limitation on our field will limit you to only 128 "A" motors or 256 of the "1/2 A" motors...

4. Contests - OK, this one really is about contests. We only had one contest last year, so I'd like to redeem ourselves and get back on track to our "normal" two per year. Another suggestion (which seems to come up each year) is that LUNAR mount an expedition to NARAM this year. A couple of Larry's suggested themes (see previous item) is that we hold un-judged contests as practice runs for some of the NARAM events. This is easier to do than having an actual gen-u-ine sanctioned NAR contest. Let's see a show of hands of those willing to be Contest Director for a day!

5. New RSO procedures for High Power - This is the most serious item discussed at the meeting. Last February we had our first (and so far only) "incident" that resulted in property damage. However both before and since that time we have had several close calls. With the steady encroachment of houses to our south and the increasing number of spectators that come out to watch, we've decided to tighten up on our RSO procedures for the bigger models.

Dave Redell has taken on the task of drafting the new procedures and is basing them on those used by Tripoli and other clubs that fly a lot of HPR. I'll leave the details to his article (probably next issue) but generally, we'll be splitting the RSO checking duties into two jobs, one like now that does a cursory check of the smaller models to make sure the fins are on tight, the motor is in the right way, etc., and the other being an extensive examination of the larger rockets. This HPR RSO (or whatever the title is) will be checking for not just structural integrity, but also weighing the rocket to compare the lift off weight against the recommended maximum weight for the motor. Also, if it's not a kit, the flier will have to present some sort of documentation to show the location of the CP so it can be compared to the CG.

There was a spirited discussion as to where to put the dividing line between these levels of checking. In the hobby in general, "H" motors are the point considered the start of the High Power range, but in our case, that's as high as we can go. We were just going to limit the new procedures to "G" and "H" impulse levels, but countering that was the fact that nearly all of the the near misses of both property and people have been on "F" motors, especially the notorious Aerotech F14. Therefore, we decided that all rockets carrying total impulses of 80 Nt-sec and up will be checked under the new rules.

When these new rules will go into effect is not certain, depending on when Dave finishes his draft and the board reviews/approves them, but some sort of increased checking should start right away at the next launch.

That's it for now. Hope to see you all at the meeting. The schedule as I type is to have it on Thursday, January 23 at 7:00 PM at the public meeting room of the Livermore Police Department building. However, this may change, so be sure to check the hotline (510-443-8705) or our web site (www.lunar.org) for the latest date/time/place before coming out.

Information date: Feb. 23, 1997 lk