The Range Head, March 2000

Jack Hagerty, LUNAR #002

After spending the past four months trying to educate everyone that our meetings this year will be on Wednesday, we wound up with one that's back on a Thursday. Aside from the date (March 16), it will be at the usual place (the Carnegie Building) at the usual time (7:30 to 9:30). After this month, all the rest of the meetings for this year will be on Wednesdays.

Those of you at the last meeting know that the auction was spiced up by Lynn Kissel's donation of his entire motor stash to the club since he's going to be in Washington for a couple of years. We only sold of a small fraction of the total donation last January, so board member Eric Kleinschmidt and I spent an afternoon inventorying the whole lot. I asked the board how we could best use this windfall to the club's benefit. The suggestions ranged from door prizes at meetings to just selling them outright at launches. The winning suggestion, though, was to auction them off a few at a time at each meeting, so that's what we're going to do starting in March. Note that this is in addition to our "regular" auction where we sell off models from the Lost & Found box that have sat more than six months. To give you some idea of what's involved, here's a summary of the collection: 20 black powder motors ranging from 1/2 A to F50. 14 single use composites ranging from C10 to G80. 37 reloads for an 18/20 casing ranging from B6 to E27. 20 reloads for a 29/40-120 casing ranging from E16 to G64. An 18/20 casing A 29/180-240 casing system (1 set of end closures with 2 casings). I'm proposing that we auction them in that order with the BP motors in March, the single use composites in May (along with our "normal" auction), the 18/20 reload kits in July, the 29/40 reload kits in September and, to finish off the year, the casings in November (along with our other normal auction).

There's one other item to address at the auction. Those of you who read the national magazine or check out the "Rocketry Online" web site may have noticed a big advertiser over the past few months called E-Hobbies. This is a new "e-commerce" startup that is trying to be for the hobby world what Amazon.com is for books. They have done a pretty good job of saturation advertising in the magazines (and not just rocketry) plus direct mail. Recently they had an interesting direct mail campaign where they sent a small hobby box full of goodies to each NAR president and section advisor. It's a small red utility box (a bit small to be a range box, but would be good for tools and hobby supplies) that was full of advertising stickers and promotional items plus a T-shirt (adult XL, I don't know whether to be insulted or not!). There were no strings attached to any of this, so I'm going to throw it into the auction this month. In exchange I figure they deserve a plug, so I'll tell you that they can be found on the web at www.ehobbies.com, but note that this is just a plug, not an endorsement. Neither I personally nor LUNAR can say anything about this company one way or the other. Perhaps if one of you could check it out, let me know and I'll pass on the experience. In the mean time, we have more stuff to auction off.

I got a long e-mail from NAR president Mark Bundick which was sent out to all section advisors. It seems that the NAR's insurance carrier, Sport Fliers Associates (SFA), has quit the business. This was a small, family run company which was started specifically to insure model airplane hobbyists, but later took on rocketry as well. Unfortunately, the founder of the company died of a heart attack in early February and the rest of the family decided they don't want to continue the business.

[Side note: it seems strange to me that you can simply close the business and walk away from contractual obligations like that, even if you refund the unused portions of the premiums]

The current insurance will stay in force until April 5th which means that the March launch is not in jeopardy. He is frantically trying to line up a new carrier prior to that date so that there will be no lapse in coverage. If not, we'd have no choice but to postpone the April launch (which is the night launch) until the new policy is in effect. Note that SFA was just the agent. The actual underwriters of the policy is a company called GAINSCO and they are very much still in business, so Mark is trying to work with them directly, at least as an interim measure until a new agent can be found. Those of you who want to see the entire story, it's on the NAR website (www.nar.org) and on Rocketry Online (www.rocketryonline.com). If you don't have web access, let me know and I can either e-mail or paper mail it to you. Those of you who have e-mail but aren't signed up on our announcements list yet, I strongly urge you to do so. This situation could change daily in April, and that's the fastest way for my getting the word out.

Taking the optimistic point of view that we're going to be set my mid-April, let me remind everyone of the Night Launch on April 15. Yes, I know that's supposed to be tax day, but you get two more days this year. We'll devote this month's meeting to questions and answers about flying at night, and to answer a big one up front, elsewhere in this issue is a copy of the actual FAA regulation defining nighttime anticollision systems for aircraft. Part of our waiver with the FAA says that any rocket flown at night has to meet this regulation. Before those of you who like to fly X-Ray's with a little battery and light bulb in the payload section start getting nervous, you should know that we interpret this to mean that only rockets that require the waiver (i.e. over 1,500 grams total liftoff mass or 128 grams total propellant mass) require the strobe lights as well. As you can see, the standard disposable camera strobe that most of our night fliers use already meet or exceed the FAA requirement.

After being down for the past few months, the LUNAR hotline, (925) 443-8705, is again in operation. This is a general purpose announcement line which most of the time just tells the caller the dates of upcoming events. On launch day, though, I update the message to say whether we're on or not due to weather, etc. Those of you who come some distance are encouraged to call and make sure everything is still a "go" before heading out. I update the message by 7 AM on launch day, which is when the final decision is made.

We have some interesting events coming up in addition to our regular launches for those of you who like to help out/show off to the public. The new Chabot Science Center is being built in the Oakland hills above the old observatory (this, by the way, has nothing to do with the college in Hayward except that they're both named after the same guy). LUNAR has been asked to give a presentation and possibly a demonstration on opening day which is currently scheduled for June, but will probably slip. Those of you with killer hardware might want to bring some of it out for display. They are even thinking of putting up a permanent (or at least long term) display which would be under glass.

A bit later, in October, there will be a two day "space camp" put on the Bay Area Boy Scout Council to help scouts earn their Space Exploration merit badge. One of the requirements is to build and fly a model. The plan is for up to 200 or more boys to be attending. There will be lots of adults to help out, but they will be completely inexperienced about rocketry. I'll be giving them a seminar ahead of time, but we're still going to need some help getting that many kids into the air safely over two days.

I'll be telling you more about these as they firm up. The best way to learn about them first is, again, to sign up for our e-mail announcement list "LUNAR-announce" which helps me stay in close contact.

Many of you have noticed that the LUNAR old timers have T-shirts and hats with the logo on them, and have wondered where to get one. Well, right now the answer is "nowhere." It's a long story that I won't bore you with, but I am looking for someone to spearhead the "logo stuff" concession. I'll say more about this in my next column.