Livermore Unit of the National Association of Rocketry       May/June 2000

Jack Hagerty, LUNAR #002

MAY MEETING

This month's meeting will be at the usual place (the Carnegie Building) at the usual time (7:30 to 9:30) on Wednesday, May 17. This will be our semi-annual auction where we sell off items from the lost-and-found box that have been unclaimed for more than six months. Bring the kids and a handful of change (most of the rockets go for under a dollar. Something that will go for more than a dollar are Lynn Kissel's motors that he donated to the club earlier this year. We sold off the black powder motors last March and will be selling the single use composites this time.

WHAT IT'S ALL ABOUT

Those of you who couldn't make it in March missed a good one! Yes, the night launch last month was fun, but March was something special. I can't remember a launch which had such uniformly spectacular flying weather the entire day: absolutely cloudless and windless with mild temperatures. Even though we got started a bit late (due to my being about 10 minutes late to start the setup...I tell you guys that we need an equipment coordinator!) we ran a bit long to compensate. We had a total of 228 flights which is far from our total flight record but a huge number of those were high power flights. In fact, we expended a total of 12,690 N-seconds which set a new record average of 54 N-sec per flight, firmly trouncing the old record of 47 N-sec set in November '98. To give you some idea, usually the number of "upper half" motors (D through H) flown is about half the number of "lower half" motors (1/4A through C). This time it was almost exactly equal with 109 upper vs. 119 lower. For the first time in club history, the High Power line was longer than the low power line!

The launch prompted Ron Galien (LUNAR #796) to send in the following missive:

I've got to agree with you Jack! Not only was the weather spectacular, there was a wonderful crowd also!! All of us fliers stated that this was one of the best LUNAR launches ever! Everyone was having a great time and smiles were painted on faces everywhere! I guess we can call that one the SPRING FEVER LAUNCH! I've been to several other group launches in the area (BAYNAR, The boys in Fresno, Apple Valley etc). LUNAR is without a doubt "The Rocketeers Choice." The environment is always very family oriented and it holds strong to the All American family values!!! LUNAR is tops. Thanks for an awesome time at the launch Jack!!! I am hooked!

Ron, you have no idea how much a letter like this is appreciated! It really makes all of the hours of work running stuff, dealing with agencies and writing newsletter columns worthwhile! We must be doing something right if people get this excited even after standing in lines that long!

MORE POWER!

The record high power turnout in March prompted the board to go ahead with filling the last six holes in our launch console and approve the building of six more high power pads. The problem is that our equipment trailer is already filled to bursting and we have absolutely no space for a full set of pads (6), cable reels (12) and another crate (blast deflectors, signs, trash buckets). We held a virtual board meeting where we came up with a set of criteria for the new pads, not the least of which is that they all fit in the trailer! Our equipment maven, Bill Orvis, is coming up with a relay launcher design which would actually save us some space if we expand it to the low power pads as well. I'll keep you all informed, and maybe Bill can give us a progress/design report in the next issue.

HISTORY IN THE MAKING

Also in March we also got to participate in a national event of a reasonably historic nature. This year is the 40th anniversary of the Estes "Alpha" kit. To mark the event, there is a program to circulate a pair of freshly build Alphas, signed by Vern and Glida Estes, around the world to be launched. The coordinator for Northern California is our own Bob Fortune who brought the pair out and flew them, in volley, off of Pads 7 and 8. They flew on A8-3's and it was as perfect a demonstration of precision flying that I have ever seen with models. They both ignited simultaneously, flew in the same arc and both ejection charges popped at EXACTLY the same time. I have NEVER seen two Estes motors that consistent! It probably helps that Vern's signature was on the outside :-)

(click to see complete image)

MARK YOUR CALENDAR

LARPD has requested that we move the September and October launches back a day to their following Sundays in order to accommodate soccer playoffs. This is completely in keeping with our agreement, and, in fact, I grateful that they gave us this much warning (they really only have to give us two weeks).

So please note that the September launch will be on Sunday, 9/17 and October (that's the next night launch) will be Sunday, October 22.

INSURANCE WOES RESOLVED

I'd like to put in a big public "thank you" to NAR president Mark "Bunny" Bundick and his staff at Headquarters for their magnificent job in getting the insurance crisis resolved in such an expeditious manner. If you may recall, the NAR lost its insurance suddenly last March when the carrier went out of business unexpectedly. In less than a month they were able to secure a new policy and get it in force with no lapse in coverage and no increase in price. I've sent the details to Tom to publish in a separate article so as to not take up too much space here.

Well done, all!

MORE MONEY STUFF

As long as we're talking about money, some of you seem to be interested in the income and outgo of the club treasury.

This all came about in a discussion with a member about gold foil.

For several years we've had a "Contributing Member" category which is just a regular adult membership but at double the rate ($30) for those who wish to make a contribution to the club. We would acknowledge those members by printing their name in gold foil on their membership cards since Warren Massey, the original membership chairman, used a laser printer to do the cards.

Well, Tony Cooper, our current membership chairman, uses an inkjet printer and can't do foil. After some discussion we decided to drop the "Contributing Member" category since the club really doesn't need the money. This lead to a discussion of club finances that I thought some of you might be interested in.

The whole thing was started back when Kiwanis was wavering and LARPD wanted to raise our field rental from $25 to $100. We decided to raise the adult dues from $12 to $15 to cover things, and added the Contributing Member category to let those better off members help out if they wanted. Mark Weiss (LUNAR #001) talked LARPD down to $50 for the field (in exchange for the right to bump us with as little as two weeks notice) which seemed to be enough to offset the loss of Kiwanis. We must be providing a pretty good value since people are coming out of the woodwork to fly with us, and we get the occasional "attaboy" letter like the one from Ron Galien above.

The launches come close to paying for themselves out of flight cards alone. If you figure that maybe 1/3 of our 200 flights each month are done on the freebie cards I hand out to youth groups and as "salary" to range workers, that's still 130 paid flights of which 40 are HP ($40) and 90 are LP ($23). The HP flights almost pay for the field and the LP flights pay for the meeting room. The shortfall is made up by the daily walk-on fees. That's not how we budget it, of course, but it's an interesting coincidence. Your dues, then, go mostly to pay for the newsletter, equipment repairs and upgrades, and incidental items like the hotline phone line, annual domain registration, etc.

The club treasury usually has between $4,000 and $5,000 in it which allows us to do things like equipment upgrades and new High Power launch pads without having to hold a bake sale. Treasurer Sheryl Cooper prepared a financial statement for last year for anyone who's interested. I have some copies or you can contact her directly.

T-SHIRTS AND STUFF

I know I promised a follow on article on my ideas for a T-shirt, hat and other logo stuff concession, but I'm just flat running out of room here. Next time for sure.