LUNAR’clips 2002                        Volume 9, Number 6

Copyright © 2002 by LUNAR, All rights reserved.

The Range Head

LAST MONTH

Those of you who couldn't make the November launch sure missed a good one! The weather was absolutely ideal, after the fog burned off around 9:30; not a breath of wind all day and the temperature reached into the low 70's. Easily the best weather we've had all year!

We had several school groups out flying with us, including two "Team America Challenge" schools. This swelled our ranks to the point that we had a significant Low Power line nearly all morning. To try and shorten the line, I tried another "24-up" mass launch, only to discover that we really can't do that yet. I guess it will have to wait until we finally get the capacitor launch setup on all four racks.

Also last month, we planned our calendar for next year, to the best of our ability. I am surprised that the new houses across the way are not yet occupied, so we plan to continue flying HP from the Robertson Park site for a few more months. The schedule still has to be approved by LARPD, so I'm not going to post it here, just in case it changes. Look for it on the web site, and in the next issue. I'll have more to say on the matter a little further down when I talk about the new field progress.

NEXT MONTH

Our meeting next month will be our annual election of officers for the year. At the November meeting, I opened up nominations for the board positions. None of the existing board members has told me that they want to be released from their contracts, so the current slate of officers is standing for re-election. However, that doesn't mean that someone else can't volunteer to take over one of the jobs (it happened last year). Nominations will remain open until the January meeting, right up to the time we vote.

NEW FIELD PROGRESS

In October, Charles Winter and I visited the ranchers outside of Tracy that is willing to let us launch from their property. We drove the perimeter of the field with Charles' brother, Bob, running a GPS plugged into a laptop to map the area. This property is just past the Altimont Pass, on the Tracy side, but still in the hills. We'd have to be very careful with aiming and wind since the field we'd be launching from is less than a mile from the freeway (although the prevailing winds are away from the freeway).

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