Entries by DOC R. (814)
Great showing at Freedom Launch...
Monday, September 5, 2011 at 7:12PM Thanks to all who made the trip down to O'burg and showed the colors!
Sandy sent me a couple of videos, they're up on the YouTube page (link to the right) and if you have more photos or a good story send 'em on to me at rocketrycarolina at gmail dot com, we'll get 'em up.
dr
Freedom Launch info (Thanks Roy!)
Wednesday, August 31, 2011 at 7:20AM Are you experiencing Rocket Exhaust Withdrawl symptoms?
I suggest attending “Freedom Launch”, the annual East Coast Rocket Meet
Hoasted = by the Orangeburg NAR (ROSCO) and Tripoli (ICBM) Chapters.
Web site = WWW.tripolisc.net.
Since the Farm crop season is keeping us out of the farm for a while yet, I strongly prescribe a road trip this “Labor Day” weekend ( 3 – 4 – 5 Sept. ) to Orangeburg SC.
Doc Russell has previously said this is like an annual pilgrimage for most of us and even if your not planning to fly, it is well worth it to go and just watch the show.
Multiple venders available for those things that you haven’t been able to get hold of for a while.
Fliers have come from as far North as Maine as far south as Florida and as far west as Texas.
Fliers or groups who have a rocket project that they can only fly once a year, and want it to be seen, bring it here. So you can always expect a show.
Not to say that there are no Low or Mid Power fliers. The kids can outnumber the adults.
Usually, they have at least 12 or more Low Power pads set up with 12 or more Mid Power and High Power pads, and about 4 High Power Away Cells.
So there is usually no back ups with plenty of pads available.
Directions to Freedom Launch.
From the Charlotte area. (The Orangeburg club flies off a “Super Sod” Farm)
Travel Time = from I-77 at Harris Blvd is 2 hours 40 minutes
Take I-77 South to where it ends at Columbia SC.
Merge off the end of I-77 onto I-26 South.
Take I-26 S to Exit 154A (Hwy 301) towards OrangeBurg.
The Super Sod farm is only about ¼ to ½ mile on the Left.
Staying over? (ask for Freedom Launch discount at the Days Inn across the street.)
Days Inn, 1-803-534-0500, Across the I-26 Hwy from the site, Minimal services but has a pool.
Quality Inn and Suites 1-803-531-9200, Exit 145A south (Hwy 601) off I-26.
3671 Saint Matthews Rd (Hwy 601). More services and restaurants within walking distance.
There are many other places to stay at the same exit, 145A off I-26, do a Map Quest for a list.
Flight Fee = $10 a day and maybe $25 for the weekend.
Sat, 3 Sept and Sun, 4 Sept. ( Information as known at this time, more info may be forthcoming )
Sport Launch. = 10 am till 7:00 pm.
Open to all fliers up to their Certification Level. Levels “0” thru “3”
Those wanting to make cert Flights need to make arrangements with available judges.
Ceiling of 10,000 ft daytime. Expected flights over 6,000 ft need to check with Safety Officer first.
Sunday night is the Night Launch (always a good show) 7:30 pm till 9:30pm.
Rockets must be illuminated throughout flight with a 3,000 ft altitude waiver.
Monday, 5 Sept, (Labor Day) ( Information as known at this time )
Research/Experimental flights.
(A slower laid back day with longer prep times followed by fantastic flights.)
Tripoli Only, Cert Level 2 and 3 Research/Experimental flights.
Tripoli Only, Certification flights of Level 1 to Level 2, and 2 to level 3.
Tripoli Only, Cert Level 1 can launch sport flights with Certified engines only.
Hope to you all out there wearing the ROCC “T” shirts, show the colors dudes!
Roy, ROCC Sec.
Scout Launch set for August 13th
Tuesday, August 2, 2011 at 7:12AM Sandy sent me a note that he's arranging a Boy Scout demo & participatory launch, currently set for August 13th at the Belk Scout Camp.We'll need 3-5 volunteers to make this a go. (I think we did it wth 4 last year. It was postponed for a day by the very high winds we had.)
16 or so scouts 20-25 rockets.
August 13th (Saturday) 10:00-1:00.
ROCC members are welcome to help out and do demo launches. We can fly MPR rules. Altitudes over 1000ft are probably not a great idea for people who haven't seen Belk before. They like to see stuff up close rather than way high and the field is fairly narrow. It's a good A-E field provided you don't put a C engine into a Mosquito.
So post in the comments section if you can join in the fun and let us know. Set-up will probably be around 9 in the morning but I wil verify that with Sandy.
dr
USLI going on this weekend in New Mexico
Friday, July 22, 2011 at 3:55PM Just wanted to give a shout out to all of our USLI folks... for those not in the know, here's a link to a short music video highlighting the projects.
More info from the NASA website:
NASA University Student Launch Initiative, or USLI, is a competition that challenges university-level students to design, build and launch a reusable rocket with a scientific or engineering payload to one mile above ground level, or AGL. The project engages students in scientific research and real-world engineering processes with NASA engineers.
Interested teams may send faculty and/or student representatives to one of two Advanced Rocketry Workshops. The participants will be introduced to the University Student Launch Initiative and High Powered Rocketry. Additionally, participants will build and launch a high powered rocket to complete a National Association of Rocketry High Power Certification. Interested teams should contact Julie Clift (Julie.D.Clift@nasa.gov) to sign up for a workshop.
NASA Advanced Rocketry Workshop (co-hosted by the New Mexico Space Grant Consortium)
Dates: July 20-23, 2011
Location: Las Cruces, New Mexico (launch location will be Las Cruces, NM
Students propose to participate in USLI during the fall. Once selected, teams design their rocket and payload throughout the academic year. USLI requires a NASA review of the teams' preliminary and critical designs. The project also requires flight readiness and safety reviews before the rockets and payloads are approved for launch. Teams complete a Post-Launch Assessment Review to include conclusions from their science or engineering experiment and the overall flight performance. The Preliminary Design Review, Critical Design Review and Flight Readiness Review are conducted by a panel of scientists and engineers from NASA, NASA contactors and external partners.
The top-placing teams in USLI are invited to participate in USLI Level 2, which requires teams to design and build a reusable rocket and launch to an altitude of 10,000 feet AGL with water recovery at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia.
NASA Student Launch Projects are sponsored by ATK Aerospace Systems. The annual launch event is hosted at Bragg Farms in Toney, Ala., and launch services are provided by the National Association of Rocketry.
Good luck all!
dr
New PIX
Thursday, July 21, 2011 at 6:51PM I got around to putting up Roy's photos from SciPower 2011... sorry it took so long!
Check 'em out in the Gallery....
DR
No launch scheduled for this weekend
Thursday, July 14, 2011 at 9:27PM Due to the crop situation and the lack of rain we are will not have a launch in July.
360 degree VR tour of Shuttle Discovery
Tuesday, July 12, 2011 at 7:19AM OK, I found this on Boing-Boing. It's very cool... a 360 degree virtual reality tour of shuttle Discovery's flight deck, shot in very high resolution while it's being processed to go to a museum. LINK
Enjoy....
DR
ROCC members - represent!
Monday, July 11, 2011 at 8:57PM ROCC’ers at "Sci-Power", Orangeburg, 4th of July weekend launch
It was great to see a lot of us down at the ICBM and Rosco Clubs, Orangeburg 4th of July weekend 3 day launch.
Saturday the range opened at 10AM with good conditions then later the winds kicked up about 4pm where we then got up launch’s between wind bursts, which was the leading edge of a storm front for the rain showers that forced us to call it a day at about 6 pm. Of course, just 5 miles down the road it was bone dry.
Sunday was really great overall. There were only low to mild winds that had no overall affect on launching.
Monday was somewhere between the wind conditions of Sat and Sun.
Besides the Tripoli L-2 and L-3 Sport and Research/Experimental flights, Tripoli L-1 members were able to fly certified engines. That kept things fairly busy, but laid back.
Of course, all three days were hot and humid. Lots of fluids and sunscreen were highly recommended and in use.
There were no tree landings that I can think of, only one large launch flight draped across the big sprinkler pipes.
Hey, think of this as a test run for Freedom Launch, Labor Day weekend in September.
There were 3 or 4 vendors there. Ken was really trying to sell as much of his bulky stuff as he could to make room for cases of about 50 new certified engines and new Cessaroni engines.
There were probably some club members or frequent ROCC fliers that I didn’t notice but I got all I could to tell me if they had any special flights or what they were planning on besides just taking advantage of the open skies and fields.
I got a few pictures that I will get to Doc, there was one guy and his dad from Raligh or Ashville, I forgot, but his dad got a lot of great pictures that I hope he can send to Doc at rocketrycarolina at gmail dot com.
Malcom Smith was there and had a number of flights but nothing special that he wanted to list separately.
Spencer Thompson and his parents were there and I happen to have his "D-Region Tomahawk" ROCC Raffle prize from a couple of months ago to hand over. After a TARC season of stressful prepping flights, he spent the weekend just flying for the fun of it. I know that a few of his flights were of his TARC rocket, the "Schmetterling".
Roy Potter, well I paid, or provided the sacrifice to the rocket gods by being the first flight of the weekend Sat morning with the "Stars and Stripes" on a G64 that came in ballistic with no ejection. Delay burned but did not ignite the charge. I’m pretty sure that I over greased the forward closure and plugged the tiny hole with grease. The rest of the weekend I flew "Thumper", the rear ejection "Target Drone" that caught the curiosity of a few fliers. Also the "Arcas", "Bumble Bee", the "Canadan Flag", the "Union Jack", the 4inch Estes "V-2" and a few lowpower flights.
John Metcalf noted that he plans to fly all Cessaroni engines. Besides other flights he listed flights of a "Mini Darkstar" on a G115-WT, its bigger brother "Darkstar" on a H118-CL, "Wild Child" on a F29 imax, the "Super DX3" on a I204 imax and the "Xcellerator" on a J293-BS for a L2 certification attempt.
Steve Morris and his daughter, who along with the other kids had a lot of fun in the huge puddles, only listed one special flight of a "Graduator" on a G40, but also flew his "Pop-Out Hang Glider" rocket and other flights with his twin spinning chutes.
Mark Ferrell had listed special flights of "Sweet" on a J420-R, a "Baby Betty" on a I154-J and possibly an "Endeavor".
Louise Ferrell flew her "Onyx" (there were a bunch of them out there), but a freak fast build-up of exhaust deposit on the exhaust nozzle seemed to cause it to "Sky Write" and "Land Shark" on a engine it has flown on many times before. Her "Forte" and very pretty rebuilt "Mini Mag" all had good flights.
Mike Garner all the way from Asheboro, listed special flights of a "Guardian" on a G65-7G and a "Norad" on a Promax J350 for a L2 certification flight.
Keith Biddinger along with regular flights, listed his special flights as a "Endeavor" on a J575-FG and a extended "X-LX-Calibur" on Fastware G and H motors.
Sorry if I missed anybody, but remember, we get to do it again next September during the Labor Day weekend, Freedom Launch.
Roy, ROCC Sec.
SCi-Power information
Sunday, June 26, 2011 at 3:28PM From Roy Potter: (THANKS Roy!)
Don’t forget the 3day day “Sci-Power” 4th of July weekend Launch at the Orangeburg club site.
Directions to Sci-Power
From the Charlotte area. (The Orangeburg club flies off a “Super Sod” Farm)
Travel Time = from I-85 at Harris Blvd is 2 hours 40 minutes
Take I-77 South to where it ends at Columbia SC.
Merge off the end of I-77 onto I-26 South.
Take I-26 S to Exit 154A (Hwy 301) towards O’Burg.
The Super Sod farm is only about ¼ to ½ mile on the Left.
Staying over for Sci-Power? (ask for Launch discount at Days Inn)
Days Inn, 1-803-534-0500, Across the I-26 Hwy, Minimal services but has a pool.
Quality Inn, (formally Comfort Inn and Suites) 1-803-531-9200, Exit 145A south (Hwy 601)
off I-26. 3671 Saint Matthews Rd (Hwy 601). More services and resurants in walking distance.
Flight Fee = $10 a day (and maybe $25 for the weekend.)
Multi Venders on site.
They are advertising a drag race with Performance Hobbies 7.5 FatBoy and Wild-Man Kentucky.
Sat, 2 July and Sun, 3 July.
Sport Launch. = 10 am till dusk 6:00 pm.
Open to all fliers up to their Certification Level. Levels “0” thru “3”
Those wanting to make cert Flights need to make arrangements with available judges.
Ceiling of 10,000 ft daytime. Expected flights over 6,000 ft need to check with Safety Officer first.
Saturday night is the Night Launch (always a good show). 8pm till 10:00pm.
Rockets must be illuminated throughout flight. Has a 3,000 ft altitude waiver.
Monday, 4 July. ( Info as known at this time )
Research/Experimental flights. (A slower laid back day with long prep times and fantastic flights.)
Tripoli Cert Level 2 and 3 only Sport flights.
Tripoli Certification flights of Level 1 to Level 2.
Hope to see you all out there wearing the ROCC “T” shirts, show the colors dudes!