June launch OPs - Sunday Update

FINAL PLAN for June 19th & 20th UPDATE - More favable winds will help this afternoon with recovery in the South fields. Winds will be very light anyway. The Setup will still be toward the back of the runway. Much further than normal. Due to short corn in the very back right field and the way the corn rows are planted it may help with recovery. I would recommend you bring your shade tarp due to the heat and sun. We will fly from 3:00 till 7:00 BOTH days with the hope that winds will die down in late afternoon. We'll set up kind of 90 degrees from the runway into the field to the south to give us some drift space. If you look at the site on Google maps it's easy to see that if we don't get wind from the right direction, that is from the right (north) of the runway we can't recover. Set up will be at 2:00 - 2:30, launching to commence right after set-up. This will be a LOW POWER launch due to the restricted field size. If you come down in the corn on the north side of the runway it's very doubtful you'll see your rocket 'till the FALL! Reef those 'chutes and use streamers everywhere you can. FINAL WEATHER UPDATE:Wind forecasts as of FRIDAY NOON have pushed our favorable wind shift to Monday, which means that winds will be very unfavorable on Saturday, barely tolerable on Sunday. It will be HOTTT!! Bring plenty to drink. Temps will be into the 90's. STAY ALERT to the site for further updates, especially Friday nite.

Click to read more ...

Look to the skys

We're still hopeful for a launch window in June, but I need some input. Anyone been out there recently to see just how tall the corn is? I wanted to let you in on a resource and some sighting opportunities for seeing the ISS fly overhead. Follow this LINK to find the next few days ops, as well as into the rest of the month of June. Remember also to go visit the ROCC Store and score some great items with the ROCC logo on them. We've got clocks, bags, hats, and my fave the Journals for all of your flight notes and designs. DR

Click to read more ...

Nice Flight

The May launch was windy but nice with the winds keeping to forecasts almost spot-on. They held out of the south west and west till almost 5, but were a force to be reckoned with all day. Losses were relatively small, with Brad losing track of a small rocket with (I believe) a D30 in it which we had in sight till it went through the clouds, and Bob lost his sidewinder nosecone in the barley fields. We thought Malcolm had lost his new Magnum after a ballistic decent but after about 30 minutes of looking it (well, to be honest, the remains of it) was recovered in the mid-chest-high barley about 40 yards off the far end of the runway. Otherwise it was a light turnout, but I think several folks made Ken's trip worthwhile (I'm lookin' at you, Doug). Last I saw the professor was literally stuffing a very large ammo box with motors. Thanks to all who turned up early so we could get a good flying day in under less than ideal conditions. Looking forward we might be able to get in a June launch at the farm if the wind is back to it's usual direction, the barley being out, and replanted with soybeans and the corn being not TOO tall... stay tuned. DR

Click to read more ...

Shameless comerce division

Those sharp-eyed among you may have noticed a new link on the left there, the ROCC store. Yes, we have a small selection of ROCC-branded merchandise that is for sale through the website. I tried to stay away from Mark Farrell's product line as much as possible, (turns out he can do bags as well so we might want to think about expanding our offerings that he does for us), but there are things he doesn't do in there as well so go have a look. The club will make a few bucks and you can have a nice reminder of your crazy buddies that chase rockets through the corn fields!

Click to read more ...

May Launch ops

May 8th UPDATE AS OF FRIDAY @ 10:00 PM Current Wunderground winds forecast is still for winds from the SSW to W (210 degrees EARLY shifting to 270 degrees) favoring the un-barley'ed side of the field untill about 4 - 5 PM, then shifting from the northwest between 5 and 8 PM. The plan is to set up at 9:00, with flight ops starting at 9:30 or 10:00. We can fly till either 7:00 or until the wind kills us with the barley crop, whichever comes first. The earlier you fly the better your chances it looks like. Ken WILL be on site so BUY STUFF!

Click to read more ...

April 2010 Launch Report

Welcome all Rocket Dudes and Dudettes. I want to again thank those who are providing us with photos of our launches. If you have any and would like to get them posted on the web site for our embarrassment and your entertainment contact Doc Russell at docr@wireknot.com or jeanr@wireknot.com. Or as some have done, pass it on a disk or flash drive. We can always get it back to you. Saturday�s weather, temperature wise, was great with clear skies, but it came at the cost of being pretty breezy with occasional gusts pushing the last weather front out. It settled down some in the afternoon like it usually does, but not as much as we were hoping for.

Click to read more ...

Outreach events

Our prez Brad will be attending a den meeting on 4/22 to help some scouts learn about rockets and also help them build some. Later they will be launching (date yet to be determined). If anyone wants to join in this will be in the University area around 6pm. Then, on the 27th, A small group of scouts in Indian Trail / Monroe has asked for help doing a small launch near Radiator Specialty. They want a quick show and tell and then 7 scouts need to launch. (From Brad...) "I'm trying to determine if this is worth breaking out the launch controller for - I think one set of PVC or saw horse pads and a single launcher might be a better fit. Any thoughts welcome as well as anyone able to help." 6pm or so - details will be shared if anyone is interested. Contact Brad on both of these.

Click to read more ...

April 17th and 18th

Looking forward to the April launch everybody? UPDATE - SATURDAY MORNING Note: The field to the left of the runway/parking area is planted in Barley and at this point it is growing up fast, smaller rockets may be hard to find in the Barley. With the wind blowing rockets into that area this weekend please be aware. Bring streamer material to add to our recovery. It will help. With Wind Gust Saturday, as the front passes through, to 20-25 miles per hour and low humidity we are at risk for Fire Danger. We may need to limit Sparky motors and only fly rockets with know flight profiles. Everyone please fly wisely. CAMPOUT this month!!! No fires on the ground but bring your firepits or BBQ's, your vittles and your telescopes. If you remember we're going to be running the H egg loft contest during April, as well as our continuing run of the golf ball loft. The H egg loft rules are spelled out on the NAR website here . I'd like to restrict the hours for the H egg loft to between 1:00 and 5:00 pm if possible. I know that if I have to be there to run the show I'm good for that amount of time both days. I will bring stopwatches as well as my gram scale, so that we can weigh the eggs before flight, and I will bring a carton of 18 grade-A large eggs. I will say that at least 10 of those are spoken for between Wayne, Sandy and I, so if you want to be sure I have eggs for you then please let me know at rocketrycarolina@gmail.com. If you want to bring your own grade-A larges that's OK as well (hence the scale!). The golf ball loft is our just-for-fun contest to see who can get the longest duration flight on a B engine. There's a nice prize from Paul Phillips' carbon fiber glider company up for grabs at the end of it. Right now, unless there's a result I don't know about, I have the lead at 1 minute and Roy Potter's right behind me with :58 seconds. Stewart Samuel had a great riff on it by doing a NERF football loft in March. It gave me a great laugh! Remember, Ken will not be with us (he's at Red Glare) so I hope you shopped for supplies over the last few months. If not, you can contact him directly at the Performance Hobbies website but do it soon so he can ship it. Next to the last thing... We're on You Tube! I got 1 of Sandy's videos up on Friday. I'm playing with the bit rates and such to try and get the best balance of speed and resolution. Our "channel" is located here. If you search youtube.com for rocketrycarolina, without the space, you should find it as well. There's also a video up there from someone who came out to visit us and had a lot of fun. As always, thanks for all who make this a great club. Please step up and volunteer your time in some way, either as set-up/tear down, RSO/LCO, or some of the many outreach opportunities there are out there. The old saying is still good, "Many hands make light work". Remember also to sign up with Rocketry Planet to participate in the ROCC blog. Thanks, Doc Russell, ROCC VP

Click to read more ...

March Launch Report

Welcome to all Rocket Junkies and Nerds. Our March Launch this last 20 � 21 March was pretty good overall. Saturday was T-shirt, shorts and tennis shoe weather. It started warm in the morning and ended up in the mid 70�s by the afternoon. Winds started real mild early in the morning then picked up with some strong gusts through the rest of the day. We did have a lot of good launch�s including 4 �I�s� and 2 �J� flights. Sunday we had Scout Pack 163 come out for a Pack launch, up until the rains drove us out at about 3:30. Continued thanks to those who are providing us with photos of our launches. If you have any and would like to get them posted on the web site for our embarrassment and your entertainment contact Doc Russell at docr@wireknot.com or jeanr@wireknot.com. Or as some have done, pass it on a disk or flash drive. We can always get it back to you. Not confirmed, but how about a �Camp-out� launch weekend next month? Sat, 20 March we had 44 listed fliers that put up 101 flights with an average of 2.3 flights ea. Counting multi stagers and clusters we had burned 111 engines. A= 4. B= 21. C= 14. D= 9. E= 16. F= 5. G= 26. H= 8. I= 4. J=2. Wanting to insure the safety of both the spectators and fliers alike, we upgraded our Range Safety standards by making specific assignments of a RSO, Range Safety Officer to pre-inspect rockets before flights and the LCO, Launch Control Officer to check range conditions and control the launch�s in a timely and efficient manner. Check both the WEB site and at the launch for info on volunteering for LOC and RSO shifts. It�s great for anybody who isn�t flying that day but wants to take part anyway. For the Play-By-Play, click the "Read More" link...

Click to read more ...

Joint Statement on the BATFE Litigation Legal Fee Recovery Motion

March 27, 2010 On Friday March 26, Judge Reggie Walton of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled on the TRA/NAR motion for recovery of the legal fees we incurred in our successful nine-year case against BATFE regulation of APCP. The judge rejected the government's argument that we were not entitled to any reimbursement for our attorneys fees. However, he ruled that we will only be reimbursed based on the artificially low hourly legal rates established for use in federal court cases, and only for legal work performed after the Court of Appeals remanded the case back to Judge Walton in 2006, including legal work on the fee recovery motion itself. The amount will likely be less than half of the $196K that we had requested (the amount we requested if the court would not grant recovery at an enhanced fee rate), but will still be substantial. The exact amount corresponding to the judge's decision has not yet been calculated. This re-calculation will need to be re-submitted to the judge by April 16, and for payment at some date yet to be established after an April 30 BATFE response to our submission. Ken Good President Tripoli Rocketry Association Trip Barber President National Association of Rocketry

Click to read more ...