January 28th & 29th make-up launch UPDATE Friday eve.

I've been hoping but it hasn't happened... our FAA Waiver has not returned in time. I was hoping it would arrive but now that it's past 7:00 pm it's not going to get here for this weekend.

This will be a straight-up FAR 101 launch.

Nothing above a "G", nothing above 3 lbs basically. Sorry folks, I was really hoping it would be here in time.

Ralph spoke to Ken who was planning to come out on Sunday. He's going to give us a call tomorrow and see what kind of crowd we have. If you were counting on getting something on Sunday let Ken know on your own and that may sway his decision.

Ralph also has some other comitments tomorrow so Che' Roberts' will likely not be open on Saturday, plan accordingly.

dr

We've rescheduled our January launch to the weekend of the 28th & 29th, set up time of 9:30, flights to commence as soon as the field is ready. The weather for Saturday looks foggy to start so we will need to have that burn off a bit. Sunday looks fairly decent, but the whole weekend looks breezy.

Friday looks like rain, so "squishy" rules apply, ie drive carefully down the sides of the runway, and check the site before leaving for the field just in case it's too wet to park on the field.

Elections we are going to try to do through the website. I am working on a ballot form that you can send back to the site instead of trying to take time out of the weekend and get every one together at one time.

We met as a board over last weekend and cleared up some issues as to insurance. We will be flying under NAR sanctions from now on unless there is a compelling reason to run a launch under TRA regulations, but from 2 hours of discussion it doesn't seem likely. For our field and the cross section we have it makes better sense and we're better protected going under NAR. There will be a release form for folks to sign who aren't NAR or TRA members however. This was one of the main problems that started the whole insurance mess, a spectator who got injured by being where he shouldn't have been.

Non-NAR &/or non-TRA flyers will be limited to "C" engine flights.

Remember that all memberships for ROCC expired at the end of 2011, if you haven't renewed then you need to do so, and there will be a compelling reason to do it....

We have reviewed our policy on flyer's fees and have made a decision that we hope will benefit everyone. We have always used the model of a voluntary fee, trusting to folks to pay what they could when reminded. That has not worked as well as we would have liked, with some folks putting in a lot, essentially subsidizing the launch heavily, and some none at all. Where that leaves us at the end of a weekend is sometimes scrambling to get our minimum field rental made.

We are going to move to a mandatory flight fee of $5.00 for ROCC members and $10.00 for non-members per flight day. For parents with children under 12 the kids will fly for free, and the parent, if flying, would pay their own flight fee. We hope that this evens out the burden of making our field rental fees, we think that it will. We are going to try it for a few months and see how it works and, if it's not working, we'll try another approach.

There will be a flyer's meeting before the flight line opens and reminders throughout the day of a lot of things, but we are striving to make the event as enjoyable as we always have. We want you to have a good time and be safe while doing it.

As Roy says, "See you all on the flight line..."

dr