Next Month... Contests! (from Sandy, NAR advisor)
Wednesday, March 28, 2012 at 9:34PM In the coming year, we’d like to hold a few contests for members who might be interested. There is a ton of information about contests at www.nar.org and the rules are available for download or on-line viewing in ‘the pink book’ http://nar.org/pinkbook/index.html . It can be somewhat overwhelming at first, so to hopefully get a few people’s feet wet in the vein of NAR contest flying, we’re going to have an un-official contest following NAR rules to hopefully get a few kinks worked out.
The events to be held on the weekend of April 21 and 22 are as follows:
B-Altitude. Any rocket that can normally be flown by the safety rules is allowed to fly with a total of B impulse. This includes clusters and staged rockets. Scoring is based on the highest altitude.
C-Payload: Similar to B-Altitude, this competition is open to rockets using up to C impulse. A fixed payload must be installed in the rocket’s payload section and the rocket flown and recovered successfully. The standard payload is a cylinder that is nominally 19mm (3/4”) x 70mm (2 3/4 “) and weighs at least 28 grams (1 ounce). These will be provided and must be returned without modification. If you have a sport flier without a payload section, one can be fabricated quickly with spare parts body tube, tube couplers etc).
Set Duration: This contest allows any rocket that qualifies as a model rocket (under 3.3# up to G impulse 80Ns or less impulse) to fly. The goal is to meet the contest defined duration, which for this contest will be 55 seconds.
Spot Landing: This contest is open to any single staged model rocket (under 3.3# up to G impulse 80Ns or less impulse). The goal is to land the rocket as close to a spot picked the morning of the contest.
In years past, ROCC did not have the equipment available for optically judging altitude events, so they were rarely flown. In recent years, the NAR has allowed certain altimeters to be used for contests. A list of these altimeters is available in the back of the pink book. If you have one of these altimeters you can fly it in the contest. If not, 3 Jolly Logic Altimeter One’s will be available to use for the altitude events of the contest. Please make every effort to secure these altimeters well and recover your rocket!
The Altimeter One measures 0.47” x 0.64” x 1.93” and weighs 0.24 oz. It can be tied to the shock cord of the rocket and fits into BT-20 or larger body tubes. Three holes 1/16” in diameter need to be added to the bodytube/payload bay to sense altitude.
Hopefully the above has piqued your interest and you’d like to participate in the contest dry run. Check the website for anything that might come up or to ask questions. Lastly, for official NAR contests, you must be a NAR member, but since this is a dry run, any flier is welcome to join in. Hopefully you enjoy the challenge and choose to become a NAR member in the future.
Sandy H.
More information is included in the .pdf file in the "Contest Info" section to the right...
ADDITIONAL: We will be having a Night Launch on the 21st (Saturday) for about an hour. Rules are in the Contest Information section to the right. If you've never been to one of these they're really cool. Even a small rocket puts out a large exhaust plume, much larger than you'd think. Read the rules and get working! Doc R.