April 2009 Launch Report

Well did everybody have a good time at the April Campout Launch weekend? Conditions the Saturday was pretty great overall. Mostly sunny with high clouds, some light winds that we worked with using longer delays for more fall time for lower chute deployment, streamers for less drift and slight angle adjustments into the wind. Barley growth surprised us also at 18 inch�s or greater that tended to swallow whole rockets and chutes. By next month it will be 2 foot or more. Wind, We did have a few drift far, far away, some recovered, some not. Hind sight is so 20-20 after the launch when you know, I should have angled, longer delayed, smaller chute or streamered the rocket. But over all we had a great launch that Saturday the 18th of April.

Click to read more ...

May Launch Announcement - Changes

Bad News - No New Field (yet) ----------------------------- We are unable to use the farm this month due to the barley crop maturing and the potential for damage to the crop from people recovering rockets. The "new field" looks to be on hold indefinitely due to lingering insurance questions by the field owner. We are going to continue to work on this but don't hold your breath. So for this month we're going with plan B. Plan B1 - Scouts! ----------------- Those who are interested in hanging out with some scouts and flying LPR and maybe a D or an E can join the scouts in their launch on 5/16. In addition to flying you might want to bring some cool rockets and plan to talk a bit about the club. If you are interested in helping promote ROCC and help the scouts fly some rockets please let me know. Details of this are located in this http://our.rocketryplanet.com/group/rocc/forum/topics/may-16th-boy-scout-launch thread. I will post additional info as soon as I can talk with David. Plan B2 - Orangeburg! --------------------- Those who are interested in flying higher than the local scouts field will allow may want to make a trek down to Orangeburg South Carolina. They normally don't fly on our weekend but since Mom's day falls on their normal weekend it was shifted. This is a Tripoli event with a commercial launch on Saturday 5/16 and a research launch on 5/17. Anyone can launch on a commercial day. Sunday is a research day and only Tripoli members are permitted to fly no matter what type of motor is used. An L2 is required on top of Tripoli membership if you wish to fly research motors. Tripoli offers an option to join the same day and fly that day on the field. Directions to the field in Orangeburg can be found here: http://www.tripolisc.org/modules/sections/index.php?op=viewarticle&artid=3 Club Meeting ------------ Is there any interest in a club meeting? Assuming we are still having problems with the field Paul and Sandy and others have cooked up the idea of some topics in building techniques. It would be nice to learn what folks might be interested in so we can plan accordingly. Our group is a big tent with interests that range from simple LPR, competition flying, MPR, altitude junkies, oddroc builders, scale modelers, etc. Let's try to find something that appeals to each group. MPR motors are still available Ken Allen has other commitments and will not be attending our launches again until Fall unless somehow we have a change in either his or our scheduled dates. He did leave some Single Use F and some AMW/Pro-X G motors and cases for me to hold. List is located here. These are being sold by Ken and I am only providing a home for them and transport to/from the field. I am happy to do this since we have no vendor on site for a few months. Several people picked up a few items I've updated the list to reflect this. NAR HPR Competition Rules This is officially announced now. The official (provisional) rules are located here. I would like to discuss flying one or more of these at our next launch. Thanks Thanks to all who help make this a great club. We have had good participation with setup and tear down and plenty of additional help in other areas. Pat yourselves on the back - you make this club a great place to have fun. Sincerely, Brad Shea ROCC President roccprez@rocketrycarolina.org Thanks ------ Thanks to all who help make this a great club. We have had good participation with setup and tear down and plenty of additional help in other areas. Pat yourselves on the back - you make this club a great place to have fun. Sincerely, Brad Shea ROCC President roccprez@rocketrycarolina.org Read more here: http://www.rocketrycarolina.org and here: http://our.rocketryplanet.com/group/rocc

Click to read more ...

New Field - On Hold for now.

I finally got back up with Mark Wilson (new site landowner) today/tonight, he and is brother (apparently a co-owner) has "Major" concerns regarding the Insurance he wants to get to allow "any groups" to play on his field. It�s not just us but for others: RC flyers, Horse Back riders, etc. There is no cheap way for him to get the insurance that would allow for cheap use of the field. (IE, it�s just not worth the hassle) I have put an APB out to TRA to try to get him the info he needs to hopefully work out some other dates just for us, but for now it is a no go. Sorry, if we got the hopes up too high, I thought it was a done deal, just needed to work out Waiver and Insurance forms for the field... Thanks, Ralph Roberts

Click to read more ...

1:10th scale Saturn 5 project

LAST UPDATE 8:37 am, Sunday 26th The Akron Beacon Journal has the story. UPDATE 4:46 pm, okay, I should have kept looking before I posted the last update ... RocketryPlanet has the video. UPDATE 4:35 PM Photos are starting to show up on Flickr: here and here. UPDATE: 3:48 PM Gizmodo has pictures. UPDATE as of 1:14 PM.... SHE RIDES!!!! Ralph just called me, said that our own Corkey is up there, He called Ralph and he got to hear the launch at about 1:00 PM. First indications are that it flew beautifully, reached approximately 5,000', and recovery was essentially as planned. Mark Canepa is also there as the official photog and photos are expected.... COOL!!!! As most of you know, Steve Eves and his giant (40 feet) Saturn 5 will attempt to launch todat between Noon and 2:PM. I was trying to find a source for a live stream but haven't yet... Here's some links to the story: Record Launch Attempt For Model Saturn V Rocket This is the main Rockets Magazine site link This is a page with a great shot of what appears to be a crowd gathered to see it, I think it's a photoshop, don't know... And Gizmodo's site: I'm sure that the video will be posted shortly after the event, I'll keep looking.... DR

Click to read more ...

March Post-Launch report

Well the March ROCC Rocket launch went off really great for the whole weekend. The weather was really as close to flight perfect as you could hope for. If there had been any real strong breeze or winds we would have had many rockets just drift off on thermals. My �NASA� only weighed 11 ounces with a 32 inch chute that just hung there and went up and down like an elevator for the longest time, but didn�t drift very far into the field to the left of the runway. It was warm enough that we were down to club T-shirts for a portion of the days also. Saturday we had a very busy day with 47 fliers signed in and flying rockets. Some of the names I had to get off a flight slip when I didn�t find their name on the flight �Sign-In� sheet. PLEASE, remember that each person who flies, needs to sign-in on the roster (neatly so I can read it) and fill out a �Flight Slip� for each individual rocket flight, even if your flying the same rocket more than once. (As a note, we almost came up short for the rent. Remember to donate to the jar at the sign-in table. That goes to the land-owner.) Those 47 fliers had, by the end of the day, made 135 separate flights. That�s almost 3 flights each average. Please hit the "Read More" button for the entire listing:

Click to read more ...

Launch Ending Early Due To Weather 4/18/09

Due to rain, we've ended the launch early today. So if you were planning to come out late, you're too late. See everybody next month!

Click to read more ...

April Launch Preview

Campout Time! The Magazine is Open!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Through a lot of phone calls, Internet searches, and Brad's hard work with the ATM group at his bank. We found a gentleman in CA that knows this lock and safe. Through some recommendations, persistence, and prayer the lock finally powered up as designed and Ralph was able to open the center lock. We are in!!!!!!!!!!!! So come and fly your stuff, no excuses. Ralph reminded me that next month is the date we picked for the annual ROCC Camp-out launch. If you are interested I am starting a discussion thread about the event. No On-site Vendor - But a Few motors are available Ken Allen has other commitments and will not be attending our launches again until Fall unless somehow we have a change in either his or our scheduled dates. He did leave some Single Use F and some AMW/Pro-X G motors and cases for me to hold. I will post a list and prices. These are being sold by Ken and I am only providing a home for them and transport to/from the field. I am happy to do this since we have no vendor on site for a few months but I am not interested in carrying a lot of stuff. Setup Time The days are longer now that the sun is staying in the sky later. Do we want to switch to an 11am setup and Noon start? On Sunday's in particular the crowd does not show up until later in the day in the first place. Food I suspect that we will see some baked goodies from our friendly TARC team members. NAR HPR Rules As some may have known I have been serving on the team drafting the NAR HPR rules. I have not been the primary contributor - just a guy to bounce ideas off of. I'm not 100% thrilled with where things have gone but it's a start. I have a draft of the rules available. I will try to post these online later this week. I am interested in running one or more of these as a provisional event. I would love to see this happen in April - let me know if this works in the discussion on this topic. Help! As always help out as much as you can. We're going to need RSO/LCO's and we'll need help on the setup and tear down. Sincerely, Brad Shea ROCC President roccprez@rocketrycarolina.org

Click to read more ...

Happy 50th

Well, it's going to make me feel really OLD to post this, but 50 years ago... on April 9th, 1959, NASA introduced to the world their 7 Mercury Astronauts! Happy Anniversary! In other news, there's new stuff on the site.... There's some new photos from Jim Nielsen, with some more from John Bergsmith to come in a few days, a new membership form and a new ROCC FAQ under the "About Us" link. Look around, see if we forgot anything!

Click to read more ...

Pictures from March 2009

Jim Nielsen sent some pictures from the March Launch, which are now up on the pictures page. Thanks, Jim!

Click to read more ...

Brad could use a hand

Brad Shea called me earlier this morning (Wednesday) wondering if anyone could help out at an event to feed the homeless at Hickory Grove Methodist Church on Thursday afternoon around 4:30 pm. If you can, and would like to do this, please get up with brad via his ROCC address of roccprez@rocketrycarolina.org (or any of the other email addresses he has I guess!). Thanks!

Click to read more ...