Tuesday, November 25, 2008 at 4:40AM A single SCHLAGE key on a Red Guitar pick looking keychain was found at the ROCC Rocket Launch this past weekend in Midland, NC . Ralph has it at his house, email him at roccprez@bellsouth.net if it is yours. Thanks, Ralph Roberts ROCC Prez
News Saturday, November 22, 2008 at 3:04AM Everyone: UPDATE - New Portable Propane heater has been acquired and will be at the launch today. Thanks again to the Prefecture Improvement money we will have an additional heat source for today. So come on out it is going to be a great day, just cold. Dress in layers and get out your wool socks. ISS flyover from 5:28PM to 5:34PM - Saturday Night Nov 22. Courtesy of WWW.HEAVENS-ABOVE.COM here are the specifics. Date Mag. Time Ang Dir. Time Ang Dir Time Ang. Dir 22 Nov -2.0 17:28:47 10 WSW 17:31:39 62 NW 17:34:33 10 NE For those of you who have not seen a International Space Station flyover, it is a pretty cool event and with the Shuttle docked and the Leonardo Cargo Module docked it is expected to be a pretty bright pass considering it will not be totally dark yet. So come check it out. With soybeans still in the front 1/3 of the field we are going to plan on flying anyway with setup back at the Windsock area. One, note, wind conditions will be light today and blowing down the runway and/or towards Simpsons place. It looks real good for today and tomorrow. Official launch announcement: Saturday and Sunday November 22th and 23th from 10:30 to 5:00 each day - Setup starts at 9:30 ROCC Sport launch Vendors: Ken Allen from Performance hobbies will be available both days. Steve Harring from the new Hobbytown USA will not be out this weekend due to being too busy at the store. Ralph Roberts and Family will be the food vendor (bringing the grill to sell Hot Dogs, Chips, and drinks (Hot Chocolate) Meetings: We will have a meeting both days promptly at 2:00pm, no slacking off this year. Topics: ROCC Elections, need to make nominations for club offices. Election to be held at the December launch. Confirm the 2008-2009 Schedule for setting up the waiver. Doug we need to file the 2009 waiver ASAP NAR Contest: Make recommendations on what kind and when for 2008-2009 season 2008 Membership drive kick-off New T-Shirts are in make sure if we owed you on from last year, that you received. Roy, bring cash box as we owe Mark Ferrel money. NAR Contest: Will need help to run the contest table. Events selected are: "A" Streamer Duration, "A" Parachute Duration, "1/2A" Boost Glider, Spot Landing, and Drag Race. Spot Landing target will be determined by the first young person flying a rocket - the recovery location of their rocket (if not unsafe or otherwise hazardous) will be the target location. Please note that neither Spot Landing nor Drag Race have specific engine requirements. Drag race is done in heats 2 fliers at a time - these fliers then are paired up again and fly off until only two remain and then they fly off for 1st and 2nd. 3rd and 4th place fly off for 3rd. Winner of each heat is determined by First off the pad (1pt), Lowest (1pt), longest duration (1pt). Bob advises that smaller motors are cheaper! We'll have to figure out the details of who is flying so that we can work out the flight pairings. Prizes again this year are for a $10.00 giftcard from one of the Vendors and NAR Ribbons. Raffle: Recently we acquired some Rockets and Hardware from a person getting out of the hobby. We will have a raffle to give away the goods and to raise money for the club. There is some good stuff including motor hardware. (Roy if you have tickets bring them out for the raffle. Duty Roster: I will have new sign-up sheets for the launches through April next year. Sign up to help, please. Porta-Potty: Will be serviced and ready to go by Friday. Flyer-Fees: Please come out and fly and pay your fees. Recommended $8-$10 donation a day per flyer. We still have to pay the land owner for the use of the land. Note: Keep an eye on email and the website WWW.rocketrycarolina.org for any changes regarding our launch. Questions, comments - Ralph Roberts @ roccprez@bellsouth.net Sincerely, Ralph Roberts ROCC Prez and prefect.
News Tuesday, November 18, 2008 at 9:00AM Everyone: I want to start by saying that don't ever say that Brad and I don't do Crap for the club. Brad found us a great deal on a Porta-John through Craigslist, the gentlemen was local and delivered it to the Farm for $50.00. How cool is that? I washed out 5 years of Wasp nest and general grunge. It cleaned up quite well. I contacted A.L. Lowder and worked a deal for a once a month servicing for $25.00 a month, that�s a $55.00 a month savings. We can now all be relieved that we have this problem behind us thanks to Tripoli Prefecture Improvement money. Thanks, Ralph Roberts ROCC Prez
News Saturday, November 15, 2008 at 2:41AM Just a reminder..... Due to Beans still in the field, Rain, Strong Winds, Snow in th Mountains, Tornados and severe weather on the coast, a full moon, and now an extremely wet field. There will be no launch today and tomorrow. We are now planning on next weekend. The Rocket Gods are mad for some reason, it was just not meant to be... Ralph Roberts ROCC President and Prefect
News Friday, November 7, 2008 at 1:43AM Everyone:
As we approach our 2008-2009 Flying season for ROCC I wanted to take a minute to update everyone on a few issues and outline my personal plans for this year.
I hope that this year will be as busy and that most of you will be able to come out and support the club as this countries economy has gone in the tank. I hope most of you are avoiding the huge mess and financial shake up. I know personally how this can affect leisure activities such as going out to movies, restaurants, sporting events and hobby activities. My hope is that since we have been in our summer break mode that folks have had time to acquire new rockets and motors and are just ready to fly. Our first launch is slated to be a busy one with our NAR contest and several folks wanting to cert. Plus, we have several ROCC business issues to confront, nominations and elections for club offices for the 2008-2009 Flying season, Flying schedule review, and FAA Waiver renewal. Plus, we need to finalize spending with our Prefecture improvement program that has to be completed by November 30th.
Which brings me to my bad news for the time being. (Please read on.....)
News Tuesday, October 28, 2008 at 11:28AM Sorry the site was down for so long. I'll not relate the long and sorry details -- this is a family site and the story can't be told in a G or even PG-13 version, but it's back now. Just in time to start planning the November launch!
News Thursday, October 23, 2008 at 7:31AM Due to physically moving the server, the site may be unavailable for some time on Friday, October 24. After, the move it will be in a reduced state for a short time longer while the server is transferred into a new chassis. We'll keep this as quick as possible, but ya'll know Murphy's Law.
News Thursday, October 16, 2008 at 3:16AM Everyone: I've poled the officers of the club plus a lot of the regular volunteers and even some new members who have recently joined and I have had only two replies regarding suggestions for the weekend. So, I can only assume that since we did not have an official activity this month everyone is taking a pass. OK, that leaves next month. I will contact Kip and see if I can get an ETA for the soybean harvest to make sure we are on for Nov. 15th, 16th, fortunately November has 5 weekends this year and Thanksgiving comes late so our rain out weekend is clear as well. The key event for the November launch will be the NAR contest. Here is Brad�s write-up from the ROCC group on "Our Planet" site regarding the rules. Events selected are: "A" Streamer Duration, "A" Parachute Duration, "1/2A" Boost Glider, Spot Landing, and Drag Race. Spot Landing target will be determined by the first young person flying a rocket - the recovery location of their rocket (if not unsafe or otherwise hazardous) will be the target location. Please note that neither Spot Landing nor Drag Race have specific engine requirements. Drag race is done in heats 2 fliers at a time - these fliers then are paired up again and fly off until only two remain and then they fly off for 1st and 2nd. 3rd and 4th place fly off for 3rd. Winner of each heat is determined by First off the pad (1pt), Lowest (1pt), longest duration (1pt). Bob advises that smaller motors are cheaper! We'll have to figure out the details of who is flying so that we can work out the flight pairings. Other notable activities will be nominations for ROCC 2009 club officers, 2009 Membership drive, New raffle and auction for some HPR items acquired just recently. Vendor note: Ken Allen from Performance Hobbies will be down on Sunday ONLY, he will be splitting time with the Bayboro launch that weekend. Look for more to come soon. Thanks, Ralph Roberts ROCC Prez
News Tuesday, October 7, 2008 at 12:03PM Everyone: Doug sent the good news that he received the check from Tripoli HQ yesterday. So we need to get busy, we have 60 days to spend it. Here is our laundry list of items we requested the Grant money for. 1. Apply money to purchase of our own Port-John and have a service company service it at a reduced rate, say $25.00-$40.00 a month vs. current rate of $65-$80.00. 2. Acquire materials and pay for the labor to repair 3 launch heads and built one new one. 3. Acquire a Solar Battery Charger to avoid carrying batteries to and from our launch site between launches. Keep the batteries from cycling as bad. 4. Acquire some additional Shade canopies and some provide shade protection for our guest at launches. 5. Acquire a Portable Propane heater to provide some warmth during the winter months since that is our main flying season. So lets get busy and have everything ready to go for the November launch. Ralph Roberts ROCC Prez
News Friday, October 3, 2008 at 4:37PM I know this was really on Tuesday, but I didn't want to get in the way of the 4H thing, and it sounds like that was a HUGE success! NASA had it's 50th birthday on Tuesday, and astronomy picture of the day had a great shot of the first launch from Cape Canaveral... a Bumper-V2 HBD, NASA!
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