Elsberry, MO HPR Launch Field Availability
The land owner in Elsberry, Dick Mayes, said they had their best year ever. He said in about 2 weeks we should be able to fly rockets - maybe the weekend of Oct 24 and 25. I mentioned we planned to ask the FD to join us as well (as we did fireworks with them once before I joined). My neighbor's nephew is (at least was) the fire chief there. So I can ask my neighbor to contact him for us. The farmer started harvesting some beans, but is waiting aagin till tomorrow to see how they are doing. I also asked about flying SO-SO (Marvin's ride) in Elsberry and he said we "can shoot whatever you guys want to". I did e-mail them a link to videos and sent some pics as well. I went on to ask if we could let folks in town know so they could come to watch. I told him that I suspected it would be spring before we would try that and that we had to be 2,000ft away.
From Dan Welling
Addieville, IL HPR Launch Field Availability
Spoke with the Addieville Farm Folks today.
If the fields stay dry, we'll be able to have a launch there in a couple of weeks...they are harvesting the beans now and the corn soon to follow.
I'll keep you posted.
From Don Hanson
So, we need to see when folks want to try to do a HP launch.
Launch controller
The club decided based primarily on David's research and the reputation of Bdale and Keith to go with the Altus Metrum product. However ... David saw a Wilson FX launch controller in action and fell in love with it. If I recall correctly, it is a chunk less costly than the one from Altus Metrum.
Trailer
While we have a great plan for how we are laying out the trailer, it has not been started. We want to foam between the inside walls and the skin - to keep it from rippling in the wind and make things more firm. Anyway, it is not close to being ready to use. David Pape is getting a quote for spraying foam into the walls. Buying 2 part foam to fill the walls will cost us over $900 in materials. Another option is to pull all the inner walls out and use 1" pink foam board. That will cost about $100 ish. Great Stuff would need (if their estimated volume is correct) about $50 of material. So even if we double that, it would be in the same neighborhood as puling the walls.
The underside of the floor is non-treated wood. It needs to be sealed in some way. We have a few options.
At some point we want to add some eyes or hooks for hanging printed banner (like a flag but with grommets on all sides) to display on our trailer while not on the road.
The layout of this trailer will be very functional for both local launches and for attending regional/national events.
TRA news
At the prefects Zoom meeting last week the BOD announced a few things:
Some attempts at defining what is and is not allowed regarding homemade electronics - particular for anything controlling energetics - by means of implementing new rules has been tossed out. (Bob Brown was pivotal in making directors see the probable pitfalls of the new rule.)
TRA is changing certification rules for lapsed members. TRA is NOT doing the same as NAR - once certified, always certified.
TRA will let you keep your cert for up to 5 years of being lapsed. But for L2 and L3 the member must take and pass the L2 written test.
TRA is getting more formally involved in IREC with ESRA and Spaceport - so rules regarding safety will likely reflect that. I asked if/how that would impact students doing research projects outside the parameters of TRA.
Lastly, there are some newly certified motors out. Quest has a composite C18W and D20W that both use thier new "fast white" formula propellant. Aerotech has a long burn motor certified now. The K76-WN-P has a 20 second burn time - yes, 20 seconds as in a third of a minute. Hmmm..night be something to consider for the final 2 outboard motors on the retro-futuristic rocket project. That would extend total continuous burn time from 18 to 30 seconds. To see details go to thrustcurve.org
OK, really lastly, TRA is likely going to quarterly Zoom meetings for prefects ad TAPs. At the prefects meeting there were 32 folks online and it was not chaos (and the moderator did NOT have to mute people) lol
