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FIRE & SMOKE! 
September 2010
Alabama Clubs - Updates - Announcements
HARA - Next
launch will be September 11th in Manchester, Tennessee. Visit the club website at: http://www.hararocketry.org/ for more information.
SEARS - Join
572 at the field in Samson, Alabama September
11th for Patriot Day. Visit
http://www.sears572.com/ to see photos, reports and what's coming up next!
*SEARS president Greg Lane also invites you to join them in the
SEARS chat room every Thursday at 7 PM Central to discuss rocketry and the latest info. about the hobby.
AMERICA!
CP / CG Relationship
cp = center of pressure
cg= center of gravity Balance
It's been an interesting
and disturbing 6 weeks in the hobby rocketry world. There were 2 major "clusters" (if you get my meaning) recently
on a couple of the internet forums. The first one being the possible sale or shutdown of Rocketry Planet.com, due to
a personal attack on Darrell Mobley, for basically having an opinion on his own forum. For those who don't know
Darrell, he has owned and operated two of the best rocketry websites on the internet since Al Gore first put
two cans and a string together. His first site was Rocketry On Line and for the last several years, Rocketry
Planet. Darrell has had a run of bad luck recently and after providing the rocketry community with great sites and
many FREE services to help grow the hobby for more than a dozen years, to have people who enjoyed the free services figuratively
"spit in his face" was a bit much to take, so Darrell had recently offered RP for sale. His health was also being adversely
affected not to mention his bottom line. Fortunately, the RP forum membership has shown support for Darrell and it now looks
like he will continue the site. That's good news to Verna & I and the vast majority of hobbyist that have enjoyed RP.
The
other "cluster" was rocketry giant Estes Industries attempt to intimidate the much smaller cottage industry leader Semroc,
through a legal notice to Carl McLawhorn accusing Semroc of infringing some of their products and ordering
Semroc to cease production and sale of anything remotely resembling anything Estes had ever produced. Carl posted a quote
or two from the letter and the general tone almost seemed to indicate Estes was claiming ownership and rights to almost
everything ever used in rocketry in general, from various nose cone shapes to tubes, not just their own original designs.
The Ye Olde Rocket Forum membership's response to Carl's post was a firestorm
of negative responses toward Estes, but with Estes management monitoring the forum and reading the responses, Estes quickly
moved to do damage control and reached an agreement with Carl, that just as quickly put out the fire with most of
the forum's membership. This too was good news to the greater hobby rocketry community and hopefully Semroc and Estes
will continue to grow in a tough economy. No doubt Carl had a great deal of anxiety for the time his company's future
was in question. If you want to read all about these events visit YORF http://forums.rocketshoppe.com/ and Rocketry Planet www.rocketryplanet.com/
So what's my point in mentioning these 2 similar but separate "clusters" on
Fire & Smoke? It's simply that in a hobby where the
vast majority of those who participate, constantly talk about paying forward, helping others to learn the tricks of the
trade, pride themselves on how low their personal TRA or NAR membership numbers are (meaning they're "old timers") and
of their long years in the hobby growing and spreading the rocketry gospel, far too often they are the same ones (major
companies too) to cast stones and create division when someone has an opinion or idea that doesn't exactly match their
own.
It's been my long time observation that there are far too many individuals and
companies in this hobby, that when push comes to shove, only care about their own personal profit, pleasure
and rocketry experience. In the two "clusters" mentioned here, Darrell and Carl have done much more than their
part to pay forward, help the average hobbyist and many times at their own expense, only to have some circumstance or individual(s)
come along and kick them for it. When that happens it tends to lend credence to the old adage, "No good deed goes
unpunished." When actions and circumstances unnecessarily cause injury to personal health or finances,
reasonable and sane people have to question why they are involved in the first place. Having been involved with many
volunteer organizations over the years from Little League to rocketry, I can identify with Darrell and Carl and
also say unfortunately these types of things are far too common in this hobby. No matter how much it is enjoyed, when
any hobby becomes the focal point of a person's life and to a degree that others are damaged, then it's time to
step back and re-evaluate the true value of the activity. It may just turn out that obsessive,
compulsive attitudes and behaviors could be more of a threat to rocketry
than ATF.
Verna and I just returned from a great 2 week vacation
in the Four Corners area and I have to say that as much as we love and enjoy being a small part of the hobby and rocketry
community it was good to get away from it all and enjoy many other aspects of life and more importantly, each other. To be
perfectly honest, over that 14 day period the subject of rocketry never even came up. Now that we're
back home we'll resume our normal routines including rocketry but no hobby will ever run or ruin our lives, come what may.
In closing this time around I'd like to suggest that everyone take a few moments to step back
and check the over all CP/CG relationship, "the balance" of your life. I was a coach for a lot of years and
there were many times that I had to stop and remind my players and parents that "the game was created for the kids, not the
kids for the game." Hobbies are no different, including rocketry. Love them, enjoy them but never let them become
your master.
If you appreciate Carl and Darrell
or have ever used or purchased their services or products, why not stop by their sites and let them know you appreciate them
and their efforts. We do.
Is your CP/CG relation correct?
Randy
My apologies! Due to bad weather and a 2 week vacation I was unable to
complete my evaluation of the Altimeter One for this month's Fire &
Smoke but I will have it for the October update! Until then Part 1 will remain
here.
AltimeterOne
Part 1
After seeing the announcement for
Apogee Components AltimeterOne over on Rocketry Planet, Verna decided 42 years of flying rockets was long enough for me to
wait for an altimeter. I had talked off and on about getting one for a while but never actually got serious about
it. I've shopped all the other altimeter models that were available but was never really impressed with any of them and
the idea of having to build a special compartment just to house a bare circuit board or counting beeps and constantly replacing
batteries, etc. etc. etc. on every rocket we fly, might have been ok for my first launch back in July of 1968 but not in today's
high tech Wii and WIFI world. I was looking for something I could use with any rocket without requiring any modifications.
I knew what I was looking and waiting for, but had never really put it
all down on paper. As it turns out Apogee has now done that for me. As I read the write up on RP I realized
that if I were going to manufacture an altimeter to sell to the rocketry masses, it would
need to have all the features of the Altimeter One, surpass everything currently available and also
be very affordable.
My ideal altimeter would not need
to be installed in a payload bay like all the other altimeters on the market, making it possible to use it with any
rocket that does not have a payload bay. It would have a crystal clear LCD display that shows
the altitude a rocket reached at a glance, so that the user doesn't have to count beeps or flashes of light, measure up to 29,500 feet above sea level, store the peak altitude in FLASH memory, so it always stores the last
flight even if the device is turned off and it would be encased in a durable ABS-plastic case
to protect it from the heat of the rocket's ejection charge.
Of
course the ideal altimeter would also use a pre-installed custom made Lithium Polymer battery, that's easily recharged
by simply plugging the altimeter into a USB port on a computer, with a full charge lasting
over 14 hours of continuous use while conserving power by shutting itself off after one hour of inactivity and no
additional accessories would be needed in order to recharge the altimeter.
My ideal altimeter would be small enough to fit into a BT-20 size body tube, weigh only 6.7 grams (.23
oz) and come with a spring clip to attach it almost anywhere in or on a rocket and have
the ability to filter out shock wave induced pressure changes, making it Mach capable for HPR rockets that fly
faster than the speed of sound.
All of these features would also
make it ideal for use with low and high power rockets, kites, balloons, squirrels, cats or just about anything
else you'd want to fly, including school science fair projects.
And it would look exactly like this:
Of course, if I produced the ideal altimeter it would have
to have a simple but well thought out name like, Verna-timeter or maybe even... AltimeterOne. I think they named
it AltimeterOne because it is the one altimeter that has every feature, size and convenience you could want or
ask for... and the price? $49.95 + shipping.
Once I decided to
purchase the AltimeterOne, I found the transaction on the Apogee website quick and easy. Within a week I had mine in hand
and was looking forward to launching it on several of our rockets at our next launch. It came in a well packed box
with full instructions, an Apogee decal and a free plastic parachute.
In the mean time I
got follow up emails from Michelle and Samantha at Apogee to make sure I had received my order and asking for feed back after
I had used the altimeter. I thought, "that's great customer service" and noted Apogee must have several rocket babes working
there. Nothing to do now but wait for the next opportunity to fly and then I'd let Michelle and Samantha know how things
went, but before the next chance to fly rolled around I got another notice from Apogee by email that the AltimeterOne was being recalled due to a reading
error at certain altitudes. Again Apogee provided complete contact information including names and phone numbers and I was
asked to return mine to Apogee where the problem would be quickly corrected and the altimeter would be returned
asap.
While I was disappointed there was a problem before I could launch
again, I was very impressed that Tim Van Milligan and Apogee were proactive in contacting me about the problem
before I discovered it myself and they had a correction process already in place.
In less than 2 weeks I had my corrected Altimeter back in hand and
instead of a bitter taste in my mouth, I am pleased to let everyone know about Apogee's great customer service
and a rare touch of class demonstrated by a small company and it's owner. As someone who owned a business for 22 years
and has worked to help put people in business for the last 10 years, I have rarely seen or worked with an individual or company
that offered the kind of service and customer concern that I offered to my customers. It's nice to know there are still a
few people and businesses that stand behind their products without excuse. Period!
I now have the corrected altimeter in hand and I hope to have a follow
up launch report in time for the October 1, Fire & Smoke.
If my flight experience is anything like Apogee's customer service, I'm sure the report will be a good one.
In the mean time, tip of the hat to Tim, Michelle, Samantha and
Apogee!
Randy
WANTED!
We are always looking for great rockets and launch photos for Verna's Photo Of The Month.
If you have a great photo send it in and you might be featured
as the photo of the month. Just email your best jif or jpeg to vernarockets@hotmail.com
Verna
Bones says...
"Cluster the world!"
Verna & Randy's Rockets is proud to have been featured in:
You never know who will show up on Fire & Smoke!
Dawn at Monument Valley, Utah. Not as big as the Grand Canyon
but even more beautiful.
Who do you fly with? Fly with family!
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