Newsgroups: rec.models.rockets
Subject: NARAM-38 impressions
From: kaplow_r@eisner.decus.org (Bob Kaplow)
Date: Thu, 29 Aug 1996 20:57:00 GMT

NARAM-38 impressions by Bob Kaplow

[Well, better late than never. I finally finished writing this up for "The
Leading Edge", NIRAs own LAC Award winning newsletter (yea Bob Wiersbe!). Bob
said he didn't mind if RMR readers got to see it before he went to press.]

The sport launch:

The sport range was run the entire week by Bob and Kathy Hart with able
assistance from Tom and Linda Stump of the Ft. Wayne SCAM section. They were
set up with 12 pads for model rockets up to 1/2" rods, and 6 HPR pads with
relays. About 800 sport rockets of assorted sizes were launched during the
week. The largest were 2 Magnum Inc. flights of a D-Region Tomahawk and an
upscale Magnum, both on 4" M1939 reloads. The last launch of the week was a
large Phoenix missile with a Mitchell "L" motor that started the last of many
grass fires. It was a "firestarter" type motor. In between lots of neat rockets
were flown.

I made several Happy Meal flights, including envelope defining 1/2A6-2 (for
closest to pad) and E11J reload (for spectacular flight), and my Oberweis cup
on an A10-0T. I also flew my Super Ranger on a 4 D12 cluster, and most of my
crayon fleet. Not flown were my 2 newest and smallest crayons, one sized for
the new Apogee 10mm motors, and one for the Czech indoor motors. Both feature
wrappers from "Prang" brand crayons.

With a bit of help from daddy, Rachel made her first rocket flights: Estes
RediRoc Raider and Invader, both hand decorated with crayons and stickers. She
was somewhat upset when she saw the remains of "Go Baby Go!" after I pranged it
due to a clogged ejection baffle. We'll have to rebuild it this winter.

I made the next level of stress test on my THOY Hornet, flying it with a G80 to
verify that yellow glue does hold up to HPR. Next for this model, an H328!

My two oddrocs of the meet were the debut of Ayatollah Potato Head (with a
Bruce Kelly face pasted on Mr.PotatoHead), and my Tripoli of Borg (dissent is
futile, you will be excommunicated) which took first in the Star Trek event.

Ken and I each got to fly 38/600 demo reloads. Mine was an I195MJ in my big
purple crayon. I failed to communicate with Ed, and he prepped it with a medium
delay, while I assumed it had a short delay. This resulted in a very long dive
from apogee, and a snapped shock cord. The body fluttered down and was
undamaged. The nose cone and 48" chute were last seen thermalling towards
Kentucky. Ken got an I435 for his Magnum, which flew perfectly. This motor
features a most impressive purplish blue flame, often hard to see in smaller
Blue Thunder motors.

I ended the week with a total of 24 sport flights and 6 contest flights.

Among the rest of the NIRA contingent, Cheri Chaney, Jonathan Charboneau, Adam
Elliott, and Leo Ringwald flew many models from the sport range. Jonathan came
close to level 2 certifying, but suffered a recovery failure with his Maxon.

Other neat flights: Mac "Lifting Body" Garrigle flew several of his creations,
and won most spectacular flight for one. Another less successful flight did a
good imitation of the opening of the "Six Million Dollar Man". Tom Blakeney of
DARS, formerly of Hobbylabs, flew many neat RC rockets. Ed Lacroix topped the
unlimited duration with a 35+ minute RCRG flight, while Steve Lubliner bested
the unlimited altitude flight with a flight well over a mile during one of the
25K waiver windows. This flight also was his level 2 certification flight.

NARAM:

With the Apogee motors everywhere, many events were pretty hot. However there
were few maxes and no max-outs in either B PDmr or C HDmr. I chickened out of C
BG due to the high winds that day. I redeemed myself Tuesday by taking a first
in C HD for the "All the Presidents Men" team with a total of 343 seconds in 3
flights, beating out second place by ONE second. The model was an old Rotacrock
24 left over from NARAM-29. I also took a third with a very ballistic flight in
spot-landing that bounced off a corner of the wrong tent. I had DLBF flights of
17 meters each in both A Altitude flying Bandit Bandit and in B Stupidroc
flying Maniac Maniac! Who says you have to take competition seriously.

For the rest of our team, Ken Hutchinson placed 4th in Payload, and Bunny took
a hard fought 3rd in Scale, with a strong showing in flight points. Ric's F14
PMC was first in static judging, but was quite unstable with twin E15 power and
pinwheeled thru the launch area for a Midwest Qualified nomination. Ric also
had an amazing F DELD flight with an F25 that thermalled away under a 9 FOOT
chute! The event was won by George Gassaway, who packed 2 eggs into a large
RCRG and thermalled for 17+ minutes before a gentle landing near the range
head. Gary Miller had to go swimming in one of the few water hazards around to
recover his teams Dual Egglofter, which also placed.

Among the rest of the NIRA contingent, both Tom Pastrick and Pierre Miller
placed in Spot Landing. 

Another unusual flight was Ryan Woebkenberg's C Payload flight, which earned
both a DLBF AND a US Record. He strapped the payload to an RC model for a 17
meter flight. Since RC records are kept separately, it's unlikely he will ever
be challenged!

My range duty all week was LCO. Barry Saterthwaite was RSO, Ric was my chief
timer, and Ken timed many a rocket. At least I had a job that I could do
sitting down. Things moved pretty well all week, athough it was a bit more
chaotic Wednesday and Thursday with both altitude and non-altitude events
mixed. The NAR launch system performed perfectly all week. My compliments to
its construction crew!

Manufacturers news:

All of the manufacturers had rooms down the main isle of the hotel, making it
the place to hang out during the week.

ASP has added several scale kits, including a LOKI-DART (a good copy of the
Sheyboygan launch perhaps) and 14mm kit D-Region, Astrobee-D and of course an
ASP to their existing line.

Aerotech will discontinue all B/C 18mm reloads including the never certified B6
and C4, and finally certify the remaining uncertified 24/29mm reloads. Demand
for the whole 18mm line is low, but for now the D and low E reloads will
remain. 

New are the 38/720 casing with a new aft closure for the J350 reload, and BJ
and BT reloads to fill out holes in the 29mm and 38mm line (29/240 H220T,
38/480 I330T, 38/600 I195J and I435T). A 38mm Turbo hybrid is in the works,
based on the 38/360 hardware, a new forward closure, and the existing 54mm N2O
tank. It is expected to deliver around 1000 NS (mid-J).

Aerotech is also replacing all of the 29/38mm nozzles on BlackJack motors.
These have had a tendency to blow the nozzle extension shortly after ignition,
resulting in a nasty motor failure. I've had this happen, both on BlackJack and
other motors including 2 of the last 3 F40s I've flown. There were 2 more of
these at the last NIRA launch. Contact AeroTech for replacement procedures.

Apogee 10.5mm micro motors are available, along with tubes, nose cones, a bunch
of technical reports, and a designers pack. A better ignitor is URGENTLY
needed.

Balsa Machining Service is expanding its CNC hardware to allow even larger
parts to be made. He's also working on a piston adapter for the Medalist tower.
I've provided him with data on almost every nose cone ever in an Estes catalog.
Hopefully those will become easilly orderable soon.

Eclipse has taken over the old Apogee parts, and will be introducing some new
kits soon.

Edmonds Aerospace has gliders that work with instructions that remind me of
Heathkit. Rob is looking for a partner to be a business manager.

Landus showed a 3g FAI DT that is being redesigned to eliminate combustible
materials. They are also designing custom flight computers around the basic
stamp that can do all sorts of neat things and look like they could replace
most current altimeter functions.

Launch Pad introduced some new kits, capped by a 2.6" Nike Ajax using a cluster
of 3 D12s. Chuck modified one to stage, and flew it successfully in Sport
Scale. [I think he placed]

QCR has their line of competition kits that work well. They sold lots of old
CMR tubes, and also carry the Pratt (old CMR) plastic nose cones and egg
capsules.

Saturn Press had all their old books, several new scale packs, the second
edition of "Rockets of the World" plus a draft of the new book on early
rocketry. This looks like another winner. Sadly, Peter has temporarily shelved
production on the sport model book that was to include classics like the
Infinite Loop and oddities like the Fractal Explorer. Cause of death: Estes no
longer sells the individual parts needed to build many of the models.

Totally Tubular is selling tubes and couplers at bargain prices. Tubes are 6mm,
11mm, 14mm, 19mm, and 25mm, with matching rings and couplers. All are white, in
34" lengths, and compatible with everyone else's parts. They can be ordered
individually, or in sets of 25 to 500 tubes. Coming soon: 29mm motor tubing,
and perhaps 2.6" HPR tube.

NARTS now has the latest S&T motor data available, along with a lifetime supply
of NARAM-30 belt buckles.

FSI was not at NARAM, but someone brought the latest 1996 catalog. It looks
like they are back in business again.

For the first time, several of the HPR dealers visited NARAM, including Magnum,
Red Arrow, and Performance Hobbies. They all did plenty of business during the
week. So did the nearby hobby shop.

Other tidbits:

The hotel worked great. The pool was a welcome relief on warm afternoons,
unless you had the last range shift. They had no food, so at least we weren't
subjected to poor hotel food all week.

The banquet facility was great as NARAM banquets go. Nothing spectacular, but
plenty of good food and no rubber chicken. The banquet stretched out WAY too
long. Many complained about the size of the trophies: they were soo big that
they were hard to take home, especially for the national champions. 

At the banquet I overheard Trip Barber telling Chad Ring that he'd run a great
NARAM and sport launch, had a good hotel, great field, good banquet, etc. The
only way he could avoid being asked to do it all again was to really FUBAR the
points. Well, Chad did. Afterwards it turns out that Trip lost his 4th place in
C division to someone else, dropping him to 5th. Rumor is that Trip was
thrilled that he didn't have to lug a monster trophy home!

I got to meet all my old rocket friends, and to make some new ones. I even got
to meet some of the RMR folks. Special thanks to Iskandar Taib, whom I finally
got to meet after several years. He drove up for a single afternoon/evening
just to mingle.

New glossary entry for the week: Ring Dance - Chad Ring and others stomping out
the many large and small grass fires during the week. We couldn't call it the
CHAD Dance, because CHAD has already been used.

Ask Chad about starting his car on fire before NARAM, or about what he found on
Saturday morning after NARAM. It seems that the rest of the Launch Crue plastic
wrapped his car over night!
 

	Bob Kaplow	NAR # 18L	TRA # "Abort, Retry, Fail?"