Went to see my old friends at the local rocketry club. I haven't been to one of their launches in 15 years or more. I gave away a bunch of stuff that's been in my way in the shop. It was good to catch up with the guys. There are actually 2 clubs that act almost as one. One club is NAR affiliated (National Association of Rocketry). The other is TRA affiliated (Tripoli Rocketry Association). So they take turns on what flavor the launch is each month - NAR or TRA or TRA research. To day was a NAR launch. It was a pretty good day. There were some high school rocket teams there working on a national competition and a college team (University of Georgia?) Doing research flights in conjunction with some NASA sponsored national competition. Several people attempted various level certifications including one guy trying for his level 3 certification. He failed because he didn't use a big enough charge to eject the parachute. I never had that problem. I always operated under the theory of "blow it out or blow it up" when building ejection charges. Sorry. No pictures.
The hobby has really advanced. They now have flight controllers that link to an app on your phone. So, there was a guy standing behind me, watching his rocket. His phone kept speaking, telling him acceleration, speed, altitude, altitude when it ejected the nose cone, rate of descent, altitude when it ejected the main parachute, landing, etc. Really cool stuff.
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