Same goes here Mike. Ditto of what James has said. We will talk this week.

Mike, you have been approached by the best, not only in the club, but the hobby of high power rocketry. James certified both your friend, John Nelson, and me on June 2nd of last year. He is one of the most knowledgeable and easy-going people you'll ever want to meet and work with, along with Conway Stevens and Art Hoag. You're on the right track. Take advantage of it. I'll have the tube you need on Saturday. HAVE FUN!

Mike as I said in my PM I am willing to work with you through the process of getting your L3, lets talk Saturday. I will be there early, 11am but will have to leave early as well.

Mike on your L2, you understanding the requirements for your cert in your opinion did you meet the requirements?

James,

Thanks for your input, I will adhere to any of the requirements or recommendations made by the TAPs. I do not want to jeapordize the safety and the waivers of NCR in any way or manner, which is why I have asked the questions.

Yes, I believe I fulfilled the requirements of the L2 certification flight according to NAR Section 8, specifically:

Section 8, Page 3 Para 3.5 - The individual will fly his model. The flight must be witnessed by the certification team members. Stability, deployment of the recovery system, and safe recovery should be considered when evaluating safety of the flight. Models experiencing a catastrophic failure of either the airframe, rocket motor and/or recovery system (e.g. shock cord separation) will not be considered as having a safe flight.

I'll be repeating the flight again at the next launch, possibly with a J570W this time, to gain more experiernce, if anyone has concern.

Excellent Mike. No one is trying to stop you from pursuing your goals and achieving your L3 as soon as humanly possible, but along the way you should make sure that there is no question about having clearly acheived the cert requirements. Some, if not most, prefects would fail any rocket that didn't deploy it's chute(s) exactly as planned. Others obviously will pass you if the rocket is merely returned in shape to be reflown without repairs. In my experience, the community tends to be pretty conservative though.

Quite a few folks in NCR were subject to far stricter requirements for their L2 cert than Joe used in judging your L2 successful. One example being John Wilke was failed on his due to the main chute accidentally deploying at apogee rather than at the programmed altitude. Perfect flight and recovery except for that one thing - he was failed. Re-flying your cert flight on another J motor is clearly a way to lay all questions and anybodies discomfort to rest.

I can highly recommend James as a TAP - he has been the primary TAP for many, many NCR L3's and is well known for keeping things safe and sticking strictly to Tripoli rules rather than allowing his own judgement or personal opinions to color things. An excellent choice. If he lived closer to Longmont, he'd be one of my TAPs. I also recommend that you keep him fully involved during the entire process - from design through construction to prep and flight. His experience and eye for detail will definitely save you some hassles and problems in the long run. Besides, he does the most amazing igniters - guaranteed to light and come up to pressure pretty much instantly.

Again, best of luck to you on this project. See you on Saturday.

Warren

One minor correction, Warren - I was told I *would* be failed if my dual deploy project deployed at apogee. In the end, it didn't matter - altimeter fired on the way UP shredding everything.

I have indeed seen L3 attempts that TAPs failed for apogee deployment of a "dual deploy" project. Some are stricter than others. I was given the option to back out and find another TAP if I didn't like it...

JW

Mike,

Not to worry about TRA #11584....

My TRA number is 11583 and I joined three months ago. TRA member #11584 is now listed as an L3, so he is moving along quickly as well

Remember that he may have also been working on NAR levels for many years. i.e. once your a level two in NAR you can join Tripoli at that level and then get your level three under Tripoli (which is what I did).

NAR #82263 / Tripoli #11256

Mike,

Not to worry about TRA #11584....

My TRA number is 11583 and I joined three months ago. TRA member #11584 is now listed as an L3, so he is moving along quickly as well

Remember that he may have also been working on NAR levels for many years. i.e. once your a level two in NAR you can join Tripoli at that level and then get your level three under Tripoli (which is what I did).

NAR #82263 / Tripoli #11256

I figured as much. My wife (Becky) and I thought that was probably the case. He probably just transitioned over when NAR wouldn't feed his interests anymore. I joined both organizations the same day as I still consider them as having different roles inthe sport. The guys that I want to High Power with are not the same folks I want to do model rocket contesting with. I also joined CRASH as well as NCR, but CRASH wants me to claim NCR when I show up at a contest. Their last regional would not have been a regional unless somone from another club (me) showed up. It helped them out to claim it that way, so I agreed to be 100% an NCR rocketeer. 😀

Doug, I was thinking along those lines. If you want to suggest a video camera that I can put in it, I'll do it. I also need to know how you are splitting the optics or mirroring the images.

Mike, you just insulted Doug. He uses 16mm FILM, not CCD video.

No offense taken but Bruce is correct, I only shoot film. ...
Mike, my preference is to "hang" the camera off the side of the rocket at an angle. It's draggy so it's not for altitude attempts but it sounds like you're wanting to lower your expected altitude. I have used mirrors but then you must use a telephoto lens. By the way, my lightest high speed movie cameras weighs at least 5 pounds and are made out of steel and aluminum so I have weight penalty compared to video cameras. Of course I've lawn darted them in and the film survives...

Doug

Doug, Sign me up if you want to teach a class on film. I would be very interested to learn more about it. Do you have a 5" camera payload prebuilt that I can add to my rocket?

Doug, Sign me up if you want to teach a class on film. I would be very interested to learn more about it. Do you have a 5" camera payload prebuilt that I can add to my rocket?

I'd be happy to talk to anyone at MHM that wants to discuss film/photography. But I had better not try anything before then, the commute is too far 😉 I don't have anything prebuilt in 5" right now. Most of my latest rockets have been 6" diameter and I have one nose cone payload for a 4" rocket. Right now Art and I are desperately working on a joint project. It will be 7.7" diameter with three high speed movie cameras. The cameras are capable of shooting up to 200 frames per second. We hope to test fly it at MHM and tickle the waiver.

Doug

I did some searches on Photosonics 1VN, and one place that I contacted is a consignment broker. His question was how much would I pay and what lens would I want on it? He can also build a 28V Ni-Cad battery pack for it. So... my question to you, is what is the going rate for this and your choice of lens (wide angle?)

Here's a new 24V version for $3,500 😯 ebay: 130089813052

I think I'll look at super 8's

I did some searches on Photosonics 1VN, and one place that I contacted is a consignment broker. His question was how much would I pay and what lens would I want on it? He can also build a 28V Ni-Cad battery pack for it. So... my question to you, is what is the going rate for this and your choice of lens (wide angle?)

I use the 1VN for many of my onboard cameras and I have contacts if you are interested in acquiring one. The film has to be spooled onto a core in a darkroom and initially loaded into the magazine. I'd be happy to show you how or even just load the film for you. They have dual pin registered movement for rock solid images.

I started out with Super 8 and it is an excellent way to go. But don't go spending money on a camera. If I can find them, I have a whole box of Super 8 cameras and I would be happy to give you one. I bet I even have one in an old rocket complete with film. They are not high speed but can be made to run at higher speeds by increasing the voltage to the motor. It can result in some very good images and the cost is not as bad as 16 mm.

Doug

I started out with Super 8 and it is an excellent way to go. But don't go spending money on a camera. If I can find them, I have a whole box of Super 8 cameras and I would be happy to give you one. I bet I even have one in an old rocket complete with film. They are not high speed but can be made to run at higher speeds by increasing the voltage to the motor. It can result in some very good images and the cost is not as bad as 16 mm.

Doug

Well... thank you for your generosity. It would be a nice start. I had my own darkroom as a kid, and did black and white development while on board the USS Coral Sea during Vietnam, but I would want to rely on your expertise for this. Hmmm, One of my hobbies is writing screenplays. Maybe we can collaborate on a drama based on high powered rocketry that becomes infiltrated w/ bad guys. Show it at an independant film festival. 8)

As a final comment on the L2 cert, I was in contact (for other reasons) with Pat Gordzelik and Kevin Trojanowski of the Tripoli Board and casually mentioned this situation. According to Pat:

Hmm, tuff spot for Joe.

However, I might have made the same call. I said might. Depends on the guy, depends on the conditions. Chances are I would have reasoned with "Mike" and tell him to do it over again, but again, I was not there.

L2 certification recovery is different than L3 as it does not require the candidate to "call his pocket", ie, it makes no difference if the deployment on an L2 was "as planned", recovery is all that is required. Yep, only the drogue came out, yep, it landed in a snow drift, yep, the only recovery requirement is that a recovery device is deployed and safely lands the vehicle under the conditions present, enabling the vehicle to fly again without repairs.

Lastly, this "Mike" dude seems to be blessed and highly favored by the rocket gods.(Surely that snow drift the rocket landed on was not chance 😉 ). I would not risk the rocket god's wrath by flailing this issue, if it was me.

Feel free to share this with your group.

Pat G

So congratulations Mike on your successful L2. Given that you are flying it again in February on the J570, I wish you the best of luck on a successful deployment - please use those ematches I gave you to do further ground testing and I'll be happy to provide you with more of them if you need them. You're way too psyched and pumped up about this to hold back and I for one would like to see you get your L3 at MHM (along with myself!). That L2 bird is a beautiful piece of work and deserves a few more flights to say the least.

Good luck.

Warren

I started out with Super 8 and it is an excellent way to go. But don't go spending money on a camera. If I can find them, I have a whole box of Super 8 cameras and I would be happy to give you one. I bet I even have one in an old rocket complete with film. They are not high speed but can be made to run at higher speeds by increasing the voltage to the motor. It can result in some very good images and the cost is not as bad as 16 mm.

Doug

Well... thank you for your generosity. It would be a nice start. I had my own darkroom as a kid, and did black and white development while on board the USS Coral Sea during Vietnam, but I would want to rely on your expertise for this. Hmmm, One of my hobbies is writing screenplays. Maybe we can collaborate on a drama based on high powered rocketry that becomes infiltrated w/ bad guys. Show it at an independant film festival. 8)

Soooo-
How much would you pay the Actors? 8)

scotte

Mike, it is wise to re-fly. Once that is done, the question will have been resolved.