The Rocketry Show

Steve Taylor, President of ESRA the Experimental Sounding Rocket Association (ESRA) joins us to talk all things Spaceport America Cup. The IREC event has been going on for over 20 years now, and there is a lot to learn about it!

A bit delayed, but here we are! In this episode, we do a quick review of NARCON 2024, and we give a look behind the curtain to tell you what has been going on...

On this episode, our guest is Vance Martin, an amateur radio operator who goes under the callsign N3VEM. Martin became involved in rocketry as a kid in the typical way; seeing model rockets at the local hobby shop, and discovering the hobby with a friend.  As he moved into middle and high school, he discovered mid and high power rocketry through  online rocketry communities.  While in college he built a PML 1/4 Scale Patriot rocket to use for his Level One, but was unable to find a nearby club to certify, so his L1 rocket sat collecting dust over the years.    After college, Vance discovered ham radio, and earned his amateur radio callsign N3VEM, and built  a portable station in his vehicle so that he could play radio while being out and on the road for work.  As seems to be a pre-requisite for Ham Radio, Vance also became a software and hardware 'tinkerer', so for him, building radio-related projects turned out to be a lot of fun, and is still what he calls his 'primary hobby.' Vance became a Born-Again-Rocketeer about a year ago, when his two older kids found the Patriot rocket stashed in the corner of the family storage room.  They asked 'What is this!?!'  "...and just like that" says Vance " we started building up a fleet of little Estes kits."  Vance decided that it would be fun to combine the two hobbies, and start tinkering with radio and electronic payloads for their rockets. "I knew that 'off the shelf' stuff was available, but being a tinkerer, I wanted to build my own." he recalls.   He continues. "I wanted to target mid-power sized rockets with my projects, since I still live in the same town, and still don't have easy access to a club with a high-power launch site." Vance enjoys his hobbies, and is having fun, saying "I'm still very much a rocketry noob, but I'm having a blast dabbling around with building the rockets, and hacking around at hardware and software for the rockets' payloads." Vance's website is :  https://n3vem.com/blog/RadioRocketV2/

Are you really 'GO' to use your full FAA waiver? Greg Young shares his experiences with this topic, and what he learned is an eye opening education for all rocketeers! About our guest...Greg shares his background in rocketry... My rocketry experience started in 1961, at the ripe old age of 10years, when I ordered, built and flew rockets from Estes Industries. Try as I may, I was not successful at getting local hobby shops to carry rocketry supplies at that time, as the owners felt they were dangerous fireworks.  My flying continued until taking a hiatus during my college, and then post graduate years. When my oldest daughter expressed an interest in rockets (while in 3rd grade) my flying resumed. I joined NAR, and TRA at that time and formed a local rocketry club, the Southtown's Amateur Rocket Society (STARS). When my youngest daughter left middle school for high school, I wound up taking another hiatus, and the club disbanded. My flying hiatus ended when my grandchildren expressed interest in rocketry. I rejoined NAR and TRA, and decided to go through the official high power certification program (something not required back in the 1980's when I flew) and am currently a level 3 flier. I have been involved in 2 NY rocketry groups, one in Geneseo, the other in Penn Yan, and have served from 2016 through the end of 2022 as a member of board of directors, the VP, the waiver holder, the RSO and also served the Prefect of the former for part of that time. I have served on the planning committees for LDRS 34, NSL 2018, and NARAM 62, and during those launches was involved on the field running the range safety operations. Currently I have been involved with local youth (high school and college age primarily), and officially have mentored several school ARC teams which have gone to nationals, and most recently a high school team who was chosen to participate in the 2023 NASA student launch initiative and went on to the nationals in Huntsville. I am hoping to get time to be able to fly more, and mentor more student groups going forward. They are, after all, our future...

The Rocketry Show team talk NSL West 2023 with Ed Lacroix and Matt Abbey.

Jeff Kodysz was a very talented rocketeer. His talents stretched from 3D printing, Lazer Etching, and he had a knack with making logos. He created the current logo for The Rocketry Show that you look at everytime you visit our website or listen to one of our episodes. Jeff passed away a few weeks ago after a short battle with illnesses. He will be missed by his friends, family, and us. We are all glad to have known him.

CG stops by to give a quick update on technical changes some of you may have noticed, and what that means.

The team talk about Narcon 2023, and we review this year’s calendar of big launch events so far…

In the first episode of Season 9, we talk to Joe Pfeiffer of the Open rocket team, diving a bit deeper into the program’s features, and some use case items for advanced and High power rocketry.

A brief summary of this episode

chapAppDescJesse and Gheem give a news update for December. The next season of The Rocketey Show starts in January!

The full Rocketry Show team assemble to drop the latest news updates from the hobby AeroTech/Quest News AeroTech RMS K750ST-PS Rocket Motor Reload Kit New Product Information Release 7/11/22 AeroTech/Quest is pleased to announce the Tripoli certification and immediate availability of our new RMS Reloadable Motor System K750ST-PS rocket motor reload kit, AeroTech’s 2nd rocket motor reload kit designed to use the single-grain RMS-75/1280 hardware. Perfect for heavy rockets launched from small fields, the K750ST-PS delivers 1,298.7 N-Sec (292.0 lb.- Sec.) of total impulse with a 1.74 burn time and an all-up weight in motor hardware of 4.29 lb. (1,945.9 g). It’s also a great booster for two-stage rockets, and features AeroTech’s aerospace-grade Super Thunder (ST) propellant formulation with a burn rate midway between Blue Thunder and Warp-9 propellant types. The K750ST-PS generates a peak thrust of 835.7 N (187.9 lb.) with an average thrust of 746.6 N (167.9 lb.). Super Thunder propellant displays a bright blue flame with prominent Mach diamonds and little smoke.  Although the K750ST-PS produces tracking smoke, it is a “plugged” motor that does not include an ejection charge and requires the utilization of an electronically-activated recovery system. ...

Items in this news podcast: SMT Designs releases all of their rocketry designs to public domain Steve Thatcher: "With my upcoming LDRS 40 trip and TRA Tech session there on "3D Printed Modular Avionics Bays", I wanted to make an announcement, so here it is..." Steve Thatcher says “I am in the process of releasing all of my rocketry designs to the public domain under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International” You can read the licensing in detail at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ You can find the designs on http://www.tinkercad.com/ by simply doing a "People" search for "SteveThatcher".   Once you find the profile, click it to view the parts. Steve has also tagged the parts with “SMTDESIGNS”, “AVBAY”, and “ROCKETRY”, but you will get more "hits" that way of other non-related parts. My intent in doing this is to propagate the footprint standard I created for devices and batteries over the last years, so the rocketry community could benefit. Thatcher says “I would also like to see my designs come to a greater use by making them available for no cost to those that have the required equipment.” Steve asks that the footprints for carriers and platforms remain unchanged.  Thatcher says”I recognize the need to change things when necessary, but changing footprints negates the universal benefit they provide.  Take the time to look at my entire library of parts to get a system view of why things were done.” Steve will be available to answer questions through SMT Designs, and the SMT Designs facebook page. _______________________________ Tripoli News During the LDRS 40 Member's Banquet it was announced that that the Tripoli Wisconsin Association, Tripoli Green Bay, and Tripoli Chicago will be hosting LDRS 41 at the Richard Bong Recreation Area located in Kenosha County, Wisconsin. The event is planned to take place July 6, 7, 8 and 9, 2023.   More details and information will be coming soon. _______________________________ New Unified TRA Safety Code   https://www.tripoli.org/content.aspx?page_id=22&club_id=795696&module_id=520420 Tripoli Rocketry Association unveiled its new “unified” safety code on May1 of this year. President Bob Brown notes that: Under this safety code, there are no longer Commercial launches or Research launches, just Tripoli launches.  There are some changes to the current safety code, such as a common safe distance table, a safety code for both model rockets as well as radio-controlled boosted gliders as well as other changes.   Tripoli asks all members to please take the time to read the document in its entirety.   Mr. Brown notes that “While your first reaction will probably be there seem to be a lot more rules under this new document, in fact, almost nothing more restrictive has been adopted it’s just compiled into one document now.” TRA notes that they owe a huge thank you to Steve Shannon, “who undertook the daunting task of compiling the information from the original four documents and writing (in plain English, not legalese) a document we can all understand and follow”. ____________________________________ Reminder on NARAM 63 NARAM-63 will be July 16-22, 2022. Sport flying begins on Saturday, July 16, and will run through the following Friday, July 22.  The US Team Flyoffs/North Coast Cup flying will begin Saturday, July 16, and run through Monday, July 18.   NARAM competition flying begins on Monday, July 18, and runs through Friday, July 22.  Friday evening, July 15, will include a sport flyers briefing as well as a US Team Flyoffs/North Coast Cup briefing and model check in. Where is NARAM-63? Springfield, Missouri, located in the southwestern part of the state, is this year’s host city. The Oasis Hotel is the official hotel of NARAM-63, and will host nearly all of the evening...

Conway Stevens answers your questions from Episode 115.

Sorry for the delay. Lots going on in our worlds, and we talk about it later in the show...BUT more importantly: Mike Crupe joins us from Mac Performance rocketry! We've learned about a new (to us) way to do rocketry! CG gets pulled in big time, and you'll find out why when you listen! Enjoy!