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  #11  
Old 05-28-2021, 11:18 PM
Initiator001 Initiator001 is offline
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Made it to Alamosa.

Took longer than I expected.

The launch site is BIG.
The wind was blowing Friday afternoon.

Many vendors are present. I will have to do some shopping.
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  #12  
Old 05-29-2021, 10:21 PM
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First day in the books. Here’s hoping some things run more smoothly tomorrow. I won’t elaborate right now, but will wait to see how things go the rest of the weekend.

But as Bob says, the site is HUGE and there are many ways to part one from one’s money on hand. I didn’t get very far looking today.
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  #13  
Old 05-30-2021, 03:38 PM
frognbuff frognbuff is offline
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Good meeting folks yesterday, including BEC. I'll speak to the difficulties at NSL. I'm trying to be constructive here - offer the good folks of Alamosa some ideas for improvement. After all, the site is excellent, the hospitality was excellent - but things were not managed well, in my opinion.

Whenever I attend a big rocket launch, the name of the game is THROUGHPUT!. You gotta launch, launch, launch, launch, or the range gets backed up - as it did yesterday.

It started at the RSO table. You can't have RSO also acting as high-power certifiers. That "double duty" had the RSO table backed up at times.

The next significant issue was pad assignments. The pad assignment process was way too complicated. It took a lot of time, and was often wrong. In three trips to the low-power pads, I got assigned to the wrong launch rod size twice. That stuff resulted in people stealing somebody else's pad (rather than going back for re-assignment), so Peter would take Paul's spot, Paul would steal from Mary, etc, etc.

The biggest issue, however, was the LCOs and how they ran the range. We were delayed multiple times by the LCOs not understanding how the launch system worked. That's just a matter of training. ALWAYS have a person on hand who knows the system!

The best ranges I have been on were set up so that the low-power pads are going, going, going, until the bigger pads are ready. I've seen low power pads loaded and cleared two to three times while the "big boys" did their preps. This range did not follow this approach, which was a real bummer for the "make it and take it" kids! Or anybody flying low power, for that matter.

Also, the LCOs would wait for rockets safely under parachute to reach the ground. Not needed. If somebody's Big Bertha, with fully deployed parachute, hits me in the head, that's my fault. Also, the LCOs were constantly asking if the flyer was "ready." Again, a huge cause of delays, especially when the flyers were young kids to embarrassed to yell "READY!" If I took the time to get a rocket out there (and I've been waiting for 20 minutes), yes, I'm READY!!! Just push the darned button already!

The final problem I saw is the most easily solved. There were only four 1/4" rods available, period. That resulted in two lines - the regular line for pad assignments, and the '1/4" rod line.' Four 1/4" rods PER SIDE might have been enough, so just need to buy a few more.

Again - great site, great hospitality. Plenty to buy and lot's of cool rockets. I bought lots of motors including the "EnerJet" F52s and 24mm Quest D and E motors. But the range issues gave me minimal flights on the one day I could attend.
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  #14  
Old 05-31-2021, 06:31 PM
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As I suspected, Sunday and Monday ran much more smoothly, between the lesser crowds and some lessons painfully learned on Saturday.

I can’t address the comment about RSOs being pressed into duty to help with certifications as I found my own RSO shift on Saturday both extended and distracted by this. I didn’t see anything like that going on Sunday or Monday, but since I only visited the RSO table a few times (I put up a paltry five flights for the whole weekend, though only the Saturday dearth of flights was fully due to the whole RSO/pad assignment/LCO jam-up described above).

Pad assignment, which is what I thought needed the most improvement, improved continuously throughtout the event and by Monday they were bookkeeping all those pads (20 LPR in two “spools” of 10 each, and two rows of MPR/LPR pads, all this multiplied by two for the left and right sides of the range) in the way they should have from the beginning.

And there were more 1/4 inch rods on Sunday.

As for LCO….it was less random-seeming though still favoring the the bigger stuff throughout the event, save for the last LCO shift of Sunday, which was put in the hands of two New Mexico Aggies—Jim Baseler and myself. I always started with the LPR pads.

Even Jim and I found ourselves waiting for things to land or to be sure we knew where they were going to land because the winds either had things boosting over people/cars and then, if all went well, blowing back onto the range (that was today) or boosting away and then blowing back over people/cars under recovery, whether it was successful or not so. So we really needed to be aware and, when necessary, call out to people in the landing area.

That this was happening as often as it was is actually my biggest criticism of how things were operated. But in order to do it, the club needs better GSE. The model racks were on cable spools and the rod angles were not adjustable. I don’t recall there being angle adjustments in the MPR/HPR pads either, though I only used one of them once (using a 1/4 inch rod, actually). We should have been angling rods/rails to the west but the ground support equipment didn’t support it.

I know one vehicle got dented when a big rocket bounced off of it, and I know of several LPRs that bounced off of vehicles as well. With three NAR board members there Saturday, and two of them there through early Monday afternoon (until shortly before incoming thunderstorms brought things to a stop about three hours ahead of schedule) I’m surprised it went on like this.

All that said, my wife and I both had a good time.
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  #15  
Old 06-01-2021, 04:27 PM
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LeeR LeeR is offline
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Bernard,

I hope you got your book signed by Roy Houchin. I didn’t really monitor YORF, or even emails, very closely, this past week, and didnt see your request to alert him about signing it.

It was good to see you and Avis.

There were some issues on the range, but I’ll give Matt Abbey and team a lot of credit for running their first big national launch. Early missteps seemed to be corrected.

My wife and I, and fellow traveler Roy, had a thoroughly enjoyable time. And it was nice to finally meet “Gus” and “ManofSteele”, and many others I only previously knew from the forums and FB rocketry groups.
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  #16  
Old 06-02-2021, 12:21 AM
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Lee,

Yes, Roy and I had a good chat and I got his autograph on my copy of the book (after he practiced a couple of times on a flight card ).

It was good to connect back with you and meet your wife, if ever so briefly. And yes, seeing others was a big part of the event for me. I never connected with Matt (ManofSteele) but did have some time visiting with Steve Kristal (Gus) and even worked with him a bit as Jim Baseler and I had the last LCO shift on Sunday and Steve K. was on RSO duty (past his scheduled time) for part of it.

I also met a few folks I only knew from here or TRF (Wayco and Hardline—Wayne and Sharon—from TRF, and frognbuff from here).

I agree, for a first attempt at such a huge event for a club, Matt Abbey and company should get a lot of credit. I think the size of it was simply overwhelming, especially on Saturday, and as I noted above, things went better on Sunday and Monday up through the thunderstorm-induced shutdown right after 1 PM.
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