by Dave Nordling, President, RRS.ORG
Representatives of the Reaction Research Society were invited to attend the 1st annual Friends of Amateur Rocketry (FAR) liquid propellant rocket symposium at the EAA Chapter 1 headquarters at the Flabob Airport in Riverside, California, on January 28, 2023. Dimitri Timohovich and I came to observe and participate in the all-day event including a range of topics related to safe design and operations with liquid rockets. There were hardware demonstrations giving attendees a direct appreciation for the importance of safety and careful planning with their system designs.
The intended audience was university rocket teams looking for best practices and expert advice. Mark Holthaus (president of FAR), Mark Ventura (RRS member and owner of Ventura Energy Systems) and Derek Honkawa (FAR member and private business owner) all gave excellent presentations covering igniters, propellant handling, part cleaning, and pressure system safety with a generous amount of examples of successful and unsuccessful projects at FAR.
FAR will soon make their presentation files available on their website for download. The RRS was glad to be there for this first of its kind event.
The RRS similarly has experts that have supported liquid rocket projects for decades at the Mojave Test Area. Contact the RRS president for requests and scheduling.
Also, the RRS will be holding our 80th anniversary symposium on April 15th at a venue location to be announced soon. This will be our first symposium since the pandemic and we look forward to having many speakers from industry, government, academia and the hobbyist community on topics related to liquid propellant rockets and many other subjects of interest to our public audience.
