Dave Nordling, Secretary, Reaction Research Society
The RRS held its monthly meeting on Friday, June 14, 2019, at the Ken Nakaoka Community Center in Gardena, CA. We had several discussion topics on the agenda, but we had a last minute confirmation of a special guest. Terry Price, a nationally recognized expert in composite materials, gave the society an overview of composites used in many industries including aerospace.
Terry’s presentation lasted for nearly the entire meeting, but no one seemed to mind. It’s a fascinating subject with many applications. Those specific to rocketry would be composite over-wrapped pressure vessels and tubular composite air-frames.
Another one of our guests at the meeting was Dennis Lord who is president of the Experimental Aircraft Association, Chapter 96 (EAA 96). Dennis came to help promote the EAA and let us know that the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) was going to make a presentation at their meeting on Saturday, June 15th. The EAA meets every 3rd Saturday of each month.
At the very end of the meeting, Osvaldo did bring up a few topics, mainly about the past Mojave Test Area event we had with UCLA on June 1st, and the next event we’re planning with LAPD CSP on July 13th. The RRS has had some issues with the MTA site being left untidy by our guests. The RRS would like to remind our visitors to please pick up their trash before they depart.
Also, the use of male anchor bolts, which are commonly available at hardware stores like Home Depot, while convenient to the builder make for a terrible tripping hazard as these bolts remain planted for years. As we are getting more users at the MTA site, the number of irregular protruding bolts is growing and becoming irksome. The best solution is to work with the RRS before making changes to our concrete and using female anchor bolts which may require ordering in advance. The RRS has discussed making a common ground interface for all users to adapt their horizontal thrust stands. Although some of our past users may have to redrill their bolt patterns in their equipment, in the long run, it will be simpler and better for all. There will be more on this subject in the coming months as the RRS is pursuing several renovation projects to improve the MTA.
Frank Miuccio spoke about the latest class with LAPD CSP called Operation Progress with the students of Watts. The first classes started in June and the class will finish with the launch event at the MTA on July 13th.
One of the last topics before we adjourned late on that evening was a new payload being made by returning RRS member, John Krell. Nearly all of our RRS standard alphas, flown by the dozens several times a year, fly with empty payload tubes. There has been much conjecture on the apogee height and burnout velocity of an RRS standard alpha micrograin rocket. Best estimates are that they are subsonic and may be reaching heights of nearly one mile. To answer these questions, a simple payload to measure barometric pressure and record the acceleration of the swift alpha.
John’s prototype is only at the breadboard stage, but he has identified the right parts for the first flight prototype using an Arduino Nano microprocessor and a 100G rated accelerometer as best estimates of the RRS alpha acceleration are at least 50G’s.
Our next meeting will be July 12, 2019. We will discuss the topics we couldn’t cover this month including the RRS liquid rocket projects and the RRS social media improvements including adding a better calendar feature for the growing number of events we’re having.
Our next launch event at the MTA will be July 13th with the LAPD CSP.