rharshberger
Well-Known Member
Your right, the RSO inspection is a CURSORY inspection, we are looking for the secure railbuttons, solidly mounted fins, positive motor retention, airframe failure points, and friction fitting of break points (drogue and nosecone). We can find the CG easily enough by simply balancing on our hand (depending on rocket size), recognizing general CP comes with experience and even then its not absolute which is why the CP needs to be marked on the rocket. Everything else on the rocket is internal and therefore invisible to the RSO, the questions we ask are more to make the flier question whether they did the proper steps than anything else when it comes to the recovery, ejection charges etc. If the exterior looks and feels good and the questions are properly answered the rocket will probably get a pad assignment. Some rockets are know to have special requirements....like noseweight (Patriot, V2, etc), with experience the RSO or pre-flight safety inspector can quickly by feel spot any that "dont seem quite right". The Mongoose has a small fin span relative to the airframe length, pushing the CP forward, and depending on what the expected velocities for that motor/rocket combo were the CP could easily have moved even further forward or in front of the CG.Thats assuming the NC was like that at the RSO table. So the NC may have been seated correctly when it was inspected but you can't hold the RSO responsible for what happens to the rocket between inspection and the pad. Also, the RSO may or may not have been "asleep at the wheel." The RSO inspection is sort of a cursory inspection to make sure nothing obvious is wrong. Also, the RSO relies heavily on the information that the flier gives them such as the location of the CP. Can't say I've ever witnessed an RSO work through a Barrowman Equation to verify CP location much less bust out a laptop to run a few sims. I think pinning this on the RSO is unfair. IMHO it's ultimately up to the flier to make sure the relative CP/CG locations are correct.
Looking at the stills at the end of the Mongoose portion of the video it does not appear that the NC was mis-aligned during flight. But the key word there being "appear." The rather sudden instability right off the rail sort of looks to me like the CG was in the wrong spot right off the get-go.