(snip) my reaction was: Why is commonsense so rare a commodity these days? Come on Darwin, don't let us down now! Flip side to that is this clown will hurt some one and the rational among us will pay, because our hobby will be too dangerous in the eyes of the fun police.
I have a theory that explains this... We've had decades now of ever-increasingly 'idiot-proofing' everything in our lives... and the nanny state that goes along with that... so over time there's been a divorcement of the consequences from excessive stupidity... that coupled with excellent and readily available health care services that are ever more capable, coupled with a "experientially challenged" couple of generations now, has led to this current state of unending stupidity... What do I mean by "experientially challenged"? Kids don't play as much as they used to, or don't do "little stupid things" as kids, and get bit by them, thus learning not to do "big stupid things" later on.... Little kids are constantly chased after by overprotective parents and teachers to prevent them from doing these 'little stupid things' that teach valuable life lessons... albeit with skinned elbows and knees or burned or cut fingers, etc... instead the only experience these kids get is "don't do that-- you might get hurt!" but they don't get hurt (in a minor way) and thus don't get the experience of "that was unpleasant-- maybe doing it again or in a bigger way would probably not be a good idea because it could be more unpleasant". Thus, when they get to be teens/young adults, and have these "stupid impulses" there is no bad experience set in their minds from their youth to discourage them from doing "big stupid things" or give them a moment of pause to reconsider...
It's much the same reason that as more and more nanny-state regulated "safety provisions" be engineered into cars, people drive more and more stupid and risky... idiots weave in and out of traffic at ridiculous speeds and with absolutely no margin for error, and don't give it a second thought-- they never wiped out on a bicycle as a kid and spent a month or two in a cast, and they're convinced they're Mario Andretti behind the wheel and can do no wrong, and anyways, if something were to happen, well, the airbags will save them anyway...
All this excessive idiot-proofing is rewarding this sort of mindset, and making it more prevalent.
The other part of it is plain old ignorance... the video of the teacher and the rocket planes comes to mind... evidently this must be a school where the faculty rides the short bus (as someone pointed out the stupidity of this exercise, and the poor grammar and vocabulary skills of these students). This isn't teaching anything but @$$-grabbery.... "Ok kids here's this week's assignment... build a plane out of foamboard and aluminum duct tape... whatever size or shape you want... then at the end of the week we'll all go out to the football field, tape rocket motors to them, and see what happens..." Oh sure, the teacher probably presented some little unit on aerodynamic lift, maybe effects of airfoils and different sweep angles, maybe even some basic stability (though that's doubtful given the results). BUT, where is the scientific method?? Where is the vetting of proposals?? How about first "design an aircraft to be constructed from foam board and duct tape to be propelled by a given size rocket motor" and then present that design to the teacher (or better yet before the class, led by the teacher) to be "critically reviewed" and approved before construction begins?? "Tell my why you think this will fly?" or "Why do you feel this design is superior?" or "What novel innovations have you incorporated into your design, and what do you hope to accomplish, or why do you think that innovation is superior to other competing solutions?" NASA doesn't just draw stuff on powerpoint and then start bending metal... there's a process of preliminary design reviews that address issues such as "will this do the job we're intending" or "what are the safety or operational aspects of this and how will they be addressed" among myriad other questions, then the design is polished and goes through a "critical design review" that explores all the potential problems in the design-- failure points, operational or safety issues, performance issues, etc... and seeks to address them. Only after the CDR is completed does the design move into actually "bending metal" and even then, problems crop up and have to be addressed... problems usually continue to crop up and have to be addressed clean through the test flight phase (Apollo 6 comes to mind) that were unanticipated on the ground or didn't show up in ground testing. "Flying a little plane just to see it crash and burn" shouldn't be acceptable... the fact that it is just proves this is a time-wasting exercise designed to be "cool" and keep the kids from "getting bored" while not really teaching anything... "just do it and see what happens" without any rhyme or reason to it generally teaches little/nothing. Of course the program can be tailored to be as sophisticated or unsophisticated as necessary for the grade level and experience and skill set of the students involved...
Then there's the methodology-- what purpose is served in using such a short length of the ramp for guidance?? Just shows the teacher really doesn't have a clue what they're doing, other than it's "cool". Using a longer length of the launch ramp would allow the rocket to get to a higher airspeed and thus more stable before being released into flight... A more fundamental question would be "why use rocket propulsion for these "experimental planes"? Model glider enthusiasts have been using bungee launch (using rubber band or rubber surgical tubing to store energy for launch) for decades, or even catapult launch via tethers to the aircraft, with the energy supplied by falling weights to catapult the aircraft into the air (which is what the Wright brothers used at Kitty Hawk back in 1903...) There is ABSOLUTELY NO NEED for rocket propulsion for these "aircraft" other than "the cool factor" of smoke and fire and the potential to 'see things crash and burn'. Rubber band catapults can easily be calibrated to deliver the same impulse into the aircraft each and every time using a scale to calibrate the pounds of force (or kilograms of force if one prefers) of pullback when they're stretched, and of course using drop weights for catapult launch is even easier-- it's merely a matter of the amount of weight and the distance of the drop to calculate how much energy is available to propel the vehicle... This teaches basic physics, which should be part of the exercise. Not that I'm knocking rocket propulsion, as it can be a valuable teaching tool for physics as well, but of course is better suited to rocket vehicles than uncontrolled/unguided aerodynamic lifting vehicles (gliders/airplanes).
Well, it just goes to prove the point that society and education are constantly being "dumbed down" more and more as time goes on...
Later! OL JR
