Originally posted by jerryb
OK,
I need some specific questions about how the Hypertek hybrid systems work in order to answer a question a colllegue of my has raised concerning thier use with student in my district.
It seems that this teacher in another district close to mine is planning on using hypertech hybrid systems for a TAR team he is sponsoring in his district.
My understanding is that they use Nitros Oxide as one of the components of the fuel system? Just how much Nitros Oxide is involved? If anyone knows of a school team that uses these motors, how is the nitros handled and stored in a safe manner.
School districts have a VERY strict and unbending policy when it comes to items that may be used as a drug and or inhalant, and Nitros Oxide is one of the listed substances.
I doubt that I could even legally purchase Nitros Oxide with school district funds and even bring it on school campus, as all of our campuses have been classes as "Safe and Drug Free Zones"
Our list specifically states that "known inhalants" are banned from campuses under the Safe and Drug Free guideline.
Thanks again for any input that anyone can provide on this subject. I am in no way going to violate our district policy for banned substances...and want to provide this other teacher with the correct information, as he has been known to stretch the rules when it comes to rocketry in the past.
Jerryb
Network Administrator
ST. Martin Parish School Board
Breaux Bridge, LA
Jerry,
Yes, they use nitrous as an oxidizer. It is typically obtained, maintained and used with hybrid rocket motors in equipment roughly like that of bottled gas. The amount used is typically measured in terms of cubic centimeters of the rocket's tank, and would be weighed in several ounces to a few pounds. A very few such motors have been built around whipped cream pressurization canisters -- a few ounces. Hyperteks use from a ~300 cc to ~4700 cc tank.
TARC qualifications are already closed. If the students are going to participate, they've already done so, and so have obtained parental consent. The teacher sponsoring the team will have had to obtain the agreement of their supervising principal as being allowed to do so, almost certainly with the knowledge of the details of the team's activities.
No Hypertek motor is on the list of motors approved for TARC flying. No hybrids of any sort are on that list. They require use of electronic recovery systems. These almost invariably use pyrotechnic ejection systems. Handling the pyrotechnic materials require licensing unavailable to minors. They must handle the entire preparation and flight themselves in order to compete in TARC. Even if they have arranged for an alternative recovery system, they're not flying a Hypertek or any other hybrid in TARC flying.
If they're flying outside of TARC, the teacher can, if properly licensed, handle and operate the the equipment legally. Properly licensed includes high power rocketry certification (see
https://www.nar.org/hprrocs.html and the links provided), as no Hypertek motor is certified for flying that's less than an I impulse, well in the high power category. If the teacher is properly licensed, then they're capable of overseeing the use of hybrid motors, and know full well what they can let the students participate in, and what they have to do themselves.
Can a school system successfully and legally allow the use of high powered rocketry equipment, in particular hybrid motors and related technology, by secondary students? See page 10:
https://www.aiaa-houston.org/newsletter/sep05/sep05.pdf
Once one overcomes the less informed, default policies and regulations of the governing bodies, by being fully qualified, and conducting one's self as a professional, it is more than possible. The students are prevented from handling those things considered unsafe. That is done by the instructor. However, the students are educated in the proper handling and use.
Overcoming the objections of a school system's policies can difficult, but is not impossible. Adherence to a strict definition of inhalants (
https://www.drugabuse.gov/infofacts/inhalants.html) would require that gasoline powered vehicles (hydrocarbon inhalant of abuse; source of benzene, a carcinogen), especially with air conditioning (freon, inhalant of abuse) be disallowed from entering a campus. Not going to happen. The reasons why these (and WhiteOut, and felt tip markers, etc.) are allowed is because the students are supposedly properly supervised around them.
One should apply the concept of "properly supervised" as is applied in these other situations and gauge the teacher's planned activities by this. If the teacher is not properly licensed and experienced, they cannot legally use a hybrid themselves, much less allow students to engage in the activity. Examining the teacher's credentials in this respect, and then considering whether fully informed consent was obtained, are the first orders of business. If "stretching the rules" includes engaging in activities which they are not properly licensed and trained, then obviously they should not be allowed to engage in those activities within the purview of the school system, or in fact at all, much less involve students.
Fully informed means that the parents were apprised of the fact (if it is such) that the teacher intends to use technology which the students can't handle without contravening the school system's rules, and that they are fully qualified to use, not necessarily that the parents understand the technology itself.
If fully informed consent is obtained and the teacher is fully qualified, the school's legal and ethical liability is moot in allowing the activity to be associated with them, which extends to funding it. Unfortunately, they run the risk of having to prove this to be the case in a legal defense. They will almost certainly wish to avoid the cost of this, and especially of being accused in the first place. Such accusations make headlines, and result in a nearly automatic judgement of guilt in the minds of most of the public that pays their salaries and allows them to keep their jobs (or not). Their decisions will probably come to this, at least in part, whether explicitly or implicitly.
