2011 NAR National Events

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Ted Cochran

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Greetings,

First, let me once again congratulate Mike Konshak and his team on a thoroughly enjoyable NARAM-52.

At the NARAM-52 Awards Banquet, I announced the sponsors and locations for the 2011 events:

NARCON 2011. The Washington Aerospace Club, Section 578, will host NARCON 2011 in at the University of Washington's Earth Sciences Department in Seattle on March 12th and 13th, 2011. The event also includes a visit to the Museum of Flight on March 13. Jim Wilkerson will be the event director.


NSL 2011. Rick Dickinson of Rocketry Organization of California will host NSL 2011 on June 10-12, 2011 on Lucerne Dry Lake bed.


NARAM-53 will be directed by Chan Stevens and held in Lebanon, OH, near Cincinnati, OH, Saturday 7/23/2011 through Friday 7/29/2011. Host sections will be a consortium of QUARK, TORC, MTMA, and WVSOAR. Events will be:


1/2A ALT (9)
A-HD (20)
1/4A FW (18)
1/2A SRD (13)

C-RG (22)
1/8A SD (M/R) (12)
C-ELA (18)
R & D (36)
PMC (26)
B-scale altitude (29)

This is going to be a fun meet that will test participants skills on small-scale modeling to the limit!

Thanks very much to Jim, Rick, and Chan for stepping up and contributing to NAR through their efforts to host these events; we owe them a debt of gratitude.

--Ted Cochran
NAR National Events Chair
 
1/4A flex wing - I haven't seen that done up until now. (I'm not very experienced, though.) Also, an altitude egg lofting event, an altitude event for scale, plastic model conversion and C rocket glider. Interesting stuff!
 
Nice to see the events spread across the country for more to enjoy.

Hoping to make it to one or two in 2011.
 
I see that the Museum of Flight has a real live SR-71 cockpit that you can sit in. That alone might justify a trip to NARCON... :headbang:
 
Now, if I can only arrange a business trip adjacent to NARCON and NARAM.....(I was just on a 3 hour telecon/webex with WPAFB).
 
Neither rocket glider nor boost glider rules require or prohibit radio control. Either RC or free-flight (or autonomous, if you're feeling particularly ambitious) is allowed.
 
Yes. If you're unfamiliar with the Rocket-Glider event concept as opposed to the Boost/Glider, here's the difference:

A rocket glider goes up as a rocket, and without discarding anything, comes back down as a glider.


A boost/glider goes up as a rocket, and after ejection, has a part of it that glides down. Other parts (a carrier rocket, or a pop-pod) can come down separately.
 
To elaborate a bit more on RG - There are several main types that tend to be used. One of the most common is the slide wing, which starts with the wing back by the tail and the whole grouping works as fins during boost. At ejection, the wing slides forward and it transitions into glide. Remember that you can't kick the motor at all in NAR competition.

The second main type is the swing flop wing. The wing starts with the tips folded to the center and the wing rotated 90 degrees. At ejection, the wing swivels into glide position and the tips fold out.

Another popular design is the most improbable - the Backslider (or Backstabber as some of our club members prefer to call it!:p) this is actually a special type of Superroc that vents the ejection charge side was at the nose and comes back tail first - the darned things actually do glide! These were developed by the Alway brothers and do show up in RG events, although they aren't usually that competitive.
 
You can not kick a motor WITHOUT RECOVERY. if it recovers safely (say in a tumbling booster or with an attached streamer) your fine.

some wrap a streamer around the motor so when it "kicks" it unfurls the streamer and recovers safely and within the rules.

One of them littler buggers (back slider) got some actual hang time at this past naram. IE longer than some normal gliders did :)
 
You can not kick a motor WITHOUT RECOVERY. if it recovers safely (say in a tumbling booster or with an attached streamer) your fine.

some wrap a streamer around the motor so when it "kicks" it unfurls the streamer and recovers safely and within the rules.

One of them littler buggers (back slider) got some actual hang time at this past naram. IE longer than some normal gliders did :)

True - what I should have said was you can't kick the motor in RG - everything that goes up must come back intact.
 
Greetings,

NARAM-53 will be directed by Chan Stevens and held in Lebanon, OH, near Cincinnati, OH, Saturday 7/23/2011 through Friday 7/29/2011. Host sections will be a consortium of QUARK, TORC, MTMA, and WVSOAR. Events will be:

1/2A ALT (9)
A-HD (20)
1/4A FW (18)
1/2A SRD (13)
C-RG (22)
1/8A SD (M/R) (12)
C-ELA (18)
R & D (36)
PMC (26)
B-scale altitude (29)

This is going to be a fun meet that will test participants skills on small-scale modeling to the limit!

Thanks very much to Jim, Rick, and Chan for stepping up and contributing to NAR through their efforts to host these events; we owe them a debt of gratitude.

--Ted Cochran
NAR National Events Chair

*********************************************************

Is the Event Schedule ( Days for events, Turn-In, etc. ) for NARAM-53 available yet ?

If not, when is it expected to be posted publicly ?

Dave
 
Backsliders don't actually glide. The motion of the rocket doesn't produce any lift. The negative angle of attack and falling creates a thrust which makes the rocket move laterally.


Mikey
 
I disagree. They act and behave as if they are in fact generating lift. I had a good video of one (can't seem to find it just now) you can clearly see it behaving as if its under the influence of lift even rising in a thermal and "banking" and turning though slowly with that insane moment of inertia they have.

they definitely are descending under more than just their "drag" ie they are generating lift.
 
Backsliders don't actually glide. The motion of the rocket doesn't produce any lift. The negative angle of attack and falling creates a thrust which makes the rocket move laterally.


Mikey

Mark Fisher's R & D from NARAM-46 established the theoretical basis for why/how backsliders generate lift, why they therefore are gliders, and worked out some nifty equations for how to size fin and body tube length for optimum performance. He backed it up by designing and building several configurations in A/B/C class, and the models proved out most of his hypotheses.

We now return to your regularly scheduled 2011 national event thread...
 
I haven't seen that report, need to find a copy :). I still maintain that the falling motion of the rocket generates a forward motion simply by resolving the drag on the body tube and fins into a vertical and horizontal component. The horizontal motion doesn't generate lift. The negative angle of attack that a backslider assumes resolves the fall into a horizontal motion and a vertical drag. It looks like it's gliding, but it 'falling with style :)'.

If a rocket fell horizontally would it be considered a glider, i.e. if there was only the vertical component of the motion? An interesting comparison would be to see if the drop time of a horizontal body was different than that of a 'backsliding' one.

In any event, it looks like backsliders may be really important for this year's B division Science Olympiad. There's a bottle rocket event that may require them :D
 
The negative angle of attack that a backslider assumes resolves the fall into a horizontal motion and a vertical drag. It looks like it's gliding, but it 'falling with style :)'.

You're making a rather large assumption there: that a backslider does have a negative AOA. I understand that this is fairly intuitive with a powered aircraft, but not so much in a glide. The only way to know the AOA for sure is to put an AOA sensor on a fin or the body.

I understand that we are making the equally large assumption of a positive AOA. You did point out that "looks" like it's gliding, however, and until you have empirical evidence that it isn't, namely AOA data, the assumption will be made that it is gliding.
 
thats correct the decent time for a backslider is quite a bit longer than a dead drop decent sideways. also of note a GLIDER also falls the same way. think of a backslider as a lifting body with canards
 
Yes Chris, but how many lifting bodies operate nose down? :) I did some computational fluid dynamics for NARAM a couple years back, and I was unable to compute lift for a fins-down body traveling horizontally.... The forward motion actually caused a downward thrust.....
 
illogical question. Under power or NOT under power.?

Its my understanding that 100% of "unpowered" gliders operate NOSE DOWN. this is a given they have to translate forward motion into lift and the only way to do that is to use gravity and trade altitude for forward motion to generate lift. You do this by GOING DOWN. until you add an outside source of energy (thermal) you need to be nose down in order to glide and even in a thermal your still "nose down" ground relative.

Point a glider nose up by even half a degree and its not going to be gliding for very long.

Typically the only time a glider flies nose up is when its flaring to land IE trading drag for increase lift to slow its landing but if you do that too high well.......

Even in zero G a glider can not operate nose up since even an unpowered glider is not "unpowered" its externally powered via gravity. No gravity no ability to translate forward motion and therefore no ability to generate and control lift even if you shove it eventually the drag of generating lift and of passing through air will slow it to a stop.

so anything that glides without "internal" power IE gravity drive must fly "nose down" to keep flying.

I am pretty well experienced at aeronautics but not professionally so I may not be using the correct terminology. I am betting there are plenty here who can clarify what I am trying to say if its unclear.
 
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Every shot I could find of the shuttle gliding shows it at near 0 AOA or Negative AOA with almost all of them Negative AOA (not counting the landing shots where it flares)

https://www.google.com/images?q=spa...tle&resnum=5&ved=0CDkQsAQwBA&biw=1082&bih=829

Fine one single positive AOA shot?

as a note when I say Nose Up I am talking about the aircrafts AOA. NOT "literally" which way the "nose" of the airplane is pointed since the actual physical angle of the nose is irrelevant. I assumed we were all aware of this so I am adding this as clarification just in case.

To fly the aircraft must move forward through the air so it can generate lift.

When it does so it encounters DRAG pushing the glider backwards. SO you need THRUST to counter DRAG (basic 2 of the 4 forces of flight)

since a glider has no POWER it must get this thrust externally. We use GRAVITY to do this. In order to use gravity you must DESCEND so that you are pushing against the resistance of the air downwards to produce horizontal movement forward IE "thrust" sot to speak.

All gliders are "gravity drive" propulsion if you will.

The only time this WORKS is when you are descending IE negative AOA. Once your nose is positive you are exactly BALANCING descent and lift which means nothing extra for "thrust" so eventually drag slows you down till your nose (AOA) drops or you STALL if you resist this.

its Aero 101. Keep your nose down so you keep your speed up so your wings work. Thats piloting 101 in an engine out situation.

Does this mean Backsliders glide? NO but it sure implies it.

The descent rate and behavior of a backslider is decidedly different and decidedly slower than a simple tumbling (straight down sideways) tube.

it "behaves" like a glider in every way I can imagine so logic says short of evidence to the contrary it very likely IS gliding.
 
Hey - if it walks like a duck, and it quacks like a duck, and it tastes like a duck... :D
 
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