- L3 candidates would have to accumulate a certain number of L2 flights/ newton seconds under before they are allowed to apply for the L3 certification program. A qualifying applicant would still have to document under the mentorship of their TAPs but there would be a third test which would be a partial review of the L2 test plus the addition of some more advanced topics such as, best practices, tracking, etc.
.
I agree with much of your comment Mike, but here is a problem with just the bit above - newton seconds are expensive in terms of fuel and gasoline, motels, vacation away from work, etc. - basically: $$$. A newton-second burn requirement says, "You are not welcome" to a lot of participants. The "cert with a commercial motor" already imposes a significant cost that does not correlate perfectly with attained skills. I do not wish to see the $ factor made worse by a newton second burn requirement.
EX is a way to reduce $ for flights, and some propellants are significantly cheaper than others. Yet 2 of the three big certing organizations on the North American continent look at me like I am dangerous and about to blow up. My most commonly flown rockets use a sugar-alcohol for fuel. Would these certifying organizations allow me to count my newton-seconds? Probably not - but they should. It represents an attained skill related to rocketry.
I do like the idea of RSO-like skills being necessary to attaining levels. L3 should be able to look at a rocket design/build/motor, and know whether it should fly or not.
Last summer, I was serving as RSO at a large launch, and was asked to RSO a L3 cert project. I sent it back to the bench because a last minute, gerry-rigged motor retention was not going to work. A retaining ring had been lost or had not fit correctly. The flyer used 3 screws and some copper twist-wires to trap the motor in. The problem was the copper wires were close to, or even in, the direct line of fire coming out of the divergent motor cone. They would be vaporized. The builder did not understand that at first, but soon agreed to revise the build. It came back to the RSO table just after I had handed-off the duty to the next volunteer, so luckily my initials were not on the flight card. The aft end retention was fixed. Later, as my wife and I were seated at our tent, we watched that 98mm M-class motor case bounce 400' from our position after it had gone out the front of it's disintegrating rocket. Internals matter too!
An L3 applicant, and his L3 reviewer(s), had decided the materials, their application, and the build (no internal fillets, beyond a drizzle of thin epoxy, on through-the-wall construction) were "good enough" for a 98mm motor mount in a 6" rocket. That included a cardboard motor mount tube with no reinforcement. It survived the motor push, but not the fins trying to peel themselves off when the speed built up. Actually saw a fin depart before the sky-writing began.
Side-bar - You are RSO. You are looking at a rocket that has flown before. That means the rocket has landed before. Glue joints are hidden out of sight. What questions do you ask, and how hard do you wiggle fins before deciding that the fins are going to stay attached (appropriate to the motor in use)? Maybe we aught to be RSO mentoring. I would support a push to certify RSOs. Maybe have R-levels. I remember as a fresh L2 RSOing some guy's minimum-diameter, 75mm, waiver-tickler, L3 project thinking, "This situation is pretty much backwards. He should be asking me questions." Awesome rocket, performed flawlessly at well over Mach 2.