Hi all,
Yes, SARG has a new field, and yes for now it's medium power only (edit: MPR *and* some H HPR
) . It's a quarter parcel at ~2500' on each side and flat as a pancake. That's not quite enough for official NAR guidelines for "I" motors, tho. Most importantly there are high-tension transmission lines along the east edge of the field, so we really can't push it there.
There is plenty of room otherwise, even for an H flight, but we don't have a waiver at this point so that's where the whole 125 grams of propellent thing came from, that keeps us under FAA "Class 1" requirements (and thus requires no waiver). We felt it was more important to get a place for the Scouts and 4H kids to fly first
.
The 2500' ceiling came from the fact this is a new field, we need no surprises at this point, and you know, power lines
. After a launch or two or three we'll raise it.
Now, for the HPR folks, don't fret. The owner of this property owns 3 of the 4 quarter parcel plots, and we're inquiring about how we can leverage them too, that could get us the potential space we'd need for an "I" launch. It ain't the L2 field we used to have, but hey, we're flying.
And we've learned a painful lesson, we're not stopping in the field search. We have a few more possibilities brewing for full on L2 fields, but we're also learning that in the byzantine layers of ranchers and land developers things move painfully slowly.
Marc
NAR L1