Successful Level 1 (or 2 and 3) certification launch and recovery requirements for passing

[Antares JS]

Your witness overstepped his/her authority. He does not have the power to make such requirements. He can recommend but not require, he should have stepped aside and steered you to another witness. Who says your first electronic deployment has to be on a 50-pound rocket flying on an L motor.

Absolutely correct. Electronic deployment is only a requirement for level 3 for that reason that no level 3 motors can use motor-actuated recovery. It's perfectly acceptable to fly motor-actuated recovery for level 2 per the official rules. Agree with above as well that you should find someone else to witness your flight.

I remember when I got my level 2 back in 2006, electronic recovery was still considered fairly advanced, and my witness was shocked that I was using electronic recovery. He seemed to feel better when I told him I had previously flown the rocket with electronic recovery on an I motor.

 

[jimzcatz]

I have on several occasions advised against using electronics for a L2 CERT flight. Get your cert and then push the envelope and learn new things. That's what the journey is all about. And cert on the smallest motor heaviest rocket you have. Just my .02

 

[PatD]

Have you not been on an interstate?? There are drivers out there like that. They give us all a bad name

My favorite curse phrase on the road now, "professional driver ".

 

[smstachwick]

From the NAR Lvl 1 requirements:

and also


If enforced, "dad rockets" shouldn't be an issue.

Good to know, I was going off my memory of the requirements listed in Stine’s Handbook. Should have gotten it from the horse’s mouth.

 

[Grog6]

Some questions occur to me: So exactly what level of cert do I need to legally fly any of my homebrew engines? I'm thinking L3.
Is it reasonable to think I could attend a launch, get my l1, take a test, do an l2 flight and get both certs?
Should I get a tripoli membership now?

 

[jimzcatz]

Yes, that's quite common. You need L2 for research activities.

 

[jmasterj]

Some questions occur to me: So exactly what level of cert do I need to legally fly any of my homebrew engines? I'm thinking L3.
Is it reasonable to think I could attend a launch, get my l1, take a test, do an l2 flight and get both certs?
Should I get a tripoli membership now?

TRA Lvl 2.
Yes.
Seems like it.

 

[Grog6]

Cool. I've been learning dual deploy; even with D engines here, it makes recovery easier.

 

[tsmith1315]

I have zero issue with using the build session as an instruction session, but to my mind, the L1 prospect should be able to at least repeat the answers to a 3rd party, and hopefully demonstrate an understanding.

Reminds me of labs where one or two students pulled the weight, one or two paid attention and learned a bit by the time it was over, and one copied everyone else's papers and left totally clueless as to what just happened. Yet, everyone got the grade.

 

[dhbarr]

Reminds me of labs where one or two students pulled the weight, one or two paid attention and learned a bit by the time it was over, and one copied everyone else's papers and left totally clueless as to what just happened. Yet, everyone got the grade.

Wish it were different, but everything about my career suggests that's fairly universal.

 

[sharkbait]

When I competed in Science Olympiad in my youth, it was pretty obvious which of the gadgets for the build events were made by the competitors and which ones were made by the “supervising” adults. For one, the ones built by the adults were too polished and precise to have been put together by somebody at the middle school level. If you want to convince me that your kid built something, the best way to do that is for it to have some crooked lines, a few wrinkles, maybe even a spot where it got broken and had to be glued back together again. But if those aren’t present and your kid is really that good of a craftsperson, they’ll be able to talk about the design, development, and testing process in detail.

The rubber-band airplane that I built together with my teammate, our coach supervising with his hands firmly in his pockets, ended up placing better than any other that I had judged, either by appearance or conversation, to be a “kid plane.” Only the “dad planes” ended up beating us. I’m still very proud of that, even if the announced results had us in 14th overall.

Do we certify those people flying “dad rockets”? Or “professor rockets”? Or “rest-of-the-team-built-this-while-you-sat-around-eating-Doritos rockets”? That’s up to the certification witness (to a point, anyway, I think L3 specifies the attempting flyers build the rocket substantially by themself).

Please

Some questions occur to me: So exactly what level of cert do I need to legally fly any of my homebrew engines? I'm thinking L3.
Is it reasonable to think I could attend a launch, get my l1, take a test, do an l2 flight and get both certs?
Should I get a tripoli membership now?

Tripoli level 2 is correct, but there are certain restrictions as what home brew’s you can fly, ie you cannot fly micro grain motors or sugar motors made with Sucrose, or use PVC cases or steel hardware ect ect. Read the Tripoli Research safety code, it spells it all out there

 

[Grog6]

Good, I need to do that. I have an interesting project I've been working on, and it's going to need a beefy engine. A miniature sprint missile, (with no nuke or silo launch). My goal is to see it glowing in IR, like the real one I saw..

 

[jd2cylman]

At the last club launch, I had a college student while holding the rocket in one hand and the motor in the other, actually asked me “now, where does this go?” While looking at the motor… Oh the responses that went through my mind…

 

[jimzcatz]

At the last club launch, I had a college student while holding the rocket in one hand and the motor in the other, actually asked me “now, where does this go?” While looking at the motor… Oh the responses that went through my mind…

I'm hoping you sent him back to school. There's no way I would let that go.

 

[jd2cylman]

I'm hoping you sent him back to school. There's no way I would let that go.

Well, due to over enthusiastic gluing, the motor didn't fit in the mount. So back to his group for dremel work. Then back to drill the delay. There was one more trip back, but I forget what for. So, he got the rocket onto the pad and it actually flew, but didn't survive the landing. So, no he didn't pass. Sad part is, the team has a mentor; he should have covered all this with the kid before he sent him up to fly the rocket. maybe he did, but it didn't soak in...

 

[jmasterj]

At the last club launch, I had a college student while holding the rocket in one hand and the motor in the other, actually asked me “now, where does this go?” While looking at the motor… Oh the responses that went through my mind…

If it's an A motor, we can roll with that. High power? That's a problem.

 

[OzHybrid]

This comes up again and again. The CAR, NAR or Tripoli HPR certification requirements are clearly laid out.
HOWEVER.... A club may have additional rules. AND the RSO may not permit your flight.
So.....
1- To get a cert you have to have a place to launch with a certifier present. This does not have to be a club but you may have to notify your certifying authority of the location of your site to ensure you are insured.
2- You have to arrange a certifier to be present on the day of the launch..........
3- If the launch is at a club site you have to be compliant with the club rules............
4- You have to also be compliant with the build guidelines for your rocket ( dependant on your certifier body but mostly the same set of rules)
5- The RSO has to give you a sign off to launch your rocket (you may require additional sign offs for higher levels but this covers L1
5a- LCO should announce that this is a cert flight. You must ensure your appropriate witness/ certifier is available AND watching......
6- You have to successfully launch and recover your rocket based on the certifying body rules. ( you should by now be within club rules safely, but check)
7- Return rocket to witness/certifier, fill in the paperwork and ENSURE IT IS SUBMITTED.....

A simple 7 step process for L1.......
Norm

 

[sharkbait]

This comes up again and again. The CAR, NAR or Tripoli HPR certification requirements are clearly laid out.
HOWEVER.... A club may have additional rules. AND the RSO may not permit your flight.
So.....
1- To get a cert you have to have a place to launch with a certifier present. This does not have to be a club but you may have to notify your certifying authority of the location of your site to ensure you are insured.
2- You have to arrange a certifier to be present on the day of the launch..........
3- If the launch is at a club site you have to be compliant with the club rules............
4- You have to also be compliant with the build guidelines for your rocket ( dependant on your certifier body but mostly the same set of rules)
5- The RSO has to give you a sign off to launch your rocket (you may require additional sign offs for higher levels but this covers L1
5a- LCO should announce that this is a cert flight. You must ensure your appropriate witness/ certifier is available AND watching......
6- You have to successfully launch and recover your rocket based on the certifying body rules. ( you should by now be within club rules safely, but check)
7- Return rocket to witness/certifier, fill in the paperwork and ENSURE IT IS SUBMITTED.....

A simple 7 step process for L1.......
Norm

TRA is very clear, NAR not so much, they for example leave zippers up to the certifier’s discretion, this is where confusion leaches into the equation.

 

[boatgeek]

I might be the archetypical person the questions about previous experience are supposed to address. My rocketry experience was:
A couple of flights in elementary school
A couple of flights on a Wizard
Scratch build an L1-capable rocket, fly on a G for a test flight
Fixed issues found on test flight, fly H for cert

That said, I could answer all of the questions @ThirstyBarbarian asks below. I think that most of these are on the back of the cert paperwork, so prospective certifiers should know that they're coming. FWIW, my L1 cert rocket is probably my most-flown rocket 8 years later.

Where is the CP? How do you know?
Where is the CG? How do you know?
Is it stable? How do you know?
How much does it weigh?
What motor are you using?
Does that motor have enough thrust for the rocket? How do you know?
Will the rocket leave the rail at a safe speed? How do you know?
What delay are you using? How did you calculate it?

 

[ShadowSpire48]

On my L1, the epoxy holding a cardboard coupler to the heavy-ass nose (4" Patriot) broke on landing but luckily Steven Skinner from Mach1 (before he finalized Mach1) got some removable rivets and fixed it back up and I passed. My L2 got about a 2" zipper from an extra-long Aerotech DMS delay (gotta love those) but Chris Short passed me on it. On both of my certs, I wasn't asked CP/CG, maybe because I had decals for it lol.

We've had college teams coming to our launches to do L1 certs and very few of them had ever flown a rocket before the cert. I think it should be a requirement that you must know how to build a G-capable rocket with epoxy before attempting to L1 cert.

 

[jmasterj]

I think it should be a requirement that you must know how to build a G-capable rocket with epoxy before attempting to L1 cert.

Requiring epoxy to cert level 1 would be ridiculous.
Sorry, shouldn't make this a glue thread.

 

[Sooner Boomer]

Requiring epoxy to cert level 1 would be ridiculous.
Sorry, shouldn't make this a glue thread.

Agreed. My L1 cert rocket was built with yellow glue. I'd flown it on G motors for about 20 years before I decided to really jump into high power. It flew fine on Hs and Is. Then I flew it on an E23 and crashed it. *sigh*

 

[Hyak]

On the matter of the Test, I agree that it should be @ L1 as its basic Rocketry info that every flier should *understand* before going HP

I myself am a Pilot, (AMEL was my private, ASES was next and onward from there.) and even way back when I first got my Private, - that was more than a few years ago - one had to take and PASS a written exam. You were NOT allowed to solo without that. Period. (there are a few other criteria as well, but one had to have that successfully completed)

The FAA actually published the entire exam bank for each rating. So what one did was to highlight the wording of the correct answers, and learn them. Take and PASS the written. Flight instructors told you to do it this way. PASS it, then really learn and understand it.

"But wait! "Hold on there a minute" you're thinking. "That doesn't convey knowledge. That's just memorizing the answers!' (I still remember posing that very same question myself back then) And you'd be right.

But our friendly folks down in Oklahoma City (FAA) are not stupid and to this day, for any Rating, you have to ALSO take an Oral exam given by an FAA examiner or a DE. And you DONT pass that one unless you know your subject matter. And like anything, if you don't really know something, they just keep drilling in to check your understanding. Knock on wood, I never failed an oral! Did bust and have to redo a check-ride once, but I digress...

So in my opinion, the certification process should be much more stringent in terms of at least entry level. The test should indeed be at L1 *AND* there should be an oral exam as well, to confirm that the L1 flyer has a commensurate level of understanding for the level he/she is certifying at.

HPR can go sideways quickly and having a basic understanding of the basic aerodynamic principles involved, Rules, some basic Wx, etc. should be a requirement before plugging that H999N into ones rocket. Which at L-1, you can do.

This would help ensure that even if one had never flown anything before, they met a standard of knowledge and competency.

And honestly I don't think that that would hurt TRA membership at all. TRA has always, -*at least in my mind* - been about HPR, and the folks I used to know back when I was active the first time around, were pretty smart cookies. These guys knew the physics of HPR, so a little something like an exam would not have slowed these guys down one second.

Anyway, my thoughts for what they are worth...

Fly Safe!

 

[Sooner Boomer]

I agree with a lot of the sentiments about increasing the scrutiny of L1 tyros, verifying their knowledge and abilities. But (and you knew there had to be one), in Tripoli, only a prefect, board member, or president can sign off on a successful cert. It's really up to these fine folk to act as the stopgap between the competent and people you wouldn't trust with matches. The only area I would be a little more lenient with is the assembly of motors. Sometimes it's just not practical to assemble the motor at the launch. I usually put mine together sitting on the couch at home. You've got to trust these people at some point, so if they bring an assembled motor, you have to trust that 1) they built it themselves, and 2) they put it together correctly. If not 2, you'll find out very quickly (and they'll fail to cert).

 

[Hobie1dog]

So what one did was to highlight the wording of the correct answers, and learn them. Take and PASS the written.. PASS it, then really learn and understand it.

"But wait! "Hold on there a minute" you're thinking. "That doesn't convey knowledge. That's just memorizing the answers!' (I still remember posing that very same question myself back then) And you'd be right

Reminds me of taking Ham Radio test for the three levels, and you end up having to learn the answers to 1400 questions in the test pool. You can take all three tests on the same day without ever having touched a radio or keyed a microphone

 

[jimzcatz]

The system works and isn't broken. Don't try to fix it. Especially with needless add ons.

 

[Steve Shannon]

Over the years, I've seen different things that have either been ok or not ok for getting your cert on a flight depending on the person(s) observing the flight. Some have said if the rocket can be launched again, some have said with 'minimal damage' some have said zippers are ok, some have said...

I'd like some opinions to a few things that have happened on launches as to being ok for passing:

Wrong delay, hard recovery, broken fin.

Parachute doesn't deploy but rocket not damaged.

Fin(s) break off on landing.

Nose cone separates from rest of rocket.

Motor retention fails but everything is undamaged.

I'd like to get opinions on whether these would still pass for certifications, feel free to add other anomalies.

Why ask for opinions. Look at the check sheet on the reverse of the NAR certification form or the Tripoli L1 page. Every situation you questioned was clearly a failure.

 

[sharkbait]

Why ask for opinions. Look at the check sheet on the reverse of the NAR certification form or the Tripoli L1 page. Every situation you questioned was clearly a failure.

Not really Steve, NAR for example leaves zippers up to the discretion of the certifier and post #50 reflects a pass with a zipper and a pass with a broken NC coupler

 

[jmasterj]

Not really Steve, NAR for example leaves zippers up to the discretion of the certifier and post #50 reflects a pass with a zipper and a pass with a broken NC coupler

He didn't list a zipper in the OP; all of the items in that list are failures per the certification rules, which is why the discussion turned to changes to the process.

 

[sharkbait]

He didn't list a zipper in the OP; all of the items in that list are failures per the certification rules, which is why the discussion turned to changes to the process.

In the OP he also asks about any other anomalies which would include zippers