FlisKits 12th anniversary launch, Amesbury, MA September 27th!

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Dont sell yourself short. Bottom line..everybody went home with all their fingers and toes,eyeballs,ect , safely.

Cant bitch about that.

It aint easy being in the captains seat.
Especilay reading from script cards. And I might add,some of those cards were not complete or correct on the flyers count.
I asked for a 3/16 and needed 1/8, the saftey guy caught it and headed me to the correct pad.
And I know I left some data off me "Cleared for Blastoff" card, twice.
Its not like its a test or anything..:facepalm:

I feel bad when anyone has to read off my cards. My handwriting is marginal when I have a good surface to work from. It deteriorates quickly when doing it in a field with no good surface to use. My mom always told me that I was going to be a doctor based on my handwriting. I one-upped her and went into IT where you don't NEED to write anything by hand.
 
It was a wonderful day, start to Finnish! Hats off to those who ran the field throughout the day. Not an easy task on a good day and we were BUSY this day.

Thank you to everyone who made it out. It was a good day to fly, but more than that, it brought a smile to my face to help bring it about. I know it's just a regularly scheduled CMASS launch, but youse guys make it extra special for FlisKits, and it is greatly appreciated!

A couple of folks stopped by to say hi and I felt I may have been short with them. If I was, I apologize :). It was a very busy day with events every 30 minutes and I was WIRED lol. Thank you for bearing with me!

I hope to have photos posted shortly, but in the mean time here are some...

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I was your RSO, Matt, and I have to say I thought you did really well on a busy flight line. There was some extra confusion with the big drag race but a few other things were in the mix. There was some L2 paperwork left in the slot well after their launch and that mixed some things up. One of the slots was marked 1/8 but was really 3/16 and a few people just moved their rocket rather than tell me. One thing I did notice was that misfires/shorts/etc were being left on the pads for long periods of time. In some cases, no one went to them even after their name was called. Plus, I was being pretty careful about placing the cards but I won't guarantee that I didn't miss one or two. :facepalm: If you do think you need some pointers, just watch Kenn. He runs a tight ship, especially when it comes to wires. :)

Hey Mike, all in all, we got em all up and down, no farm animals were injured, so it was a good day, and you were a great teammate. I tend to be self-critical, it's how I motivate myself to improve.

Like the pad manager idea floated by Bill - on busy days, that could be a big help.

Cake!


NAR #91867, L2
Member CMASS, MMMSC, RIMRA, CATO
 
Hey Mike, all in all, we got em all up and down, no farm animals were injured, so it was a good day, and you were a great teammate. I tend to be self-critical, it's how I motivate myself to improve.

Like the pad manager idea floated by Bill - on busy days, that could be a big help.

Cake!


NAR #91867, L2
Member CMASS, MMMSC, RIMRA, CATO

Kenn will be one of the first to tell you when it gets busy and there is a lot going on around the RSO and LCO tables it can get really hectic and difficult to concentrate on the job at hand, which is number 1, safety first. As you say, no animals were harmed (not even any cats!) and I think all in all, the launch was smooth for the number of flights we did. You get a real mix of flyer experience, and it can't always run as smoothly as you would like. I had one hopefully first time flyer come up with a 3FNC rocket with a C6-0 listed on the card. I asked if it was really a C6-0, and when he said yes, I hopefully patiently explained why a C6-0 is a bad idea for a one stage parachute/streamer recover rocket. I probably should have further explained that a C6-0 could be a really good choice for the right saucer, but you only have so much time when it is busy. And speaking of saucers and multi-stage rockets, if you haven't experienced a full up all pads FlisKits Frick-N-Frack drag race, you gotta put it on your rocketry bucket list.
 
And speaking of saucers and multi-stage rockets, if you haven't experienced a full up all pads FlisKits Frick-N-Frack drag race, you gotta put it on your rocketry bucket list.

Calling that race was a 'blast'! Nothing quite like it.
 
I was LCO for the last hour and when I took over every pad was at least 3 deep with cards. I did my best to get them launched as quickly as I could and still keep things safe so if it sounded like I was reading the cards fast and not adding any extra banter, that was the plan.

I'm questioning the 350 flight figure. I heard an LCO announce flight number 70 early on, and then another LCO announced flight number 72 quite a while later so either the stamper got reset or the second LCO couldn't read the number which is not surprising given the lack of ink on the stamper.
 
I was RSO during the last hour along wtih you Bob. If you do the math, the launch lasted 6 hours, or 360 minutes. We only have to average 1 launch a minute to put 360 flights up in the air. I am certain when we were working through the backlog you were launching at much more than 1 per minute. I realize that there were times during the launch especially at the begining where the pace was much slower, but for a good portion of the day I think the pace was pretty good.
 
I was LCO for the last hour and when I took over every pad was at least 3 deep with cards. I did my best to get them launched as quickly as I could and still keep things safe so if it sounded like I was reading the cards fast and not adding any extra banter, that was the plan.

I'm questioning the 350 flight figure. I heard an LCO announce flight number 70 early on, and then another LCO announced flight number 72 quite a while later so either the stamper got reset or the second LCO couldn't read the number which is not surprising given the lack of ink on the stamper.

Not being there, I can't speak to the number of launches you guys did as a total but I wouldn't be surprised by 350 or 400 or more for as active as the day sounded. The stamper is getting old and there seems to be some number wheels that aren't making good contact with the flight cards. Resetting the numbers is not a trivial activity so I doubt anything like that happened during the launch. Finally, at the previous launch (joint launch with MMMSC in Berwick) the inker on the stamper was pretty dry. We applied a little ink in to the pad but it could use more and some time for it to soak into the pad.

Thanks to those who stepped up and filled in for the slots I had signed up for but had to bail on. From everything I've heard and read, the day was another success and a good time was had by anyone who wanted to have fun.
 
Not being there, I can't speak to the number of launches you guys did as a total but I wouldn't be surprised by 350 or 400 or more for as active as the day sounded. ... From everything I've heard and read, the day was another success and a good time was had by anyone who wanted to have fun.

I'll split the difference, put the over/under at 375 and bet the over.

Carmine and I had fun - he got to announce a launch and press the button. I got to announce lots of launches and press lots of buttons, and even got two rockets in the air.

Looking back in my notes, I realized that the first CMASS launch we ever attended was the Fliskits launch in 2010 - hard to believe that its been 4 years.
 
While you're out at the trailer, check the stamper for the number it is at now. That should be a pretty good indication...and you won't have to take your shoes off.
I was LCO at the end and the stamper said 352 for the last launch. But 70 was announced once and 72 was announced quite a bit later but the ink was only really showing the last 2 numbers without looking real close so the stamper could have been on 172 and on a quick glance could have been mistaken for 72.

I can't remember a time when I've done LCO where the numbers were easily readable. I know we are probably using that stamper because it's first one we had when we stopped chiseling the numbers into the flight stones.
 
I was LCO at the end and the stamper said 352 for the last launch. But 70 was announced once and 72 was announced quite a bit later but the ink was only really showing the last 2 numbers without looking real close so the stamper could have been on 172 and on a quick glance could have been mistaken for 72.

I can't remember a time when I've done LCO where the numbers were easily readable. I know we are probably using that stamper because it's first one we had when we stopped chiseling the numbers into the flight stones.

Ah, the good old days. I still remember having to load all those stones on the equipment ox cart. And it was a god day if we got more than LXXV flights in.
 
Jim's cup saucer, during the decaffinator drag race

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