DAllen
Well-Known Member
So as a USLI mentor I get a little frustrated with all the negative talk about university teams and their "antics." Some of it is possibly warranted and most of it clearly is not. We can sit here and sift through countless hours of anecdotal, "well my experience has been," non sense but lets face the reality, numbers don't lie. Here's some numbers for you from the 2018 NASA USLI Launch in Tooney, AL that I got directly from NASA:
Of the 44 flights (which includes, collegiate, high school and middle school teams):
- 31 were nominal. Drogue at apogee, main at altitude
- O catos
- 7 early main deployments
- 5 tangled main
- 1 no main - no drogue
How many club launches have we been to that have a better record than that? Not many I'll wager if any at all. Go do the numbers sometime among us "experienced" fliers and you'll see what I am talking about. You know as well as I do there are very few club launches that have anywhere near that kind of success rate and we are usually flying much simpler projects that are not carrying horrendously complicated engineering payloads like they do.
My point of all this is, while I recognize criticism of some of these University programs is definitely justified, please do NOT paint all of these programs with the same brush. For every poorly run program I'll bet there are at least 10 well run and successful programs. I am concerned that some of the attitudes displayed here in TRF and in other places are going to drive this hobby to have a, "Get off my lawn" type of mentality when we really need to be helping these teams instead. You see a team struggling instead of snubbing a nose - offer help. Who knows, a lot of these folks might want to start dabbling in our crazy hobby after college.
And I'll say this, if any of you ever come to a Three Oaks launch and have an issue with the Notre Dame team LET ME KNOW. I will happily address any and all issues with their captain or the entire team. This years captain has no problem cracking the whip as it were. They might be a little loud and boisterous but they are all great students. Heck, they even volunteer to help setup the club equipment on the days they fly.
-Dave
Of the 44 flights (which includes, collegiate, high school and middle school teams):
- 31 were nominal. Drogue at apogee, main at altitude
- O catos
- 7 early main deployments
- 5 tangled main
- 1 no main - no drogue
How many club launches have we been to that have a better record than that? Not many I'll wager if any at all. Go do the numbers sometime among us "experienced" fliers and you'll see what I am talking about. You know as well as I do there are very few club launches that have anywhere near that kind of success rate and we are usually flying much simpler projects that are not carrying horrendously complicated engineering payloads like they do.
My point of all this is, while I recognize criticism of some of these University programs is definitely justified, please do NOT paint all of these programs with the same brush. For every poorly run program I'll bet there are at least 10 well run and successful programs. I am concerned that some of the attitudes displayed here in TRF and in other places are going to drive this hobby to have a, "Get off my lawn" type of mentality when we really need to be helping these teams instead. You see a team struggling instead of snubbing a nose - offer help. Who knows, a lot of these folks might want to start dabbling in our crazy hobby after college.
And I'll say this, if any of you ever come to a Three Oaks launch and have an issue with the Notre Dame team LET ME KNOW. I will happily address any and all issues with their captain or the entire team. This years captain has no problem cracking the whip as it were. They might be a little loud and boisterous but they are all great students. Heck, they even volunteer to help setup the club equipment on the days they fly.
-Dave