An Open letter to Mark Bundick, NAR President

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At no point did I say in my "open letter" to Mark that I would like to see every single NAR sanctioned flight have to go through extreme safety precautions, my post was intended for the high power section of the NAR and should not effect either Low or Mid Power rocketeers, boy scout/cub scouts school groups etc.

Look, it seems to me that a fair amount of you are concerned about this, and I can tell by the passionate replies that you all have a fair stake in this particular topic - for that I'm exceedingly grateful for each of your replies, and to be blunt, this was the exact reason why I started this thread, so that Mark and the NAR bigwigs could come here and read the replies and thoughts.

I urge each of you to take the time to write a letter to Mark, Jay, et all and give them your own suggestions to perhaps aid with these safety issues that have been mentioned here.

Cheers,
 
Originally posted by cls
because we have no hard data on flight failures, it is not at all clear that the majority of issues occur during boost - I'd bet most issues are recovery related, not boost stability related.
...
my long way of saying, I hope the committee report says something like "all NAR sections report flight result data for 1 year". then we can see x% of flights were successful, x% had recovery issues, x% had boost stability issues, x% had build quality issues.

First, I am presently up to my eyeballs in launch log data, and by NARAM I'll have over 6000 flights broken out by failure type, motor size, and a bunch of other factors. [Aside: if anyone has club logs (not personal logs) that have that sort of data that I can add to the analysis, please let me know!]

That analysis will help, but we're still dealing with relatively low probability events. Suppose you know that 3 in 1000 "B" impulse rockets will lawn dart. Then what? You might not be able to completely prevent them. Maybe all you can do is to increase the chance that they happen away from the crowds....

There are a couple of other points to ponder, too:

--The number/proportion of failures (eg., boost vs recovery) isn't quite so important as the severity of the possible consequence, right? I mean, "CATO" is an event that, while not enjoyable, isn't typically unsafe (because of launch distance rules). Lawn darts are much more likely to be dangerous.

--Boost problems often turn into recovery problems. A low trajectory flight often ends up as a separation or a lawn dart.

--Rocket size usually increases the hazard. A separation on an Alpha is undesirable, but not nearly the problem that a separation on a PML Tethys is.
And clearly the landing zone matters--if all rockets land in open areas, it's not so much of an issue. If they land in the prep area, it is.

I don't think that you need (or should) simulate every flight to be safe (and in fact I'm pretty sure that even if you did, you'd still have problems, because at the end of the day you fly a rocket, not a simulation).

I _do_ think that there are a set of measures that might help some of the time--especially for large launches--but I suspect a lot of clubs are using them already.

I also think there are some powerful tools out there that we can use to develop a better understanding of the hazard space and the consequences of our choices when flying under various conditions. I think that would be very helpful, but it remains to be seen.

A final point: I personally enjoy rocketry because it allows me to solve challenging problems. The rocket tells me, every flight, how good of a job I'm doing. I enjoy it because it is _hard_.

That means that failure of various sorts, and the attendant risks, however actuarily small, are always going to be a part of the mix. Someone pointed out that flying Alphas from a distance of 5000' would be boring, and they're right. The tricky issue lies in balancing the challenge and the risk.

Thoughts?

--tc
NAR 69921 L2
 
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