DARS Launches - Dallas Area Rocket Society

[samb]

This Saturday actually worked out for being able to attend Frisco, any word on the field? I spent part of the evening rehabbing a few dinged up LPR to be flight ready.

Edit: just saw on the DARS website we are on for Saturday. It says the growth is still there. Is it thick enough that I may lose a 4 year old in it...he does come with a built in audible tracker?

With winds out of the south we should be able to find a spot in the area that was cut back a few weeks ago. The eastern part of the field is a rocket (and small child) eating jungle ! (<== just a slight exaggeration. ) But one of these might be useful for especially valuable children:



Bring a weed wacker if you can. And streamers, forecasted winds will be at our upper limit.

 

[AlfaBrewer]

If it's as tall as last month (and I have no reason to think it's any shorter) the long reel or audible tracking system will be quite useful.

Wear long pants. Or be prepared to pick burrs out of any leg hair you might have.

 

[tab28682]

I ended up not going out of town this weekend, but am iffy for tomorrow. Little windy for the R/C rocket gliders, but then again, not much downwind chasing involved....

 

[pyrobob]

How'd things go today? Kind of windy this morning but that seem to die down in the afternoon. Also, any word about HPR next week????

 

[tmacklin]

How'd things go today? Kind of windy this morning but that seem to die down in the afternoon. Also, any word about HPR next week????

I went to Frisco today but did not fly anything. It was a bit windy and seasonally hot but there were a good number of flyers and lots of nice flights. I'm still holding out for the cooler fall weather.

I didn't hear anything positive about Corsicana but one can always hope.

 

[tmacklin]

Yesterday after attending the Estes Make it/Take it event at the Irving Convention Center, I took the scenic route home and stopped by the Gunter HP site. While there I took some panoramic photos of that portion north of where we had been launching as previously described at my post number 68. The first series of photos were taken at a point roughly 300 feet due west of the intersection of Old Skaggs School and Stiff Chapel roads. The first photo is looking back to the east where I entered and the successive panorama were made in a a clockwise rotation, E, SE, S, SW, and so on. As you can see the corn has been harvested but the stubble remains.

 

[Cl(VII)]

Today's launch was good times. Not too busy, but not dead either. The boys had a good time B-ing and C-ing the day away. Come to think of it, we only missed the D on running the allowed alphabet today.

10 flights and we only lost 1/3 of a rocket to a shotgun ejection charge. A second rocket required a clandestine recovery, but came home safe.

 

[tmacklin]

After the first series of pics I went out of the cornfield and traveled west along Stiff Chapel Road about 2,000 feet to a gated opening which entered to a freshly mowed hay field and entered it. I then proceed to take two sets of photos...one just inside the gate and another near the ten acre Hunt Lake (see Google Earth). This is a big chunk of Texas prairie folks!

 

[tmacklin]

...and here's another series of photos taken about 1,500 feet south of where I entered and just west of the dam.

 

[tmacklin]

...and this, I think, is the last of the pics.

 

[pyrobob]

Geez that sure looks nice. Is this the area where a house is slightly too close and prohibits high power, or the wind direction pond thing?? Or, none of the above .

 

[tab28682]

Hated to miss Frisco, but a looming project deadline at work sent me to the shop for most of Saturday and part of today....

Have only gotten to launch twice thus year...argh. Hard to make the sites, the weather and non-rocket parts of life all line up favorably at the same time!

 

[tmacklin]

Geez that sure looks nice. Is this the area where a house is slightly too close and prohibits high power, or the wind direction pond thing?? Or, none of the above .

This is not my area of expertise but I believe there is enough open land on this property to accommodate at least some lower high power flights, perhaps H through J, and certainly for model rockets within the FAA 101.22 limitations. I spoke with DARS president Jack Sprague yesterday and hope that he and the other DARS officers will explore this potential further. There are a lot of variables to consider such as wind direction, the large lake, occupied buildings etc. I doubt the traffic on the bordering roads exceeds the 10 vehicles/hour NAR limit. Using the ruler feature on Google Earth, I think it is entirely possible to devise a launch site/s within this acreage that would comply with the various restrictions, but with some limitations on power and altitude. It would be a pity to lose this asset without a fight.

https://www.nar.org/safety-information/high-power-rocket-safety-code/
https://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/text-idx?rgn=div5&node=14:2.0.1.3.15#sp14.2.101.c

 

[pyrobob]

This is not my area of expertise but I believe there is enough open land on this property to accommodate at least some lower high power flights, perhaps H through J, and certainly for model rockets within the FAA 101.22 limitations. I spoke with DARS president Jack Sprague yesterday and hope that he and the other DARS officers will explore this potential further. There are a lot of variables to consider such as wind direction, the large lake, occupied buildings etc. I doubt the traffic on the bordering roads exceeds the 10 vehicles/hour NAR limit. Using the ruler feature on Google Earth, I think it is entirely possible to devise a launch site/s within this acreage that would comply with the various restrictions, but with some limitations on power and altitude. It would be a pity to lose this asset without a fight.

https://www.nar.org/safety-information/high-power-rocket-safety-code/
https://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/text-idx?rgn=div5&node=14:2.0.1.3.15#sp14.2.101.c

Has Jack seen these pictures and your boundary details? Great effort by the way.

 

[tmacklin]

Has Jack seen these pictures and your boundary details? Great effort by the way.

Not that I know of but I'll shoot him an email with a link to this thread.

 

[samb]

Not that I know of but I'll shoot him an email with a link to this thread.

??? What were y'all talking about for three hours yesterday ???

 

[tmacklin]

??? What were y'all talking about for three hours yesterday ???

We discussed the potential of future low, medium and limited high power flights at that portion of the Gunter site that remains available to us. I'm sure I mentioned my unscheduled visit to Gunter but I don't know if I mentioned taking pictures while there. I also talked with Suzy about all manner of things, as well as exchanging filthy adult jokes with George Sprague and Dan Smith. I don't know if Suzy was offended but she was giggling like a schoolgirl! (Time flies when you're having fun and sitting in the shade beats the hell out of working as LCO in full sun, right?)

I managed to make it back to the car in the 97 degree heat, stopped at Durkin's Pizza in McKinney, picked up my prescriptions in Anna and made it home before sunset so I could feed my catfish...those ravenous little carnivores!

 

[samb]

We discussed the potential of future low, medium and limited high power flights at that portion of the Gunter site that remains available to us. I'm sure I mentioned my unscheduled visit to Gunter but I don't know if I mentioned taking pictures while there. I also talked with Suzy about all manner of things, as well as exchanging filthy adult jokes with George Sprague and Dan Smith. I don't know if Suzy was offended but she was giggling like a schoolgirl! (Time flies when you're having fun and sitting in the shade beats the hell out of working as LCO in full sun, right?)

Right !!! :grin:

So you photo documented some open spaces west and north ? of the land we currently have access to (post #98, 99, 100). Correct ?

...[/QUOTE]

 

[samb]

Yesterday after attending the Estes Make it/Take it event at the Irving Convention Center, I took the scenic route home and stopped by the Gunter HP site. While there I took some panoramic photos of that portion north of where we had been launching as previously described at my post number 68. The first series of photos were taken at a point roughly 300 feet due west of the intersection of Old Skaggs School and Stiff Chapel roads. The first photo is looking back to the east where I entered and the successive panorama were made in a a clockwise rotation, E, SE, S, SW, and so on. As you can see the corn has been harvested but the stubble remains.

This part is still controlled by Donnie, and we can access. Correct ?

 

[AlfaBrewer]

This is the portion and approximate location we had planned to fly the (rained out) contests earlier this year. Limited high power was okayed for these days. If memory serves, high power was limited simply because contest flights would be the primary flights.

Hopefully Corsicana makes this weekend. I won't be attending due to an ill timed sprained ankle.

 

[tmacklin]

Right !!! :grin:

So you photo documented some open spaces west and north ? of the land we currently have access to (post #98, 99, 100). Correct ?

...

[/QUOTE]

Yes, that is correct. If you will also view my post number 68, I outlined that area with green lines. There are actually two tracts of land bounded on the north by Stiff Chapel Road and on the east by Old Skaggs School Road. To be precise and according to Grayson County records, there are 339.915 acres in one tract and 178.84 acres in the other that are adjacent to each other and forming a total area of 518.76 acres. This property is owned by Donnie Martinek who is the man that I originally spoke with in 2013 and who subsequently entered into an agreement with DARS officials. I received a "bounty" from DARS for locating this land but I was not privy to the specifics of the lease/contract that was ultimately created.

I now know that the land upon which we had been launching consisted of several large tracts of land owned by Grayson County Land & Cattle, LLC, i.e., "the Corporate Owners". I think that land is about 1,660 acres in total and I am guessing that Martinek has a cattle lease on that property because he had keys to it. (It's for sale if anyone has some spare cash laying around? Grayson County appraises it at roughly $10,000,000).

The Gunter launch site as shown on the DARS website https://www.dars.org/NAV-special.html encompasses all of the land described above, (the Martinek tracts and the Grayson County Land & Cattle LLC tracts). Unfortunately, the corporate owners have declared their land off limits to us out of liability concerns. However, I assume that the Martinek property is still available to us as model rocket site and possibly level one high power site once weather conditions improve and burn bans are lifted. Jack Sprague seemed to confirm that with me yesterday. We shall see?

 

[Cl(VII)]

:sigh:

 

[pyrobob]

[video=youtube;24Vlt-lpVOY]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24Vlt-lpVOY[/video]

And on top of that, several hundreds of pounds of motor being delivered this week .

 

[PokerJones]

"The DARS high power launch scheduled for Sat.29.Aug. has been called off. The club has been unable to get an exemption from the burn-ban in effect in Navarro County. We will continue to work with the appropriate authorities to change/fix this in the future. But for this weekend, stand down"
--Jack

 

[pyrobob]

Think I've decided to start remodeling the master bathroom this weekend. Can hardly wait!

 

[tmacklin]

Think I've decided to start remodeling the master bathroom this weekend. Can hardly wait!

If you've never done remodeling before you may need some consultants. I'd start with a psychiatrist, a chiropractor and possibly a good divorce attorney! :wink:

 

[Cl(VII)]

Think I've decided to start remodeling the master bathroom this weekend. Can hardly wait!

The first step of any substantial home repair/remodel starts with the phrase "honey, why don't you and the kids go visit your parents for a week or two."

This will help avoid the divorce attorney Ted mentioned.

 

[samb]

Think I've decided to start remodeling the master bathroom this weekend. Can hardly wait!

Has the "moving" option been thoroughly explored ?

 

[AlfaBrewer]

Has the "moving" option been thoroughly explored ?

This may be cheaper than remodeling the bathroom. It won't stop there.

Now, if the remodeling involves some AP, I think you might be able to scare up a helper or two...

 

[tmacklin]

Has the "moving" option been thoroughly explored ?

Good point. Back in the day, before I lost all sense of reality and still had an income, I did a number of sizable and extensive remodeling projects. The question of where the home owners would reside during the demolition and reconstruction always arose and invariably led to friction on the home front. There is always a lot of dust, noise and disruption that takes place which can stress the marital vows. Add children into the mix and that compounds things even more. It really depends on the scope of the project.

Having "been there and done that", I would strongly suggest that you determine the scope of your bathroom project...materials, trades, costs, etc. ...before you start ripping out sheetrock and changing plumbing. I just went through this process helping my son Charlie with his bathroom remodel and it is an entirely different experience when done as a "DIY" project. Yes, you can save money but it will probably take a lot more time than you can imagine. I'm not trying to discourage you and the satisfaction of DIY upon successful completion of a building project is not unlike a successful rocket project.

What the heck...you're still young so go for it! Watch this movie first: [video=youtube;nJPju1f6p0E]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJPju1f6p0E[/video]