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NSL 2022 will be hosted by Rocketry South Carolina.

I have a question for people who attended NSL 2021. How did they run the low-power banks? How many were there? Did they launch one bank while loading the another.
 
I can't exactly remember how many barrels(telephone cable reel each one had 7-10 rails on them) there where but i would say 5-10 on each side. The LPR barrels where split into 2 sides a left and a right side. One side would be open and the other side would be closed launching. If i remember correctly they where on a cycle of 45 minutes.

edit: i looked back at some of the footage i have and the right side had 2 barrels idk about the left
 
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Chuck, at LDRS, we had two banks of 8 pads in the Model Rocket Area. They were 100 feet apart from each other, so we could load and recover in one area while launching from the other. Note that we also had enough separation from the high power pads that we could load and recover the Model Rocket Areas while launching high power rockets. The beauty of doing it that way is that we could launch high power when they were ready and return to the Model Rocket Areas when the high power pads weren’t ready.
 
I can't exactly remember how many barrels(telephone cable reel each one had 7-10 rails on them) there where but i would say 5-10 on each side. The LPR barrels where split into 2 sides a left and a right side. One side would be open and the other side would be closed launching. If i remember correctly they where on a cycle of 45 minutes.

edit: i looked back at some of the footage i have and the right side had 2 barrels idk about the left

Could you post a picture of the barrel? I've never heard that term related to rocketry and have an image in my head, but I would like to see what it really is.

Sandy.
 
The "barrels" were big wooden cable spools with the rods arrayed in a circle. They basically had two entire LPR, MPR, HPR ranges set up and ran one while loading the other. The LPR spools were run using wireless fireworks controllers, which worked better than I expected both as a flyer and during my one shift as LCO. That said, these pads were past their prime, and had no way to adjust the launch angle short of wedging something under the entire spool. This led to lots of models recovering where they shouldn't have been recovering—in the spectator/vendor area.

If I remember correctly, there were two of these "spools" on each side of the range.

(All those Estes Shooting Stars are there because they were the Take It-Fly It models being given away.)

IMG_4479.JPGIMG_4481.JPG
 
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Chuck,

It would be nice to have some input from the 2021 team. Day 1 was frustratingly slow for low power launches. Much improved by Day 2. I have no idea of the reasons but I'm sure it would be helpful to hear the lessons learned.

And of note, NSL 2021 was huge fun, even with the delays. Incredibly nice, helpful team that ran the launch. Really looking forward to NSL 2022.

Steve
 
Let's just say that the flow of flight cards from RSO to pad assignment to LCO was in the hands of folks who didn't really know how to do it and keep track of what was where at first. Of course they figured it out by the time you and I were working that end-of-day range shift together. Having to wait for models to land safely that were coming down where they shouldn't have been in the first place also slowed the pace of things quite a bit as the LCO had to wait for them to land before going on.

Tim Van Milligan actually wrote two pieces in his newsletter that explained what happened and how to fix it (and how he and Allison kind of inserted themselves into the process while there to smooth things out, which really did help). https://www.apogeerockets.com/Peak-of-Flight/Newsletter549 and https://www.apogeerockets.com/Peak-of-Flight/Newsletter550
 
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Bernard,

As usual, that was really helpful. And Tim's articles were very informative and nicely written. Hopefully the 2022 group will benefit. Thanks, again.
 
I breezed through the articles, but I do have a disagreement with the misfire scenario he focused on in the first article. If there are a lot of people at a launch and your rocket has a burnt igniter, why the heck don't you take it off the pad and go to the back of the line??? That's what I do, if there are a lot of people launching. Having said that, I don't always do it if there are half of the rods/rails open each rack, but if there are a lot of people, my rocket comes back to the truck and I re-prep it there, get back in line and start over. I guess there could be logical exceptions for really complex rockets, but otherwise, I think it is just good behavior to not hold up the line because your rocket didn't go. Chances are that if the rocket didn't fly, there was a prep issue (IMO, not a fact) and a fair penalty for that error is to go to the back of the line.

Also, if there is a new flier there having tons of issues, stop what you're doing and help them achieve success. 5 minutes explaining/showing how to put the Estes igniter in without having problems for a new person will speed it up for everyone. Then get back to doing your own stuff with the knowledge you helped out instead of just focusing on your own fun.

Sandy.
 
The physical distances involved (the site where NSL was held is HUGE, even at the range head), plus the misfires often being from inexperienced or not-careful-enough use of the infamous Estes "starters", led to long flow times.

I was at Sod Blaster 3 over Labor Day weekend and on Saturday and Sunday morning, when it was busiest, misfires were pulled and the flyer had to reenter the queue at pad assignment after dealing with their issue, rather than getting a chance to try to address the problem and return to the same pad. But this was only enforced that when things were full up with a good backlog for the next rack. At quieter times one could just return to the same pad.

In Alamosa those spools were at least a couple hundred feet from the LCO table and pad assignment was set up 75 or 100 feet from there.

By the time Steve and I had our range duty shift together (at the end of Sunday) the flight cards were coming to the LCO table organized as Tim's articles suggest and there was quite a bit less confusion about who was where and what the status was than when they started out on Saturday morning.

While I've never been to a large launch where I didn't have a specific pad assignment before getting to the LCO table to hand in the flight card and go load my rocket, I can appreciate the idea that Tim proposed in his articles.
 
We have a WilsonFX. We have no way to safe a pad while loading. There is always a risk someone will accidentally arm the pad you are loading. I am just curious how you disarm a bank while loading it if you have the system live?
 
Will there be limits on attendance numbers due to covid?
I wanna nip this rumor in the bud. We are trying to set up a safe watch that will have limited impact on the number of people who can attend NSL. There are no plans to limit the number of attendees. Will there be screening - TBD.
 
Is there any updates to NSL? Jorge Blanco, the prez of SOAR would like to offer help with NSL on the low power pads but I believe he's tried contacting ROSCO a few times with no one picking up the phone/email (or at the most, limited contact). There's also no actual NSL2022 page with vendors, events, etc and the launch is supposedly in 2 months.
Maybe do some Internet searches,
https://www.nar.org/events/national-sport-launch-2022/https://www.rocketrysouthcarolina.org/pages/nsl2022/https://www.rocketrysouthcarolina.org/forums/nsl2022-Questions-and-Answers/And contact @cwbullet
 
Is there any updates to NSL? Jorge Blanco, the prez of SOAR would like to offer help with NSL on the low power pads but I believe he's tried contacting ROSCO a few times with no one picking up the phone/email (or at the most, limited contact). There's also no actual NSL2022 page with vendors, events, etc and the launch is supposedly in 2 months.

PM sent
 
Truly grateful for ROSCOE stepping up to hold the event. The hotel link on their home page doesn’t resolve at the moment. Hoping that the event specific web page will launch soon.
 
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