- Joined
- Jan 23, 2009
- Messages
- 5,989
- Reaction score
- 4,097
Next year we will have a back yard BBQ on memorial day and attend the June UURF launch with is closer to home.
Sounds like a win-win-win plan all around.
Next year we will have a back yard BBQ on memorial day and attend the June UURF launch with is closer to home.
While you are in Potter be sure to visit the Finger Lakes. The wineing is great there too!My family and I look forward to attending the memorial day launch every year. This was our third and final year in a row. We pay for a hotel, a SUV rental, meals and not to mention time taken off from work. Two years ago the grass was ankle high which made it difficult to find low power rockets. Believe me I do appreciate the effort of the MARS club. The mistake is that too many assumptions were made on the part of the club. The grass was extremely high. I'm not a landscaper but I have to believe that the grass had not been mowed for well over a month. When you know that people will be traveling hundreds of miles and paying for hotels you have to make sure they will not have to deal with such adverse conditions. You are assuming that rocketeers would attend the event even if we knew of the conditions. I would not have done so. I would have forfeited the $150 for one nights stay at the hotel and saved the cost of the SUV rental and stayed home. As it was we left to go home on Sunday morning. It cost me $700 to launch four rockets on Saturday. You cannot post mowed grass on your web site when it is knee high this year and ankle high in 2017. Perhaps the NAR should hold sections to some kind of truth in advertising standard. Next year we will have a back yard BBQ on memorial day and attend the June UURF launch with is closer to home.
You are missing the point. I am not engaging in a Geneseo versus Potter debate so I'll get to the point. The conditions at NY Power 2019 were abhorrent. People should be been warned about the conditions ahead of time so that they could have decided whether or not to attend. I totally do not except the rationale that people that live hundreds of miles away should have been monitoring the weather and known about the conditions of the field. That is ludicrous and a pathetic excuse and a prime example of defecting the blame. I cannot accept the fact that there is no one living close by the field that could have reported the conditions to club officials. The website states mowed field and I believed that. Based on that I traveled hundreds of miles with my family and spend hundreds of dollars. The club has absolutely no credibility. What assurance do people have that the conditions will not be horrible at future launches? They should stand up and admit they dropped the ball otherwise how are they going to do a better job of communicating field conditions to people driving long distances and spending money on gas and hotels? I was lied to and my memorial day holiday was ruined.
If you paid for a vacation at a resort and the conditions were much less than you were promised you would be upset and demand some level of refund.
I have been a rocketeer for 17 and well aware that conditions are not always what you would like them to be.
I fully agree that someone should’ve gone out to the field and updated the site for the conditions.
Actually the whining here is pretty good also!While you are in Potter be sure to visit the Finger Lakes. The wineing is great there too!
Nice report JD. It was great seeing you two again!Here is my NYPOWER report. My son and I drove 320 miles one way (like we do every year since 2011), got in later than expected Friday night taking a new and very scenic route up through the Southern Tier. Stopped at an small ice cream place in Perry for a great treat.
This year I wanted to test a couple revisions of the Marsa Gyro Module. Saturday we prepped some electronics but mostly went up and down the line chatting with friends and made some new ones. Many are great people I get to see only once per year. After chilling on Saturday Michael and I had a great dinner at Tom Wahls, great burgers and fries. If we didn't fly rockets this makes the trip for us.
First flight on Sunday was my workhorse test vehicle Stella Blanco, a 4" Wildman Darkstar Extreme. Flying on Loki K830 Sparky motor to about 5500 feet. Thanks to Michael Pitfield from Toronto (one of the great people who I get to see once or twice a year)who loaned me a Loki nozzle washer that I left in Ohio.
View attachment 385350
Unfortunately my Tilt Gadget was flying an old version of Marsa firmware and no data was recorded. Doh! Rocket landed about 3/4mile away in the farm field. Paid my son $25 to retrieve the rocket. Win-win. Went to Tom Wahls for dinner and ice-cream again. And reprogrammed the Marsa between the main course and desert.
Sunday night at the hotel I prepped the CTI L3200(!) motor that would fly the next day. Glued the grains into the liner and got sticky Gorilla glue on my fingers (also left the rubber gloves in Ohio, next to the Loki nozzle washer). This test flight would test the acceleration sensitivity of the gyro chips used on the tilt model. Fortunately the winds were light at the ground and at altitude as predicted by Windy.com the night before. Stella Blanco flew again in Evan Brown mode to about 9000' with 37g's of launch acceleration. Recovery was in the farm field behind us, short walk, still gave Michael $25 to get the rocket. The good news is that the gyro data was solid, no evidence of acceleration induced error. Look at the VMAX flame.
View attachment 385354
That was our last flight before packing up and driving back to Ohio. (But not before stopping at Tom Wahls for lunch and ice-cream). We had a great time! Highlights:
Visiting with great people including Ken Allen, Clunes, GYoung, Shatell, Rick Wildman CT, the MIT Rocket Team!!, Wagstaff's and the Ottawa gang and many more. Scored a classic new AMW 75-7600 motor from Ken Allen in exchange for a used AT 29-240 motor and a little cash. Rocket launches are so much more than just flying rockets...
Those with power silence the voices of change. I fully agree that someone should’ve gone out to the field and updated the site for the conditions. It’s the least they could’ve done given all the advertising for the launch. While the club itself is probably full of fun people, I recall this isn't the first time a launch at that field had issues. Remember NSL last year and the one or two 1/4” rods that screwed many people over from flying? People weren’t happy then that nobody made sure there were enough rods. This hobby is full of people telling others to find a new hobby (the NAR group on FB is the worst for that) and it paints a bad picture on the hobby. Remember that before you tell someone to find a new hobby because they might just do that and tell others not to join. I would...
You went to a rocket launch and not club med. If you expect pristine conditions, this is the wrong hobby for you. Weather often gets in the way.
I have had a request to lock the thread due to your complaining. I am going to avoid doing so. Please take the complaining offline or in an email of private message with the leadership of this club. The event thread on the forum is not a place for you to belly wack about getting a refund.
Great launch site. I hope to get there again some day.
You should have locked it when you had the chance...
Here's my take. Did I love the high wet grass? Nope. I made the decision to. Not fly my Cyclotron because of it being wet. BUT.. ...this was my twin great nieces 1st ever launch. They each launched on C6-5 motirors for GREAT, high flights for their first rockets ever. We traipsed through the grass a LONG ways to recover their rockets. As these 2 nine year olds sat eating their lunches they said "This is the best day EVER! “
This club is spread out of a LARGE geographic area 3 of the 4 board member live 1.5hrs away, Sorry its almost always mowed!I fully agree that someone should’ve gone out to the field and updated the site for the conditions. It’s the least they could’ve done given all the advertising for the launch.
The MARS site has listed for years the fact all HP rockets must fly from a rail, the NSL site had a page that listed the unique MARS field requirements and it was talked about quite a bit on all social media. We even went to the point of personally inviting Randy Miliken of Rail-Buttons.com to sell .25 cent rail buttons and he assisted flyers with installation... again we do all that is humanly possible.I recall this isn't the first time a launch at that field had issues. Remember NSL last year and the one or two 1/4” rods that screwed many people over from flying?
This club is spread out of a LARGE geographic area 3 of the 4 board member live 1.5hrs away, Sorry its almost always mowed!
The MARS site has listed for years the fact all HP rockets must fly from a rail, the NSL site had a page that listed the unique MARS field requirements and it was talked about quite a bit on all social media. We even went to the point of personally inviting Randy Miliken of Rail-Buttons.com to sell .25 cent rail buttons and he assisted flyers with installation... again we do all that is humanly possible.
Every field has its Great points and Not so great points.
Thanks Chuck for “Cleaning up” the thread!
I would’ve have responded sooner but we had a launch this weekend at the beautiful, now freshly mowed field. Anthony, I’m sorry your expectations weren’t met this past NYPOWER. MARS does pride itself in hosting great events but you can’t please everyone, I think we do the best humanly possible.
I was going to call you tonight personally to discuss this with you BUT I can’t find an Anthony DeMarco (or any DeMarco for that matter) on any of the waivers (which are REQUIRED) or any flight cards, you said “you flew 4 rockets” did you fly under someone else’s name?
I find it interesting that you created an account in the name Anthony DeMarco shortly before whining about the conditions on the field.
MaryBeth Clune President MARS Club
Launch Director NYPOWER 20, 21, 22 NSL-2018
L3
The social aspect has become a big deal for me now as well.This year we only attended the Saturday launch. Once again we had backup plans. My motto, "It's note just about the rockets." As my friend Sal once told me, "At this point the social aspect of a hobby becomes more important than the hobby itself."
Enter your email address to join: