That’s exactly right. It just means no power until you’re safely away from the RSO table and spectators.
If "no power" means "no power past an independent power switch", then people can continue to use Featherweight products (24mm av-bay, 29mm av-bay, 38mm av-bay, Power Perch) as they were designed, and as they have been safely doing for over a decade.
But if it means the battery has to have an air gap at the RSO table, then we have a problem that impacts a whole lot of Featherweight av-bay and Power Perch customers. Particularly for the 24mm, 29mmm, and 38mm av-bay products, this would mean assembling the av-bay from scratch at the pads. They are intentionally designed so that the battery is connected
first to the magnetically-activated arming switch before almost anything else happens. This way there is no ambiguity about what the power state of the switch is before charges are connected.
The assembly and safe use of a Featherweight 24mm, 29mm or 38mm av-bay goes as follows:
- Connect a Raven altimeter's screw terminals to the header pins on the active bulkhead.
- Plug the battery into the active bulkhead. If you had the switch on when you last disconnected the battery, the Raven will be beeping and blinking and now is a good time to turn it off. If the altimeter doesn't come on when you install the battery, use a magnet to turn it on to make sure everything is working and then turn it off.
- Install the threaded rods onto one bulkhead using 6 or 8 nuts depending on av-bay model
- Install charges on the bulkhead with the rods and install it on the rocket. For my rockets, this means sending it down the main chute tube with the piston and chute behind it.
- Install the other bulkhead on the other end of the coupler, using 3 or 4 more nuts on the threaded rods to clamp the coupler between the two bulkheads
- Install the charges on the 2nd bulkhead. It's now ready to take to the RSO table and the pads.
Note that after step 2, the switch is in a known, confirmed, safe state, with no power applied to the altimeter.
At that point the system is at least as safe as one with a disconnected mechanical switch. This would not be true if the battery were connected separately later. And because the system is designed so that the Raven and the battery are connected directly to the active bulkhead with no wires, it's not possible to put a mechanical interrupt between the battery and the rest of the circuity without either cutting traces and soldering jumpers, or adding an extension cord to the battery that there is no room for.
If this rule is interpreted as has been recently stated, then 4 products that have been used safely for years would be prohibited without cause for anyone who doesn't want to do pretty much all of their prep work at the pad.