RSO Question: would a streamer on an ejected casing change your ruling?

[BABAR]

For LOW power rockets, I have read that some RSOs frown on them.

Would adding a streamer to the casing change your ruling? Note I am asking under general conditions, not high fire risk or burn bans where things like Sparky motors are banned

I ask because many of my Heli s and AirBrakers eject the motor. It would be easy to build them a tiny bit bigger (these are also “tubeless” rockets, there IS NO TUBULAR motor mount) and fold a crepe paper or hazard tape streamer around the casing, casing would still fall separate from the rocket

Edited to exclude low power composite motors with plastic cases.

 

[dr wogz]

I put 'it depends'

I'm not a fan of kicked motors. Even with a streamer, and painted bright orange, they can be hard to track & locate. Deep grass, low vegetation, and it's gone, regardless of streamer.

Dead of winter, with 6" of snow on everything: generally no issues..
Height of summer, with tall grass, corn, bulrushes in the drainage ditch: big issues getting it back..

 

[Steve Shannon]

I marked “It depends”.
It really depends on what the landowner’s expectations are and how easy it is to recover every ejected motor. We fly from a hilly site where it’s possible to lose track of ejected spent motors and I detest the idea of leaving our garbage behind.

 

[BABAR]

Height of summer, with tall grass, corn, bulrushes in the drainage ditch: big issues getting it back..

If it is that far out of site, with a paper casing and a crepe paper streamer all completely biodegradable, does it MATTER if you get it back?

Put another way, many people (some may say MOST) can’t find the brightly painted Mosquito ROCKET after they launch it, let alone the motor. Now with the Quest composites and plastic casings, I might exclude those.

 

[heada]

If it is that far out of site, with a paper casing and a crepe paper streamer all completely biodegradable, does it MATTER if you get it back?

Put another way, many people (some may say MOST) can’t find the brightly painted Mosquito ROCKET after they launch it, let alone the motor. Now with the Quest composites and plastic casings, I might exclude those.

In some cases, yes, it does matter. If flying from a sod farm, you better believe you have to pick up every small bit of anything you brought with to the site. Estes plastic motor plugs are picked up and collected. A 18mm case might get jammed into a $500k harvester at a farm site and cost that farmer time to clear which at harvest time, equates to money and possibly a lost launch site.

In general, I'd support ejecting a motor when the model is designed for it, the chance of it impacting person or property is at a minimum, it is tracked (streamer, etc.) and the site owner is accepting of the possibility of a stray spent casing now and then.

 

[georgegassaway]

So many kits that have used ejected motors for nearly 60 years. For LPR anyway.

An ejected G motor, no.

18mm or smaller, yes.

The main issues I see otherwise, are these. Fields like sod farms or soccer fields where fallen casings need to be cleaned up. I flew a few times from a sod farm, with "Chad staged" models, where I added a streamer to the booster motor to find it. Nobody even asked me to, I knew better than litter the sod farm with casings.

But THAT is NOT an RSO ruling thing.

That's a club launch requirement thing (or NOT. If the club allows ejected motors without streamers but the "RSO on duty" does not out of personal whim, the club has problems).

And, NAR contest flying. By the rules, say Boost Glide, no motors can be ejected without some recovery device. And some other events, nothing can come off of the model at all - not a motor, not a nose cone, not a fin, etc (only wadding).

 

[DaveW6DPS]

I selected "it depends".

All parts of the rocket should come down in a controlled manner. If there were a flame retardant streamer securely attached to the motor, then maybe. Be prepared to answer detailed questions.