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NAR Contest Director Guide
The NAR Contest Board, with assistance from volunteer Chan Stevens, has just released an new, updated version of the "Contest Director's Guidebook" explaining how to organize and run a NAR-sanctioned rocket contest. It is posted on the NAR website. |
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4 Volunteers Needed
The NAR runs all of its programs with volunteers and we never have enough to deliver all the services that our members want. Right now we have four key openings where we need help. If you'd like to volunteer for one of these, please write to president@nar.org.
1. Editor of the NAR's quarterly electronic newletter for educators
2. Chairman of the Public Affairs Committee
3. Assistant to the Chairman of the Section Activities Committee.
4. Chairman of NAR Technical Services, our retail sales activity |
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Board of Trustees Election
The following are the official results of the election at the 2009 Association meeting for the three open seats on the NAR Board. All three candidates were elected for 3-year terms.
Trip Barber - 187 "yes" votes, 8 "no"
John Lyngdal - 191 "yes", 1 "no"
Jennifer Ash-Poole - 183 "yes", 6 "no" |
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Junior High Power
The NAR has a program where members age 14 to 17 can earn a Level 1 (only) high power "participation" credit that automatically becomes a formal L1 certification on their 18th birthday when the NFPA Code 1127 permits such certification and permits the purchase and possession of HPR motors. A full description of this program is on the NAR website, as are the forms needed. Junior HPR fliers may not possess HPR motors; these must be purchased and handled by an HPR certified adult sponsor who must be with them for any HPR flight. This program does not extend to Level 2 (J motors) or above and it does not permit junior fliers to fly HPR alone. |
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New HPR Level 2 Tests
The NAR's tests for high power Level 2 certification have just been updated to reflect changes in BATFE and FAA regulations. They are available to L2 or above certified members from NAR HQ. The previous edition of the tests will continue to remain valid until NARAM-52. | |
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Message from the NAR President
Greetings!
I spoke to the NAR members who attended the formal annual "Association Meeting" at NARAM concerning what is going on with your NAR and mentioned here last month that I had posted a " State of the NAR" document on the NAR website, but I'd like to hit a few highlights here for those of you that these efforts did not reach.
First of all, we are in strong financial condition, our membership has grown a bit recently (to about 4700) due to increased renewals, and our magazine continues to be the best on the market thanks to editor Tom Beach and publisher Todd Schweim. We just won a 9-year lawsuit against BATFE's regulations on our high-power rockets and got significant relief from FAA's regulation of our model rockets. Our TARC program is going on its 8th year of delivering huge success in outreach to young people and building a positive public image of the NAR. We are doing well, overall. But we need more members, especially in the under-40 adult age group. We will be initiating a membership growth drive on January 1; more on this in a future issue.
A year ago we conducted an online survey of the NAR membership to which 1211 of you responded. Your NAR Board has spent a great deal of time since then evaluating the survey results and reading the hundreds of pages of comments you offered. We want your NAR to be what you want it to be, and this survey gave us a very good sense of where we needed to do better and where what we are doing is working OK. The big three areas of improvement we are pursuing based your input on this survey are:
- More emphasis on high-power in our programs & publications since half of our members fly HPR
- Greater and more timely communications to our members concerning what their NAR is doing
- Increased national support to the local sections that make the NAR happen every day
If you would like to know more detail about what your NAR is currently doing and what we are planning to do, please read the detailed minutes from the 14 hours of Board of Trustees meetings that we held at NARAM-51.
Finally, congratulations to the 2009 national NAR award winners at NARAM-52 that I did not have space to recognize last month:
- Best section outreach program: SMASH (Michigan)
- Best section NAR membership growth: Rocketry Organization of California
- Best section in the Fly50K Youth First Flight program: Birmingham (Alabama) Rocket Boys
- Best Section Newsletter: MASA Planet (Minnesota), Jeff Taylor, editor
Be safe, have fun, and pay forward.
Trip Barber
NAR 4322
NAR President |
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Team America Rocketry Challenge 2010
Registration of 7th-12th grade student teams for the TARC 2010 national rocketry competition opened on September 2 and will remain open until November 30. This competition, now entering its 8th year with the NAR and the Aerospace Industries Association as co-sponsors, has enrolled over 50,000 students over this period and got them excited about rocketry and about an aerosapce career -- which is why we do it. The $60,000 in prizes for the top 10 teams and the free trip to the Paris or Farnborough European Air Show for the winning team help with the excitement, too!
This is the most effective youth outreach and national publicity program that the NAR has ever had. Please help get the word out to students and teachers about this opportunity using our publicity handout, and reach out to help "mentor" these teams on basic rocket skills and welcome them to your launches to do their test and qualification flights. See the event website www.rocketcontest.org for application forms, and see the NAR website's Team America page for more details. |
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Safety Note: Read the Instructions
Our hobby involves the use of high-energy propellants in high-velocity flight vehicles. If these are not used in the proper manner they could be unsafe, but in its 52-year history and in over 500 million flights the hobby has never had a fatal injury from handling or flying rockets. This is a tribute to the inherently safe design and construction features of model rockets and of model and high power rocket motors, and to general public awareness of and adherence to the NAR Safety Codes and other safety practices, even by consumers who have never heard of the NAR. How does this safety-critical public awareness and adherence happen? Through the instructions that accompany the rocketry products. People actually read these, and they actually provide accurate and useful information about safety.
It is easy to become complacent about your overall knowledge of the hobby after you've been doing it a while, and to believe that it is no longer necessary to read the instructions that come with common rocket products such as motors, igniters, etc.. This is not a good practice, particularly when you are using a new brand or model of an item. The new version may have some unique characteristics that require a different form of pre-flight handling or preparation in order for it to be safe. The manufacturer's instructions almost always describe this new characteristic and how to deal with it safely, but you have to read the instructions to find out!
As examples of why reading the instructions is important, some igniters fire on much lower current values than others and therefore cannot be used with launch systems using incandescent light bulbs for continuity testing. Some motors produce far more sparks than others and require very specific actions to prepare the launch area to avoid starting ground fires. Their instructions warn you of these features but rocket fliers continue to appear to be surprised by them.
It's more than OK to actually read the instructions the first time you use a product, it's a key element of safety! | |
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National Association of Rocketry
