SARA 2002 Launch Summary

During 2002 The Southern Arizona Rocketry Association (SARA) held 11 sport launches at the TIMPA site. Most had FAA waivers in place and the remainder notification. The July launch was cancelled because of the extreme fire risk and a public rocket build session was held at the Pima Air and Space museum.

One hundred forty nine (149) fliers made 858 flights with 720 (84%) clean. As is our usual experience 47 separations led the list of failure modes followed closely by 43 tangled recovery devices. There were 17 unstable flights, 9 miscellaneous failures, 6 CATOs, 6 lawn darts, 4 no ejection, 4 early ejection and 2 kicked motors. Constructions standards must have been high this year as there were no shreds. Dan Shinkel was our most active flier with 46 flights. Congratulations Dan. The remainder of the flight activity was (#flights-# of fliers): 31-1, 30-1, 28-1, 26-2, 24-1, 23-2, 20-1, 18-1, 17-3, 16-1, 14-1, 12-1, 11-1, 10-5, 9-5, 8-5, 7-4, 6-7, 5-14, 4-10, 3-13, 2-37, and 1-31. The mean was 5.8, the median 3 and the mode 2 flights per flier.

Motor use was: 1/4A-1, 1/2A-24, A-126, B-161, C-324, D-80, E-56, F-50, G-44, H-12, I-12 and no J or K motors flown.

Riccardo Fimbres had the only Certification flight (level 1) this year, the very limited availability of high power motors was apparent at all the launches. There were 17 staged flights flown and 6 clustered motor rockets. Two 4-H groups, a Boy Scout troop and a Civil Air Patrol group participated in the launches and were active fliers at the launches they attended.

We welcome visitors to come launch with us. Occasionally the posted schedule has to be changed for reasons beyond our control and people are urged to verify the launch details by visiting our web site: www.sararocketry.org prior to making the trip to TIMPA.

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updated 1/24/08

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