SARA 2003 Launch Summary

During 2003 SARA held a sport launch each month with an FAA waiver to 4500 feet AGl in place for all. The launches were at the TIMPA site and the weather was generally very cooperative for this year; however, the June launch was terminated early due to very hot and windy conditions.

One hundred sixty eight (168) people took advantage of the organized launches to make 1041 flights of which 862 (83%) were clean. As is our usual experience, the most common failure mode was separation (72) with tangled recovery devices (21) a distant second. Other failures were: lawn dart 13, no ejection 13, unstable flight 9, CATO 8, kicked motor 6, shred 6, and 29 miscellaneous modes of failure. Our most succesful launch had 91% and our worst only 77% clean flights. The busiest launch was April with 140 flights and the abbreviated June launch was the least active with only 23 flights. This year the average activity at each launch was 26 fliers making 87 flights. The most active flier made 56 flights and the average number of flights per flier was 6.2; as is often the case, the mode was 2 flights per person which is indicative of a large number of people (usually children) who attended a single launch as visitors and made a couple of flights. The distribution of activity was (# of flights each-# fliers): 56-1, 34-2, 33-2, 24-2, 22-3, 20-2, 18-1, 17-4, 16-3, 14-2, 13-3, 12-2, 11-1, 10-2, 9-2, 8-3, 7-6, 6-11, 5-15, 4-23, 3-12, 2-32, and 1-24. Motor use was: 1/4A-6, 1/2A-30, A-123, B-214, C-366, D-148, E-87, F-60 and 104 others.

There were 28 flights made using a cluster of motors and 15 flights of more than 1 stage.

The data in your launch reports come from the flight cards submitted and can only be as accurate as the data on them (we have illegible cards, cards with incomplete data e.g. only first names, no (or impossible) motor designation, no flight outcome, etc.). Launch reports are posted on public web sites and it is known that regulatory agencies monitor such sites to obtain information on the activities they regulate, accordingly no personal identifiers are now used and no detail of some activity is presented .

We welcome visitors at our launches to both observe and join us in flying. This year we have had a large number of visitors and some have become active regularly.

Once again many thanks are due to all those who have participated in the range set-up, operations and tear down, your efforts are much appreciated.

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updated 1/24/08

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