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September 1999 Meeting Minutes (9/7/1999)
The September MASA meeting started at 7pm at the Science Museum
of Minnesota in St. Paul. There were about 22 people in
attendance. Russ started off the meeting by reminding us that
this was our last meeting in the "old" museum.
Hopefully, we will be able to start meeting at the "new"
museum in January, but for the next few months, the meeting
locations will be moving around. If any MASA members have room
to host a meeting in their home, basement, or garage, or if you know
of another good location, please talk to a MASA officer.
Russ reminded us that we are still searching for good launch
sites. For present, we will continue having modroc launches at
the White Bear Lake site. However, due to the sheer numbers of
people coming to the MASA Saturday launches, we will not be able to
have those launches at the Blaine sod farm location. Because
they typically have a smaller attendance, some of the informal
summer evening launches may be held at Blaine.
Russ announced that he would like to form a group of volunteers
within MASA that would actively assist in this search for a good
flying field. Our ideal site would be a sod farm of size and
location that would allow flights of at least "H"
impulse. If you have any suggestions, or if you would be able
to join the launch site search group, please contact MASA President
Russ Durkee.
Ideas & topics are being solicited for MASA meetings for next
year. If you have an idea for a building project that could be
completed in a meeting's time, an idea for a field trip or tour, or
if you would be willing to do a short presentation on a rocketry
topic, please contact a MASA officer. Your ideas and volunteer
efforts are needed to continue making MASA meetings an interesting
and worthwhile experience.
The next launch will be on Saturday, September 25th at White Bear
Lake.
Following the "official" business, Alan Estenson passed
along some rocketry news and then showed two rockets that he'd
brought: a 2.6" Blossom (V2) and a scratchbuilt triple
ring-tail rocket.
The activity for the meeting was to construct streamer duration
rockets to be flown at the next launch. For the occasion,
Damian Kostron created a special run of KosRox "Streadur"
(streamer duration) kits. Each kit contained a length of
bt-20, a balsa nose cone, screw eye, shock cord, balsa fin material,
clay, launch lug, motor block and MASA decal. The rules were
that the rocket could only be constructed from what was in the kit,
the rocket must be flown on an A8-3, and you had to provide your own
streamer material. Some sample fin templates were included,
but most people dreamed up their own designs. 21 free kits
were distributed, and a whole flock of rockets resulted in a fairly
short time. The next launch will be interesting as we see the
results of more than 20 different efforts to build the best streamer
duration rocket from the same components.
(Alan Estenson)
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