Great TAP success!!

Debra Koloms just informed me that I was promoted to Tripoli's L3 Technical Advisory Panel (TAP) and I'm elated!  I could not have attained this honor without Debra and the board's advocacy, the sponsorship of Jack Garibaldi, the support of Paul Snow and Kurt Gugisberg, and letters of recommendation from Frank Hermes and Kris Olmstead.

Thank you all and I vow to do my very best to serve Tripoli and its membership for decades to come!

=G=

Greg Smith

TRA#8756, L3 TAP
TripoliL3TAP[at]gmail.com

P.S. Here's Tripoli's official Level 3 process.

June '11 @ Plaster City: Polecat Aerospace Super Raven x 2

For once I finished the video for these flights last week but have been remiss on my posting punctuality.  In any event I built the very pointy Super Raven kit from Jack Garibaldi at What's Up Hobby and it's a good time!  At this month's essentially wind-free Plaster  City launch I captured photos and vid of both flights so here goes...  First up was the CTI Pro38 I180 Skidmark with an HD keychain camera Gorilla-taped to the side:

And a crop of the flame detail showing lovely mass convection:

Next up was the CTI Pro38 H400 Vmax for a flight that was so fast that I reverted to a ground-based 30 fps video to show the fun:

Here's the video featuring both flights (as always 720p full-screen viewing on YouTube satisfies best):

The date/time info is whack and only the time is useful in a relative sense.  This was a great launch with solid weather and several folks whooped ass at our final launch before the summer break.  Special props to Mike Caplinger who achieved 21,127' feet with a K300 to best the Club's 20K President's Challenge!!

NSL @ Lucerne 'blows'

When I arrived at 9:15AM yesterday it was already too windy for my tastes.  KO prepped her L3 flight and got it on the pad at 1PM only to have the range shut down at 1:30 due to excessive wind.  I'm hoping she stayed overnight and tried again this morning as only minimal setup time would have been required.

Finally... amazing Plaster City conditions!

I had 4/4 successful flights at Plaster today with excellent conditions. I gathered so many photos and so much video and data that I'll plan to post thorough updates for each likely as separate entries.  Oh and I finally used my Big Red Bee Beeline GPS unit, Frank!  I'm spent so it's a shower then off to bed for me now.