assessment of the vote on perm. certs.

Great post. I have a number of hobbies and periodically shift focus from one to another. I'm reluctant to even get involved with HPR knowing that at some point in the future I will disengage, and then have a hassle to re-engage. Especially when the hoops through which one must re-jump have the "smell" of just being there to satisfy someone's desire to exercise authority and control.

I see your point.

I see the issue as nothing changing rather than additional controls or regulation.

Would being able to recertify at an equal or lesser level to what you previously had without recertifying at the lower levels satisfy people? Of course if cert requirements change you would have to cert by the new rules, not the old ones.

That seems like it would come close to satifying everyone.

Because they have been enculturated by NAR and TRA that the only good state is a nannystate. No self-reliance or lone ranger behavior should be tolerated or encouraged.

HPR is for trained, approved, supervised. certified experts with special unneeded ATF permits.

ONLY!

Jerry

Fact.

Agreed. Not following this thread, certification SHOULD be permanent no matter what. Being an L2, and not launching for some time, AND NAR raising the fees, it is BS to loose all you have worked for, just to do all over again because you are not a member.

For me, all this political/money first BS in rocketry really got me out of the mood to build and fly rockets. I got back into this hobby for fun and a stress reliever, WRONG! But this is typical for many things in this age.

YES I am still a NAR member. Too much money and time invested to lose in this extortion err......hobby! :-)

Thanks for the post Ferrell.

KMJK NAR 77096 L2

STILL NO

Certification is trivial. You show up, buy a motor check the box for a certification flight on your flight card. You fly a rocket. Done. Level 2 takes about half an hour longer to go take the test again. At the very least you will show your brother how easy certification is. If you have been out of the hobby for years and want to fly a M or N motor, maybe you should fly one H and one J motor to bone up rocketry. This is a hobby of details. It is the small details that get you and it is easy to forget a small detail if you have been out for a few years.

That's a TESTIMONIAL.

Jerry

Comments Inline......

shockie B)

"Ferrell Wheeler"

Just because 1 person sent you an email with his opinion on what the vote was really about, and that now determines your train of thought?

Ferrell you provide no middle ground ...you provide only extremes.... Its either ALL or Nothing with you....You refuse to answer the question on how you would replace the loss of membership and subsequent funds if your proposal passed.... You up to now have refused to look at any alternatives or potential compromises somewhere in the middle .......

You don't know that for sure...again you are making suppositions not evident by the facts......

They don't

Now this is true.... If the majority of rocketeers DID red RMR there would be no rocketry..heheheh

Dude I don't know what you problem is with re-certification...... I don't know of many areas where you get a licnese or permit for life and NEVER have to recert or improve or learn new skills.......

The NFPA codes change approx every 5 years....If you are out of the hobby for that or a longer period of time, would it be wise to allow a person to just come right back into the hobby where he left off ? I don't think this would be prudent..... Now how much can change in a 5 year period or a 10 or

15 year period in some case? Well obviously alot can.... heck in 5 years time, APCP could conceivably be completily outlawed and the only HPR motors avilable might be Hybrids.....so if you certed back in 1990 on solid propellant rockets and now the sttaus quo is Hybrids, thats quite a change in the way you do things......

Well then come up with a proposal that takes into account the loss of membership and membership dues plus the fact that NFPA codes chaneg over time..... Would you agree to a re-cert test when you come back for say a $50 fee? Would you agree that IN ADDITION to paying the 1st year membership Fee, that if you want to cert that you have to pay a License Fee up front to even Cert in the beginning?

As long as you use words like EXTORTION your proposals aren't going anywhere Ferrell... Its clear that you have an "agenda" the same one as JI and IZ.....destroy the NAR and or TRA anyway you can....

You think that the change will bring back lasped HPR flyers but you cna provide no data to back that assertion up.....therefore its a canard..... it has no meaning in reality.... What happens if the NAR/TRA change their cert procedures to your desire and the legions of HPR modelers do not come back? what then? You say Opps I was wrong?

Tell it to the BATFE not the NAR/TRA...... You don't like the so called NAR/TRA/NFPA framework ? well As I have suggested to you on several other occasions, create your own..... But I guess its an easier task to try and tear down what exists already for the benefit of most versus doing the hard work of building your own ?

Hey Ferrell,

While I agree in most part the substance of what you are saying here, the NAR president has already stated he does not. I am not up to looking fo r the post, but it was about a few weeks ago, and he doesn't post here often, so you can easily google it up... ... so in other words, I don't think I have the same optimism WRT the BOT this summer, especially in the form and simplicity of content with which your recommendation was submitted. This issue will need a lot of PR and detail clamping before it would pass.

For instance, NAR will want to retain the right to cancel a cert if the certificatee ever exhibits improper behavior as determined by the NAR. I consider that a fair proposition. NAR should also be able to raise certification requirements a bit to fit a long-term certificatee paradigm.

But even these points have issues that would need hashing, and I don't think that will resolve in only one BOT session.

If you have any hope of it passing, I would not be idly waiting for it... there is plenty of work to do.

If anything, your poll here recently should confirm what I have said.

~ Duane Phillips.

I can cert Level 2 at the end of this month, then pack everything rocketry I own into crates and not fly again for 5 yrs...

However if I continue paying my dues, I never loose my cert and can go right back to a flight line, Level 2 card in hand and fly a K flight.

The only thing different is that, "whoever" got my dues every year, the dues don't keep me proficient or flying..

My opinion, refreshment tests every so many years, if you haven't flown in so many years, you start over.

How to keep track of any of that?? Hell if I know..

I knew I JUST had to come back to RMR. ALL this good talk....just makes me.....wanna make me PEE my PANTS! :-)

God bless RMR.

KMJK

What loss? It would be a net gain in a short time.

The leaders do and look where that got us.

Fuck you, liar.

You act as if it is about proficiency. It is not.

It is about knowing how to keep an airframe from shredding.

Period.

You are equally illogical on ROL chat.

Jerry

mucho snipped...

again Jerry what data do you have to support this contention? I don't hear scores,nor hundreds or thousands of HPR flyers just waiting to reenter rocketry.......... This is just wishful thinking on your part no doubt....

IZ.....destroy

forget to take yer meds today?

such language in a public forum Jerry, you bad boy .... Its clear from my reading your past 2 years posts and doing groups.google.com searches that go back to 1990 that its clear you want to destroy both the NAR/TRA.... for greviances real and mostly imagined...... sad......B(

shockie B(

Past experience running MANY clubs and launches preceeding the advent of "user certifications".

The fewer requirements you place, the more people can and will meet them.

Why do you think ATF asked TRA to voluntarily ask their members to get ATF permits? It was not to make access MORE free and easy!

Most gave up in disghust about 2 years after I was removed and decertified.

So the longer we wait the less likely the old crop will ever reenter. It wiil require another Jerry Irvine like effort as done to create LMR and HPR in the first place.

No. You are a liar.

You asked for a vote.

You got a vote.

It wasn't what you expected or what you wanted.

Why can't you accept the vote as it stands?

Seems all those mindless members don't agree with you so now you need to explain it away and show us the error or our ways.

My explaination is that the people who voted (a sampling of the rocketry community) want the existing certification program over the one you proposed.

Don Hooker

Don,

Here in America when the votes are counted, majority wins. That is one of the only things that make this country great.

BUT, you are forgetting one thing. Everyone has a right to speak his peace........well last I check it was.

Right?

KMJK

I recently got an amateur radio license from the FCC. It's good for 10 years, and you renew without re-testing.

From my understanding, user certifications were done because of NFPA. Also, as a means of forestalling government regulation, i.e. look! we're self regulating and it works! The government, however, has not noticed.

Sometime soon, NPRM 968 will take effect, codifying the 62.5 gram limit. Also, you can bet (I've put odds on it in Vegas) that the BATFE will issue another NPRM "clarifying" the PAD exemption to exclude rocket motors, assembled or unassembled. Everyone will get whipped up into a frenzy, write letters, submit comments, but it will get adopted regardless.

So sometime in the not-to-distant future any motor over a G-80 will require an LEUP, PERIOD. At which time user certifications will serve NO USEFUL PURPOSE, just add to the hoops you have to jump through. The only point it serves now is that you can build an airframe which won't shred; that's not brain surgery, it's - uh - rocket science.

Also, I always distrusted "certifications" issued by non-govt. entities. Look at the Microsoft MCSE - what a complete joke. Since NAR/TRA are not enforcement bodies but hobby associations, the most they can do is kick you out.

They don't. I for one do not see having to maintain membership as a "regulation", nor as a barrier. I also think that the only other possible option would be if some government agency handled certs, and I am 100% certain that would be far more restrictive and onerous than the current situation.

I disagree with that assessment and in fact find it a bit insulting, as it implies merely a kneejerk reaction of the respondents. I consider the issues on their merit, not merely whether I perceive them to be pro- or anti-TRA.

I can see how that would be a problem for you, but the same is true of many other activities. If you stopped driving or flying and let your driver's or pilot's license lapse, you'd have to go through the process of getting it again if you wanted to take someone for a joyride. Maybe HPR isn't really suited to such a casual, on again-off again approach.

I don't see the point in voting on hypothetical situations that never existed. First one must buy into the proposition that the situation could have realistically occurred.