[F-FT] Thoughts on certification

That's the key right there. Read, learn, observe, ask questions. Most people do before attempting to use electronics. Electronic deployment is not hard, but does require some forethought, both in rocket design and recovery system design.

I did my first electronics on my L2 cert flight. I collected all the info I could read, and then designed and built the rocket and altbay. Then, I had some of the guys in my club look my work over carefully and give me a reality check and tell me weather it would work or not.. I also did ground testing to size the charges.

I don't think a separate cert for electronics is needed.

Whether the idea was good or not, the discussion was excellent. Besides the content, it was really cool to learn that you can have a flame-free thread just by saying "this will be a flame-free thread". ;)

Don't apologize, and definitely DON'T go sit in the corner.

Nothing wrong with a good, coherent, mature discussion of a topic.

-Kevin

Ditto that!

Here? On RMR? Go outside and feel the ground. ; )

Randy

What are We looking for? :)

Boy,

That guy is stupid Dave unless he is planning to test stuff in a smaller ship. I mean when I've witnessed L3 flights, they were at an appropriate site in the middle of nowhere. I still wouldn't want to risk possibly over a $1000.00 worth of hardware without trying it on a smaller scale. I guess if an experienced RSO and prefect inspect the ship and it looks airworthy, the guy has the right to take the risk of a launch.

Kurt Savegnago

Hi Phil,

No you didn't mis-interpret me but there are calculators out there that tells one how much BP to use and all the information I have seen recommends ground testing of the charges. I don't think someone would blindly try to do dual-deploy without researching it. I agree it is not so simple.

Kurt Savegnago

Tundra! ; )

Randy

Freezing over, I gotcha!

I'll second that at the risk of this being a needless post. I do learn alot from everyone here and I am in an isolated area with little contact with other rocketeers. I have to learn by doing with my L0 models.

Kurt Savegnago

The calculators can't take all variables like friction and amount of force to shear a shear pin into account. A calculator is a good start.

Phil

That's why it behooves us to do ground testing, right? :)

Kurt

The first time I used electronics, I used motor ejection as a backup. I simply made sure I understood which charge did what, and made sure it was wired correctly. I had never used BP, and I was a bit nervous about that. We did a ground test first, then flew it. The electronics and ejection worked flawlessly...

Eldred

Yep - definitely.