I'd like to organize a club of adults in Rhode Island who would be able to all join the NAR as a section, find a field to fly, and be able to work with the Fire Marshall of this state to lift some of the ridiculous restrictions. I have a vision of a spring meet where a bunch of Rhode islanders fly with the goal of getting the Nartek Gold.....Joe
I'm in west CT, one of the guts in the club was a engineer in Groton, and the commute too a launch was getting to him so he split off and started a club in east CT. I'm not sure if it's NAR or Tripoli affiliated, but I'm sure that it is listed in one of the club directories. He used to joke about flying in CT as the rules were so tuff in RI. He was talking about a field that was in CT, but right on the RI border. The joke was who was going to recover a rocket if it drifted on chute into no man's land (RI).
The club in Eastern CT. is called CATO and is both a NAR section and a Tripoli Prefecture.
May thru Sept we fly in Durham CT at White's Field.
Oct thru Nov we fly at a farm in Sterling CT. Weather this year has not been too forgiving and winter launches have been sparse
We have been looking for an alternate field to fly on and there are sod farms in SW RI that make us foam at the mouth. However when you add RI's statewide ban on motors over 62.5g plus the need to garner local Fire Marshall approval, it just does not seem worth the effort..
In Al Gloer's post: "However when you add RI's statewide ban on motors over 62.5g plus the need to garner local Fire Marshall approval, it just does not seem worth the effort.."
It sounds like the resistance is more at the level of state fire law authors, who write the codes within which the local FM's are mandated to operate...
here. Officially, you have to receive permission from the local authorities each and every time you want to launch. You can see their eyes glaze over when you approach them. Rhode Island is the "biggest little state in the USA", but the people border among the strangest. It's the state with the second oldest average state population (only Florida is older), the state with the highest percentage of female smokers, and the state with the highest percentage of DUI related accidents. Add in 7% sales tax on top of a personal state income tax.......well it ain't pretty
rocketry here. Officially, you have to receive permission from the local authorities each and every time you want to launch. You can see their eyes glaze over when you approach them. Rhode Island is the "biggest little state in the USA", but the people border among the strangest. It's the state with the second oldest average state population (only Florida is older), the state with the highest percentage of female smokers, and the state with the highest percentage of DUI related accidents. Add in 7% sales tax on top of a personal state income tax.......well it ain't pretty
And unless things have changed for the better, it's not only motors over
62.5 grams that are banned, but also any reloadable motors (even reloadable Ds). This link to the relevant RI statute (Title 23) used to work, but they must have moved the statutes.
formatting link
Al Gloer from CATO (SE CT), Arnold Roquerre from Frontier Rocketry (SE MA), or NAR and TRA HQ to get a list of RI rocketeers that might be willing to help get the rules changed in the most rocketry-impaired state in the Union.
Good Luck! Jay Calvert* former resident of eastern CT former president of CATO
*One who has sent many "UFOs" drifting into no-man's-land from CATO's old Clarks Falls site, which was only about a mile from the RI border. My favorite was a pumpkin on a 9' chute that thermalled away to the east. If anyone asks, I launched it on an Estes D12-3 (That's my story and I'm sticking to it)! ;^)
I got this response on the 16th and now it just popped up again tonight, as a new response. What the heck is going on with the newsgroups? In fact, I got every post from the 16th again as new. ??????
PolyTech Forum website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here.
All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.