Ofest Launch Logs

[Jeremiah Johnson]

Does anyone have any concerns about thrustcurve.org? As we redo the motor database, I’m using thrustcurve.org as the reference. It appears that JC did a major rework of it this year so I believe it is the best place to pull data from.

[Ed Dawson]

I think the thrustcurve.org is probably the best and easiest place to get the data.

[Warren B. MusselmanModerator]

As I understand it, thrustcurve.org supports remote queries. Might be interesting to look at the idea of dumping our database completely and using the thrustcurve database. All we need to mine from it are the motor code, manufacturer, total impluse, propellant type and propellant weight.

Warren

[Jeremiah Johnson]

Yes – that’s basically what I’m working on. Someone in the community started putting data at freebase but I think that thrustcurve is still best. Wondered if anyone else knew of something better. JC did add a great service interface to thrustcurve.

[Jeffrey Joe HintonModerator]

As far as I remember, the original small motor data base we had was directly linked to Thrust Curve and when the motor explosion (bad wording) happened, we just couldn’t keep up with the new and additional motors everyone was using. The data base got way out of control. The AP Bonfire was and is a cool idea but has become a tickle spot because it does not include weight of research motors or clusters or stages and it only includes the weight of the largest motor used without altering other fields of data (flights) and I’m sure there were or are other complications. But it is still a great idea to have some sort of visible record of what’s been burned and by whom. Obviously needs tweaking and what little I know about the backdoor stuff of this webpage operation prevents me from doing much more than I’m already messing up. So, if there is a solution or other method of tracking, let’s go for it.

[Warren B. MusselmanModerator]

Jeremiah and I have been talking about this for over a year. It will involve changes in the launch logs and launch log cards we use as well as some substantive database changes on our site. On the other hand, if thrustcurve.org keeps up with new motors and such, we can completely get rid of our own motor database and rely on thrustcurve.org. I tried to do this a number of years ago when we first switched to our site, but thrustcurve wasn’t being maintained at the time so I dropped the idea. Looks like thrustcurve is current through July at least at this point.

We would be modifying the launch cards and launch log entry to allow for clusters of arbitrary # of motors and arbitrary # of stages.

[John A. WilkeParticipant]

For my part, I think a total NS tally would be better. If someone goes out and flies 38 “M” hybrids, they ought to win… right now hybrids don’t really get much (any?) of a tally.

[Warren B. MusselmanModerator]

Yes, I’ve personally felt that Total Impulse is a better contest than AP weight. Jeremiah and I will meet later this week to discuss.

Warren

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