850 Experimental Sounding Rocket Association

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
This is the Airplane Geeks podcast. We aim
to educate and inform you, explore and expand
your passion for aviation, and entertain you a
little along the way.
This episode, we have guests from the experimental
sounding rocket association,
which hosts the International Rocket Engineering competition.
We learn how the organization

(00:22):
obtained a waiver to launch rockets up to
an altitude of a hundred thousand feet.
Spectators are allowed, and the competition
will be live streamed.
In the news, we look at what we
know about the tentative contract between United Airlines
and their flight attendants union,
the large proposed NASA funding cut,

(00:44):
two planes that nearly collide on takeoff at
LAX,
and a Louisiana
bill that seeks to prohibit
chemtrails.
That's right, not contrails.
Also, the Spurlink Farm pancake breakfast and fly
in is coming up.
Angelo State University in Texas has launched a

(01:04):
flight school and aviation bachelor program,
a new aviation mechanic education website,
and launching low earth orbit satellites
from old f four Phantoms.
It's all coming up right now.

(01:30):
Welcome to the Airplane Geeks podcast. This is
episode 850
of the show where we talk aviation.
I'm Max Flight.
And with me is first, well, our main
man, Micah.
Wonderful to be here, and I'm interested in
really learning a lot about sounding.
Sounding.
Well, just listen and you also

(01:52):
that's a bad joke. Also with us is
Rob Mark. He's a BizJet pilot. He's a
journalist. He's a CFI,
and, of course, he's publisher at JetWine.com.
Hey. Good evening to everybody.
And today, he's being ex extremely brief, which
is always nice.
Wait a minute. Wait a minute.

(02:13):
That was like the shortest hello that I've
heard from you in I don't know how
long, Rob. Well, I'm I'm trying to be
you know, I'm trying to recognize our guests'
time and our time, and we're you know,
I'm
I'm ready to just
get it going here. I guess And it's
about time. And it's about time. And it's
about time.
Alright. Let me introduce Max Rescott. He's host

(02:35):
of the Aviation News Talk podcast
and some others,
and he's a national CFI of the Year.
He's, of course, an expert on learning to
fly or purchase a Cirrus aircraft.
And I'm one of two people on the
line here today from Mountain View, California. So
we'll talk more about that in a moment.
That's right. Well, we have three guests actually

(02:55):
this episode.
They're all with the experimental
sounding rocket association,
ESRA,
Ezra.
Ezra is a nonprofit organization. It was founded
in 2003
to, as they say, foster and promote engineering
knowledge and experience in the field of rocketry.
Ezra's primary focus is to provide

(03:17):
opportunities
for academic
groups to compete
in aerospace
challenges.
And each June,
Ezra hosts the International
Rocket Engineering
Competition,
IREC.
And it's the largest university rocket competition in
the world.
Teams compete in a number of high altitude

(03:39):
categories with either
custom designed or off the shelf propulsion.
So we wanna learn about the competition,
about the rockets, of course, because nothing's cooler
than rockets.
And we also wanna learn more about how
you launch these things into the airspace
safely
and in compliance with regulations.

(03:59):
And the best thing about this, I've got
to interrupt you, Max Yeah. Is that, you
know, among your many attributes is that you're
an old rocket man. I am an old
rocket man. I am old, and I am
a rocket man.
Both.
So joining us, first is
Steve Taylor. He's the president of the experimental

(04:19):
rocket,
excuse me, the experimental sounding rocket association. So
welcome, Steve.
Well, thanks. And the experimental sounding rocket association
is a mouthful. So if you just wanna,
call us, Ezra, we're we'll we answer answer
to Ezra, just fine.
Thanks for having me, Max. It's a pleasure

(04:40):
to have you. And also with us this
episode is Brahm Soltes. He's the Ezra volunteer
who coordinates the with the FAA.
Welcome, Brahm. Hi. Welcome to be here. You
know, Brahm, you might be the key to
this whole enterprise because without FAA authorization, you
guys wouldn't have a launch. So
Yeah. It's we've talked about that. Yeah. Yeah.

(05:02):
So
we're gonna dive into that. But, also, we
have with us from Ezra also is Logan
Herrera.
He's the media director.
The media director of Ezra or the International
Rocket Engineering Competition or all of the above,
Logan? All of the above.
Glad to be here, and I'm excited to
do a little crossover

(05:23):
episode between the Rocket and Aviation Worlds. Yes.
And that's really what,
what attracted us to, speaking with you guys,
again, besides the fact that the the competition
and the rockets is kind of a cool
topic anyway, but we really wanna talk about
how
how you can coexist if, as it were,
with other forms of aviation in the National

(05:43):
Airspace System. Yeah. Exactly.
And I think
SpaceX has made news for some of their
impacts with really large rockets, but there are
smaller rockets in the National Airspace System too.
As well. Yes. And when I first saw
that the FAA was involved in,
some of the post
failure
investigations

(06:04):
and and so forth. I I I think
that's when I first became aware
that they actually do have a role
in rocket launches and space flight.
But we're gonna start right off, I think,
and talk about
Ezra.
And
can you give us
some some background on sort of the organization
and

(06:24):
what it's all about and why this competition
is such a large part of it? Sure.
Our slogan is,
per experientum,
which means learn by doing.
The competition was founded, as you said, in
02/2003,
but it really was to give the engineers
an opportunity
to take what they've learned in the books

(06:47):
and put it to real applicable
engineering
challenge
to put a rocket in the air. It's
not one of those things you learn well
by just reading a book. It's one of
those things that you actually have to put
your fabrication
skills on, your
engineering hat, and make sure that
what you've done in theory is going to
be applicable to what you what you fabricate.

(07:10):
And so,
it's a hands on. You gotta get down.
You gotta get dirty. You gotta build your
rocket. You've gotta,
you gotta manufacture potentially your your propulsion system
because it the we have commercial motors that
you can buy, but
the more exciting stuff is the is the,
student research and develop propulsion systems, which are

(07:33):
solid propulsion and and liquid and hybrid motors.
But the reason that the competition exists
is to get that hands on experience,
the learn by doing.
I guess in a nutshell, that's what we
are. We like to say that,
our mission is really to provide students with

(07:53):
real world aerospace engineering challenges,
which comes from everything from preliminary design to
critical design to inspection of of a rocket,
to doing flight safety reviews, to having,
having the the opportunity to to launch. And
so in a nutshell, I think that's probably
best describes

(08:14):
what our mission is and how we excite,
the 2,000 students that are gonna be in
Midland, Texas,
coming in a week. Yeah. Coming right up
fast. To get there and to launch their
rockets. Yeah. Well, Steve, I'm not a rocket
scientist, but could you tell me what a
sounding rocket is
as opposed to a rocket rocket?

(08:36):
It's a rocket rocket.
You know, the the whole the the sounding
rocket,
it it was first coined the phrase, I
guess, back in the probably
the fifties
or forties. That's some old school terminology.
Yeah. It had to do with rockets that
actually didn't,
leave the atmosphere
and and, stayed in the atmosphere. So,

(08:58):
how the sounding portion of it came about,
I don't know, actually. Now that,
but I guarantee you, I will know by
by tomorrow because I that's a really good
question then, Rob. But you you won't be
here tomorrow.
No. No. But it'll be in my head
then. Okay. Well, you make sure you call
us back. Question. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

(09:18):
Steve, can you, tell us a little bit
about this the size of these rockets, the
power, the,
the classifications
that exist so people can get a kind
of feel for the size of these things
that we're talking about?
So, just well, let's go by altitude first.
You know, we we,
have a FAA waiver, and thanks to Brahm,

(09:39):
which we'll get into, but,
that goes all the way up to a
hundred thousand feet.
And so,
most of these rockets
are usually between the four inch to six
inches in diameter, and they're usually,
oh, I'm gonna say from 10 to 15
feet tall.
We also have each one of the rockets
needs to have a mission, so they have

(10:00):
a a payload on board that has to
have
scientific,
well, they can
launch a a ballast payload, but we prefer
the ones that actually have a scientific mission
associated with them.
In terms of the power of the motors,
you actually have to get certified to be
able to launch motors like this, and we
we partner with the Tripoli,

(10:22):
Rocketry Association.
And the the classification of motors
just think about the total impulse of the
rocket motor, which doubles each time you go
up in a letter class.
So if you think about the Estes rockets,
they were, you know, from a's to to
d motors.
Each time they double in the in the
specific impulse.
Well, these teams are are launching

(10:45):
m, n, and o motors.
So the amount of thrust, they they they
can have, you know,
4,000 tons of thrust.
You know, it's a it's one of those
things that,
the government has recognized in order for us
to be able to legally do that that
we needed specific training. And the Tripoli organization
has, provides that training, provides that certification.

(11:07):
And the teams that are doing these launches,
partner with one of
us certified guys because unless they've put the
time in and and work their way up
to a level three certification,
they can't legally launch these lock rockets. And
and the Tripoli Organization takes that responsibility

(11:28):
because
they're involved at the get go. They're involved
with the team. They're mentors for the team,
and then they become the flyer records for
the team.
I I just wanted to say that,
in general, I didn't get a chance to
bring it up, but to sound is sort
of a verb to explore, and it's a
naval term. They would explore the depths of
the ocean. And when they first started exploring

(11:48):
space, instead of exploring deep down into the
ocean, they were sounding the atmosphere. So that's
where the term comes from. Yeah. I am
I I really appreciate that. Thank you. That's
that's exactly right. And I just pulled out
my prop, high altitude rocket research
from 1953,
describing all the different ways you can measure
the atmosphere
with 1953

(12:08):
technology.
I actually encouraged some teams to check out
some of the old school stuff. It has
some good inspiration for scientific payload.
Yeah. I I knew that.
And, Steve, I wanted to ask you a
question about those engines because you said that,
you know, oftentimes you encourage people to design
their own engines. And how does that work
in dealing with ATF and things like that?
Because these are chemicals and things that you

(12:30):
don't really not everybody has access to.
The chemicals are
they they're not explosives.
So, you know, ammonium perchlorate is,
sort of the base propel the base,
fuel of of a lot of these rocket
motors. And, you know, you have to supply
it with an oxidizer in order for it

(12:50):
to to, burn.
It's in it's inert by itself.
You have to apply
a, igniter or ignition source in order to
ignite. So so I I think first of
all, I I wanna draw out that we've
got multiple propulsion pipes in this competition. Sure
too. Yeah. Right? We've got solids, liquids,
hybrids.
Right? So you end up with this matrix

(13:12):
of competition categories of how high are you
going by what propulsion pipe are you using.
And we we separate that out to keep
light rockets competing with each other.
And for
liquids, you've got two liquids mixing together. And
we haven't had those,
for a couple of years, but we want
some to come back. There's nothing energetic about

(13:33):
that mixture until things are loaded and actually
fire. Similarly,
hybrids
got two dissimilar phases coming together. Usually, there's
a solid fuel and a liquid oxidizer, nitrous
oxide, that gets squirted in.
We see quite a few of those,
participating.
And we also see those in particular from

(13:53):
other countries, which
have more restrictive regulatory regimes
than The US because there again, there's nothing
energetic about those until they're
loaded
and
ignited.
The solid rocket motors have all of that
chemical energy in there all the time.
Most of our teams purchase them commercially. This

(14:14):
is a product you can buy
in The US.
And so we have a particular vendor, Aerotech,
that actually comes on-site and provides the motors
and gives some guidance on how to assemble
them, and they're a key partner for the
event.
But some teams do make their own, and
we love the innovation and like seeing them
do that. And,

(14:34):
historically, there was a watershed moment circa 02/2008.
There was a big lawsuit between the Tripoli
Rocketry Association
and the ATF over whether or not rocket
fuel is considered an explosive for the purposes
of ATF regulation.
And the outcome of that multiyear
suit
was,
no, it is not an explosive for the
purposes of US explosives regulation.

(14:55):
Now that doesn't mean you want to keep
them under your pillow at night. No. You
need to store them
appropriately
and respect the hazards they have. But for
the purpose of regulation, they are not an
explosive.
So within the different categories,
how is the the winner of that category
chosen identified? Is it altitude, maximum altitude, or

(15:16):
what what's the criteria for someone to, you
know, to win the prize?
Yeah. There there is a whole scoring system
and scoring rubric. And to anyone participating,
before you even start designing your rocket, you
should read it and understand how you're evaluated.
But in general, roughly speaking,
about half of the points
are your technical documentation.

(15:39):
We require you to submit progress reports throughout
the year and get feedback from safety reviewers
and then submit a grand final report
just before the event. So those submissions are
now in. Our judges are pouring over them
and grading them. Those are evaluated
based on the engineering process.
And are you justifying your decisions and articulating

(16:01):
why you've done the right thing for your
rocket? We do that intentionally to level the
playing field between teams that have vastly different
resources
so that we're grading process and not indirectly
who's got the biggest budget.
Then when you get there, about the other
the other half of the score is how
does your rocket perform? And for each of
those altitude categories, your goal is to hit

(16:23):
that altitude exactly.
So 10,000 feet exactly,
30,000 feet exactly, 45,000
feet exactly.
Then there's one there's one last little wedge
in the pie chart that is, is your
rocket
reusable?
You are required to design it to be
reusable. It comes down under parachutes.
Did all that actually work? Is your rocket

(16:43):
in good condition and ready for reuse?
This must be a
a terrific learning experience
for for for the college students
participating in this. Well, you know, we like
to see this as sort of a a
true life,
problem.
When you're in the industry,
you know, these teams are often multidisciplinary.

(17:04):
It's not just aerospace engineers.
It's mechanical engineers as well as
electrical engineers, computer engineers. We have systems engineers
for the integration component.
The better teams also have business people that
are part of the team because
it takes a fair amount of money to
be able to to put one of these
things together. So it's that multidisciplinary

(17:26):
team that,
really makes one of these teams successful.
And and, you you know, we're we're trying
to assimilate a real world, problem for the
teams. One of the the things that we
really enjoy is hearing
how many of the former contestants
have been
hired by the aerospace industry.

(17:46):
Every single
every single aerospace company has got somebody that's
been through this come through this competition,
And that's why we get sponsored,
by companies like Blue Origin and SpaceX and,
you know, with Virgin Galactic.
They're they're looking for the talent, students that
have been through this life cycle of a
project,
and then, they know that they've already had

(18:09):
this sort of real world experience.
Yeah. And I think I'd I'd like to
really emphasize that numbers
part is we have over 2,000 students on-site,
but over 7,000
around the world who are being touched by
this event in some way. And
by our estimate,
we think that a significant percentage of the
total US

(18:30):
Aerospace
workforce,
Our new grad workforce is coming through our
event every year.
What kind of guidance systems do these rockets
have? I mean, how do
you control them to remain within whatever the
waiver
airspace is?
Well,
actually, it is illegal to put a guidance
system inside one of these rockets. Then it's

(18:53):
a missile. Right? Then it's a missile. Right.
You can't you can do things like,
we have teams that, you know, as you
approach
their apogee altitude, let's say it's 30,000 feet.
Their electronics will sense where where they are,
in terms of the atmosphere
and will apply things like air brakes, but
that's just to apply resistance to the outside

(19:13):
of the rocket. It's not guiding the rocket.
So, yeah, there's there's absolutely
no no guidance systems allowed.
And you mentioned several times that there are
international teams, teams from all over the world.
Any Mhmm. Any particular teams that were kind
of, I don't know,
surprising or notable or kind of unexpected?

(19:35):
You know, the we the the the Swiss,
the German teams, the the you know, there's
Australian teams, New Zealand,
you you know, we've got,
Turkey, India. Canada, Turkey, India. Algeria.
You know, so,
I will say that in last year, I
I attended

(19:56):
the the around the world, there have been
a number of copycat sort of
competitions that have sprung up, you know, that
are generally local.
And I attended the one in Turkey, and
and I I'm very impressed, with
what they're doing and the Turkish commitment to
the aerospace industry right now. And in fact,
we have a number of,

(20:18):
well, the the Turkish teams right now are
10 that are coming to The United States,
and,
they're also sending judges.
And so
it's not only their team participation, but now
they're also getting in on the volunteer side
of things
and, and supplying judges for the competition. So,
Canada has got 11 teams coming.

(20:39):
Mexico has got five teams coming this year.
So, you know, it's all it's it's a
very international,
very international event.
You know, I, a friend of mine is
a,
flight director, major flight director for one of
the big airlines,
and he is not a fan of SpaceX
at all.
Because, you know, every so often,

(21:00):
both coasts of Florida are shut down, the
Caribbean shut down, and then sometimes, even without
planning, it shut down for a much longer
period of time than than it was intended
to be. So I'm curious.
And I guess, Brahm, this would be you.
How do you handle this kind of thing
with the FAA in terms of working with
what's going on and letting the airlines do
what they're supposed to do and follow their
regular schedules?

(21:22):
Yeah. So for this competition, it's very different
than, I guess,
what may some of your, you know, viewers
and some of your listeners might be used
to is seeing a NOTAM
pop up,
on a Skychart
for a weekend or two.
Because, you know, across the country, there's a
lot of little rocket launch sites for little

(21:42):
STs or amateur rockets that maybe go to
18,000,
maybe maybe 10, maybe five. Nothing too high.
Maybe a few going up a little higher
up to 30,000.
And you'll you'll they'll usually pop up on
the weekend once a month. And if you're
paying attention, you'll see them be a little
area on the map.
But because of our competition being an entire
week,

(22:03):
and because we're going to such high altitudes,
which was really difficult
to get normally for a lot of people,
what I had to do with FAA was
kinda work out a little bit of a
deal.
We are not in a there's a Victor
route
in the area.
And
talking with FAA to begin talking with FAA,

(22:24):
it was an understanding of,
okay, what are our altitudes
that we're gonna be going to as general,
idea.
And then working with the offices of commercial
space to determine, okay, we obviously don't have
guidance.
So none of the teams are gonna have
guidance.
So they need to create
a a max impacted air, area that's going

(22:46):
to affect air traffic.
And work with air traffic control
in the area and work with the airlines
to determine, okay, how can we impact you
guys the least amount?
So the waiver that I have for the
competition,
77,
11, seventy seven eleven, yep, dash two, which
if you're familiar with doing any,

(23:09):
drone u or some of the more advanced
drone use or or doing any waiver that
require for, air vent, you might have filled
that out.
Ours has some pretty unique special provisions.
So for the event,
we are trying to limit the I think
it's the El Paso
to Fort Stockton route on Southwest

(23:29):
because they have some flights going there.
We are trying to limit our event from
from really interrupting them. So
we're trying to group our our rockets
by cap which we already are doing by
altitude,
and then changing the NOTAM
during the event. So it's not a static
NOTAM, which is is very unique.

(23:50):
This is I I don't think I've seen
this at at any other, Rocketry event. And
I definitely know it's not done at, like,
even the higher levels,
because obviously no one is launching, we're we're,
like, at a 50 rockets in a in
a week
anywhere in the country,
at wildly different altitudes.
So we've made a provision with them, and
it was quite a while to get all

(24:12):
this sorted out, but it's going to change.
And so if you're a,
pilot looking out on in Midland, Texas, you
might see a NOTAM changing
throughout the week. And we're gonna try to
limit as much impact as we can to
the airspace.
And luckily, we're not in super heavily trafficked
area, but ours is kinda unique for this

(24:33):
event specifically.
Can you give me a rough idea of
the dimensions
of the restricted
airspace
that you guys are gonna fly in? I
mean,
what's the radius from the ground?
So from the ground, it's a two naught
so for our category, we're calling them launch
group one, which is anything below 18,000 feet,

(24:55):
which is the unrestricted airspace that most people
aren't gonna be
have any,
impact no impacts on, which is gonna be
the majority of our flights. That's a two
nautical mile radius
around our launch site.
Wow.
Two miles, but you have no gut you
have no control over the rocket.
No control. All we have control over for

(25:15):
our, rockets is the launch angle. So
everything's pretty much going straight directly up. And
we control
when
and,
and what weather conditions they launch at.
But that is the
rough idea of how much, of the the
the impacted area from, for, for those launches.

(25:35):
Just wanna let me add one little bit
to this is that, you know, part of
our safety code is that,
we can't launch in any clouds.
So it's gotta be a clear, you you
know, you do a visual on the airspace
before you launch a rocket.
And, and if there's,
I I guess it's better than 50% cloud
coverage over the launch site. There we have

(25:56):
to stop all operations.
But you're you're fly I mean, you're flying
in a parabola. You can't help but fly
in in a parabola. How do you control
for winds and and direction? How do you
measure that at, you know, if you're past
18,000 feet?
So we can use certain, weather apps,
for a lot of the flights, but we
we are trying to

(26:16):
mostly get our best case of what the
weather's gonna be up like up up at
the higher altitudes for the flights,
and then determine if we should launch,
which we've done in, past launches before where
it's it's perfectly on the ground, but then,
weather data says it's way too high up
there.
And the other part of the rockets, which,

(26:38):
although there are parabola, the the parachute system
that we
want them, most of our competitors to use,
a drogue and a main,
has
if you actually look at what the flight
profile of some of these rockets are, it's
gonna be pretty much
straight up, and then they're gonna
slow down coming,

(27:00):
from their top Apogee a little bit, but
they're gonna still be going kinda fast. This
is under drogue.
So they'll be going a hundred feet per
second down. And then around a thousand feet,
2,000 feet, in that kind of range, they'll
open up their main parachute and slow down
to a nice easy
ten, twenty, maybe 30 feet per second.

(27:22):
Oh, that's interesting. So yeah. So when, you
know, back in the in the day,
in the
sixties, basically,
when I was launching Estes Rockets,
Yeah. The the parachute popped out, and you
were at the the whims of the, you're
right, of the,
of the wind speed. Yeah. In fact, I'm
still looking for some of my rockets from
back. Yeah. I know.

(27:43):
Well,
you know, it's also selfish. Right?
The more
we're the more we're blown by wind, the
more students have to walk to go find
their rocket. Yeah. Right. What speed do these
things achieve,
on the way up?
So it depends on what the what the
competitors are going for. So some of them
are going a little higher in altitude, say,

(28:04):
30,000 or 45,000
feet. They might be well, depending on their
design, they might be going up to Mach
three.
Mach two is not out of the realm
of question. They're they're regularly supersonic.
Yeah. Most of them I mean, not most
of them, I guess.
But, you know, Mach one, Mach two, and,
and and occasionally a Mach three, that that's

(28:24):
the speeds. And and do you have to
get, o okay from the FAA to break
the sound barrier like that? No. You don't.
That's the strange thing about it. Part one
zero one of the FAA's regulation on rock
amateur rocketry doesn't,
regulate it against speed.
We're just on impulse on the motor,
which is it's the for for

(28:46):
class two,
model rocketry,
which is what where most of this is.
We we're limited on just the impulse, which
is forty thousand
and nine hundred and two seconds. Yeah. Forty
nine sixty newton seconds. Yeah. There we go.
But it's not a limit on the the
mass of the motor or the speed,

(29:06):
and then we're just limited a little bit
on altitude, which is,
50 kilometers.
So we're not there, but
Can can you tell us about those classes
and the differences between them?
Sure. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So your your class
one model rocket is is your is what
most people are are gonna be familiar with
when they think model rocketry. That's your SDs.

(29:27):
That's your that's your little guys.
That's what you probably did in,
as a kid, and then it's what a
lot of people still fly with their children
or or even at a lot of model,
a lot of launch sites because they're a
lot of fun, of course.
And then you get up to the next
clash, which is high power,
model rocket, which is is kinda what we're
most of these teams are doing.

(29:50):
Lot bigger motors. Your impulse goes all the
way up to can go up all the
way to 40,000.
And then you have your class three, which
is your advanced high power,
which is
anything
above that. So
these are some really experimental rockets,
usually.
There's very, very few few of them. I

(30:10):
don't I don't think there's actually a motor
that you can buy that goes up into
that. So you're making your own motor,
and you're probably you're going easily up past
a hundred thousand feet. We have members of
the volunteer staff,
that have actually,
you know, gone up to 300,000
feet and or, you know, if you believe
them, 400,000

(30:31):
feet. But, you know
This year's event is in Texas. This is
the first time. Right? Pre
previously, it had been in in New Mexico,
I guess. Right. So, Brahm, you did you
have to basically start all over
with getting the the waiver? Was it
a complete
repeat of the entire process? Or did you

(30:53):
were you able to sort of leverage what
you'd had previously?
No. This was from scratch. So the previous
launch site was at Spaceport America,
where the Virgin Galactic flies. And they have
a,
standing
waiver,
because they're right next to White Sands Missile
Range.
So they they have, like, their own standing
waiver that we were just under for the

(31:14):
event. And so this is the first time
that the ESRA has gone around and created
their own
operating waiver with the FAA.
And so this was this was a wasn't
necessarily a new experience, but I think for
me, but it was a very different experience
than I've ever had
to do,
ever done with FAA for trying to create

(31:36):
a launch launch waiver. Yeah. And I I
think it's not a very well known process.
Yeah. And so that's also a part of
why we wanted to spread the word a
little bit or
explain what's involved here. So I don't think
it's very well known, particularly
when we're going this high.
I probably have watched too many SpaceX

(31:56):
launches recently, but,
when one of the rockets
kind of
decides to go in a direction that you
don't want it to, do you have a
way
to zap that little baby? Or
So so they do.
Yeah.
We don't. Well, a space if you're a,

(32:18):
if you are a actual rocket,
provider, and you are going
into an, orbital
or velocity,
you are required by the FAA to have
a,
destruction system. Yeah, self destruct system built in.
And

(32:38):
we are not required to have that.
I don't think I'd wanna have explosives.
No. No. And and but but here's what
we do do.
Because,
we have,
modeling software that helps us understand maybe,
based on what the wind speed is, based
on the the angle, based on the azimuth,

(33:00):
we can predict if there is a ballistic
recovery where that's gonna be. So we make
sure that
every morning, we do this modeling. And every
morning, we diagram out a ballistic impact zone
that we make sure that's clear,
just in case something does come in ballistic.
But,
that's about the that's about the best we
can do.

(33:21):
And, you know, I I will say that
in the,
you know, the,
eighteen,
years of running in the competition,
we've never had a rocket related incident. And
we're you know? So I I popped my
chest out a little bit when I say
that,
especially since,
you know, we're dealing with
students that maybe for the first time have

(33:42):
been involved in rocketry. So,
I I think it's a testament to,
the the amount of support we give the
teams
and when they develop their rockets from from
the, you know, from the,
drafting board, if you will, all the way
up and through the launch.
You mentioned the two mile radius for an
18,000
foot launch. What kind of radius do you

(34:03):
have for a 50
kilometer
altitude launch? I don't know for a 50
kilometer, but I'll say for our hundred and
two or hundred three, hundred thousand foot,
weight hundred thousand foot launches, the the radius
is 12 nautical miles. Okay.
And you and so talking actually,

(34:24):
and to bounce back onto Steve's point,
the office of commercial space,
they will, as part of getting this waiver
going into,
you know, controlled airspace,
they will do their own modeling to determine
what
that hazard area is going to be. They
don't just take our word for it. Yeah.
They

(34:44):
And so, as part of creating the waiver,
if you're doing your own, you know, say
you wanna build your own rocket and you
just wanna launch that one,
you can give them much more information, much
more detail about your your rocket. And they
can come back and say, oh, you know
what? Your waiver, because with the way you've
designed it, the way you're gonna launch it,
the of how much restriction you're gonna put

(35:05):
onto it,
it might be a lot less.
But because of our kind of we're having
a bunch of student teams come, we have
an idea of their rockets, but we we
are not, you know, it's not us.
The office of commercial space has created a
a more
let's let's we'll put a conservative estimate of
the area that's gonna be impacted. Yeah. And

(35:27):
it sounds like there I mean, there are
a number of steps here, a number of
organizations involved. Bram, you you mentioned the the
form seventy seven eleven dash two has sorta,
collects the basic information, I guess, and and
kicks that off. And that goes that starts
at the FAA Regional Service Center. Is that
correct?
Yeah. It does. So be yep. The beginning

(35:49):
of this is really finding a launch site,
doing some basic research of what you're gonna
be launching,
confirming on your own a little bit, hey,
am I in restricted airspace? Is this going
to be a burden to,
the airspace that I might be launching in?
Am I just gonna be told no? But
once you reach out to the off, the

(36:10):
regional service center, that's when it really will
start kicking off, and they'll have a good,
depending on what you're doing, a pretty good
conversation with you of trying to determine,
some either constraints or
rules that they'll make with you to say,
hey, you know what, if you could actually
just launch during this time frame or maybe
you could,

(36:31):
can you actually move it a little bit
to left or right of where you're trying
to launch, so we're not impacting this airway?
That's how it'll start. Yeah. And I'll say
as as an observer
on this that
the FAA wants to help,
that I think we've had a a positive
experience
that we want to share or use a

(36:52):
shared resource
effectively for the benefit of everyone. And
there are three service centers, and the number
of people who handle rockets at those service
centers is
one or two.
So it's a it's a very finite number
of people that you'll be interacting with, and
you can develop a relationship with them
over time. Or you certainly will be by

(37:13):
the time you're getting all the way through
this waiver process. Yeah. I was gonna ask
how long the waiver process takes or how
long it took.
For us, it was actually probably the quickest
it's ever been. And that's because we pushed
quite hard and had a little help,
from our reach of some regional partners.
But normally, it can take
for a lot of people, it it will

(37:34):
take, you know, a month or two,
to get it all approved.
It's recommended to give as much time as
possible, especially
if you're going to higher altitudes.
But if you're doing something small, maybe you're
going out to, you know, the
park or something, and you're doing a small
little,
flight,
twenty four hours

(37:54):
is even good. No kidding.
If you're doing something small, if they if
you're not, they're gonna But even something major,
like you say, you're like that you're doing
a month or two, that's that's that's quicker
than I would have guessed. But some of
these smallest rockets, there's no interaction required. Yeah.
So so I guess that's technically a zero.
Yeah.
Sure. Sure.

(38:14):
I'll also say,
I believe the the
recommended minimum is ninety days.
Yeah. But
the
the regulatory
promise is that
it's giving you a response
at least ten days in advance of your
proposed launch date.
So
this is an area where we've seen some
challenge of

(38:35):
if you submit a year in advance,
that regulatory
response date doesn't move.
So you could you could submit three, six,
five days in advance, and
they won't necessarily tell you until ten days
before. You know? In practice,
they're friendlier than that, but they don't have
to. What about military air traffic? Do they

(38:55):
get involved in this as well?
For this one, yes.
It's what's great about the service center is
they'll put you in contact with if you're
gonna impact like a
IR route,
they'll put you in contact with liaison at
whatever the military base that might be impacted
by it. In this case,
Dreyfus Air Force Base

(39:15):
in Texas. They have an IR route that
we'll be,
impacting.
Lucky for us, it's not a very popular
or not a very used one, and so
they're alright with just shutting it down for
the week. But in other cases,
say, out in California,
which a very famous launch, the Friends of
Amateur Rocktree,

(39:36):
they're they're smack dab in the middle of,
restricted military airspace,
which is actually great for them
because there's they're not impacting anyone but the
military, and the military doesn't do anything on
the weekends.
So they're like, yeah.
Fly to your heart's content.

(39:56):
There's gotta be no planes in the side
on the weekends.
So we have this, the event coming up,
right, June,
I guess, this year, 2025.
And,
I understand
this is a spectator
event as well. Correct?
Yes. Absolutely.
If folks wanna come out on-site, they're welcome

(40:17):
to.
We're also gonna have a livestream running where
you can view it from anywhere in the
world, and we'll send you a link to
put in the show notes. Yes, please.
And, also, if you're local,
the Blakemore Planetarium
is going to be playing the live stream
in the planetarium
for you to watch. Oh, wow. I'll also
say I, in a media function, have been

(40:37):
wanting to do some aerial photography
of the launch site. Maybe not while rockets
are flying, but
sort of before or after the event. So
if there are any flyers listening in the
Midland, Odessa,
Pecos, Fort Stockton area,
I have a mission for you.
Shameless.
This this sounds like a good opportunity for
a drone. So if something goes wrong

(40:59):
And so where can folks go to to
learn more about this, the the competition in
general?
Our website is soundingrocket.org,
all one word.
And, you know, we've got everything there. You
know, we do have a large a large
number of the the, local community that are
involved in STEM activities that will be participating

(41:21):
both at our convention center where the the
we have a convention center day where the
students come in and put up a poster
session and display their rockets. And the public
as well as judges and and other teams
can go and look at to see,
what's been done with their rocket,
before we go down to the launch site.
So there's a day in Midland at the

(41:42):
Horseshoe Pavilion,
and it's a it's a great opportunity to
come in and talk and,
you know, meet meet the students,
get an understanding for what they do.
Then,
the the more fun, though, is out at
the launch site, and we have an area
that's
roped off for specifically
just spectators, not students, not so that they

(42:05):
but, you know, we'll we're making an event
out of it. We're having food trucks come.
We've got,
sponsors will be there, recruiting,
the students,
as they're launching their rockets. And,
it's it's genuinely
and I I guess I'm biased, but
it's you you know, this is as much
fun as you can have, I think, in

(42:25):
a desert, you know, to me, anyway. I
think so too. And and this is largely
a volunteer
operation. Correct? It's a %.
We're a five zero one c three, and
we don't have any paid employees.
And so of the 50
to a 75
volunteers that we'll have on-site,

(42:46):
These are all there for
promoting
the aerospace industry and and dedicated towards the
betterment of the engineering students.
It's another,
wild thing. You know, I've got a I've
got a core group of of, I'd say,
about 30 that are involved year round that,
lead up. In fact, one of my biggest,

(43:08):
accomplishments,
and I think Logan may have even started
this trend,
but having former competitors that actually come on
and take leadership roles inside the organization.
And I tell you, it's the lifeblood of
the organization right now. I mean, I got
Brahm Brahm,
was a judge in the past, but this
year as he took on the FAA stuff,

(43:29):
he's just done such a phenomenal job. And
he and Logan, and we have another member
of this group, that I call the bird
dog team,
that if you put them on a task,
they're gonna bird dog it until it gets
done. And it's, you know, it's one of
those things that I just, I can't thank
them enough. I can't thank the energy,
the former competitors
that are coming in because

(43:50):
they enjoyed their experience. And you know what?
They wanna make it even better. You know?
So, all volunteers,
all volunteering their time and,
no paid employees.
You know, before it sounds like we're getting
around to close this out, and I don't
wanna be like Brian. I don't wanna have
one last question after we close it out.
So I gotta ask one actually, two last
questions before we close it out. The actually,

(44:11):
the first one's not a question, but the
title of the movie, I already got it.
This is great. It's Brahms versus the FAA.
I love the title. It just sounds great.
But Bird dog. Yeah. But the question that
I have for you all is,
how did you each get into sounding rocketry
and model rocketry to begin with? Yeah. Mine's
easy. I'm I'm an old guy. Right? So
when when we first,

(44:32):
stepped foot on the moon,
I was 10 years old on vacation in
Cape Cod, Connecticut.
I mean, Massachusetts.
And,
ever since I mean, I was involved, you
know, back in the Gemini days,
but, it just was one of those things
that, for me,
it just became a lifelong
pursuit of happiness, really. And, you know, my

(44:53):
career was in in chemistry. So well, like,
like, I wasn't in rocketry.
It's only after,
you know, I've I've become I've come re
retired and,
you know, my dad said you gotta give
back after you're done working, and my give
back is giving back to the aerospace industry.
Very good. So I Brahm, you go I'm
sorry, Brahm. You go ahead. Sure. No. Yeah.

(45:13):
Yeah. Well, I I'll say that my I'm
from Washington DC, and so one of the
great, great,
museums in our country is the Air and
Space Museum.
And my parents
that was a great place to drop the
kids off because they get free and you
can run around.
There's a lot of great planes, a lot
of great rockets in that museum.

(45:34):
There's actually well, there's actually two museums, but,
that's where it started as a child. And
then in college, I
I I was did my own rock tree,
club, just like a lot of the competitors
are doing at this event and was at
this event.
As a competitor,
that led me into,
you know, into the career of being a

(45:55):
propulsion engineer at Blue Origin.
And so that's kinda where I'm at right
now, but
it's it's why I've also given back because
it's it's a lot of fun. Cool. How
about you, Logan?
Yeah. And for me, I had
just enjoyed launching little STS rockets as a
kid.
And then in high school,

(46:15):
participated in
the NASA rocket competition, the NASA Student Launch
Initiative,
which has a it's a structured program
that that has some parallels to
IREC Ezra IREC,
where you're you're going through a year, you're
doing design reviews,
you go to the launch site at the
end and launch something. And

(46:35):
that really
was a
that was a significant experience for me at
the time that changed some of
what I wanted to do. And so then
at university level, I ended up doing electrical
engineering
for my degree. So I I do enjoy
the payloads
in the rockets,
not just the propulsion system. Yep.

(46:57):
In school,
I I participated
in iREC.
Hey. My team won our category the year
we participated, the 30,000 foot commercial off the
shelf category,
which I
am sure to bring up with one of
our other volunteers whose
university was second place that year.
Is Elon a member?

(47:20):
No. Not to know.
No. Not yet. We're working out of them.
We we do he he is, he is
sponsoring, a portion of this, so we will
have recruiters from SpaceX and some engineers there.
But that's the next step. Get Elon excited
by it. Well, he has a little more
time on his hands now. Yeah. Right. Yeah.
Maybe. And For any of your listeners, we'd

(47:40):
be happy to have them come participate either
as, you know, go find your local team
or come be a judge. Yeah.
Come be a volunteer.
And
if you can't get out to Midland, Texas
next week,
know that next year, we're gonna do this
all again,
and we do need remote judges to grade
the reports. So no matter where you are

(48:02):
in the world, you can volunteer for this
event. Oh, excellent.
Brahm, I wanted to, to ask you,
and we were talking about this a little
bit, the other day.
With all of the
launches
that take place in this country these days,
it's kind of an increased opportunity for people
to actually go see a launch.

(48:22):
And maybe you have some tips or some
thoughts
for, for folks who might wanna
get to Cape Canaveral
or another location and and view some of
these,
SpaceX or Blue Origin,
etcetera kinds of launches.
Yeah. It's like I was talking about with
you yesterday. It is
it's quite an opportune time to come down

(48:43):
to The Cape if you're if you're interested
in rocketry at all or just just wanna
see a giant thing fly up into the
sky,
and make a lot of noise.
There is most there's now just about every
week,
a launch. And just last month,
alone, there were 17 launches,
out of The Cape.

(49:03):
So that's more than half the month.
And I would say, if you're either maybe
you're just going to Disney.
Yep.
There's
it's check the schedule.
There's some great schedules out there from Spaceflight
Now or NASA Spaceflight.
There's also the Kennedy Space Center schedule that

(49:26):
they'll let you know if they have tickets
to go a little bit closer to the
rockets.
You have to pay for those.
But, otherwise,
there's some great viewing spots from the beaches,
around The Cape. Well, just about anywhere near
The Cape, you'll be able to see it.
And if you're lucky, at the end of
the launch, you might be able to go
by the port,
have a bite to eat, and see one

(49:47):
of the rockets come back in to the
port. Yes. Yes.
So are you guys trying to mimic the,
the SpaceX system where instead of a parachute,
you can figure out a way to get
the,
booster to just kinda come back down, and
then one of the guys just grabs that
little sucker in the air before it hits
the ground.

(50:08):
I'd be happy to see that. That'd be
cool, but I don't know if I trust
you to do that just yet.
Yeah. That may be a little tough to
pull off. Yeah. Well, there there is another
event called called Lander Challenge that is challenging
students to do that and has some cash
prizes.
But that's a different rocketry organization.
So one rocketry organization
to launch

(50:28):
and another rocketry organization
to land.
Max,
t, what do you think about that if
we were trying to teach people to fly?
I'm your flight instructor. I'll teach you how
to take off, but how to get to
max in order to learn how to land.
I think this could work. Yeah. Maybe. Why
not? But But I must say I like

(50:48):
staying below a hundred thousand feet.
Yeah.
Air is a bit more breathable. Yeah. Yeah.
Thanks for coming, guys. This was fun. Yeah.
A little scary to me, but it was
fun. Yeah. Well,
the big takeaway for for you, Rob, I
guess, is just watch the NOTAMs and,
Right. Exactly.
And and they'll be watching you,

(51:11):
on the launchpad,
visually
to see if you're
zipping by.
On to the news. First story.
Boy, we,
we find a lot of good stuff at
paddleyourowncanoe.com.
Rob, this is inside United's game changing flight

(51:34):
attendant deal.
Raises,
retro pay, and hotel upgrades.
This has been
a the never ending negotiation, I think.
This is about five years they've been
at least four four plus,
in the
process. And,
United's master executive council, which is,

(51:55):
the group of,
flight attendants and pilots that are in charge
of
the union operations
at United,
really came came together on this and came
up with finally a contract that I think,
is gonna is gonna be incredible,

(52:15):
not just because it gives
the flight attendants more pay,
but
the biggest issue that has always plagued
flight attendants was that they never got paid
until the aircraft pushed back from the gate.
So if if you had them load a,
you know,
a 200 person
airplane

(52:35):
and it was delayed
and they sat there
at the gate or on the ramp for
two and a half hours,
the flight attendants didn't get paid. And it,
you know, it was never,
it it it just was never fair. I
never understood that.
The pilots get paid, but the flight attendants
didn't. And this has been going on for

(52:58):
as long as I can remember.
And not just this airline.
Oh, no. Not not just this airline, but
every airline. And so that's why this is
really going to change things. And the,
the United Flight Attendants Group,
which is the AFA,
Association of Flight Attendants, said the tentative agreement

(53:19):
has the highest compensation
and the largest overall economic
improvement
in the history of our careers, meaning of
flight attendants.
The highest retro pay, so they're gonna get
back pay,
to a particular date once this is
approved.
Again, boarding pay,

(53:40):
economic and quality of life provisions,
and significant improvement in terms of,
hotels,
health care, retirement,
and all of that kind of thing is
part of what the, the crews, pilots, and
flight attendants
have to negotiate
in their contract.
And,
some airlines are not as good as others,

(54:03):
to,
to their people.
But, you know, in this time, it was
so important that,
AFA's president, Sarah Nelson, who we had back
on the show in,
oh, gosh. I don't know what episode, but
it was a couple of years ago,
you know, flew into Chicago
to put the, you know, the final kiss
on this,

(54:23):
on this tentative agreement
and make sure that it got through the,
through the system. Now, what's happening is that
the AFA and
its members, its volunteer members are going to
go out at various bases around the country
wherever United is at
and and do a promo essentially

(54:45):
to to convince
the employees that, man, this is a contract
we have gotta vote for. Because right now,
it's a tentative agreement, and it's tentative
because
the employees need to vote in a in
a majority
to say, yes. We'd like that. And and
some people are a little reluctant sometimes. They
think, well,
this is all this is good, but you

(55:08):
know what? If we just hold out, it's
going to get better.
And and I think everybody is,
is telling them that, no. Not this time.
Just vote this contract in.
And, again, I think that the fact that
they,
that they're gonna get paid for boarding time,
that alone, I think, is is incredible.

(55:29):
And,
so we'll see what happens. It's gonna take,
oh, I think they've got at least a
month of of, vote
show,
roadshows, they call them, where the union members
are out there,
you know, giving the details of the contract.
And then and then, of course, each base
has to vote.
And,
I think it's going to take at least

(55:49):
a month to gather all those results. But
my guess is that they are going to
they're going to approve this,
contract.
And,
I I think that's
that's the the biggest part of this
entire story. Again, that they're gonna get paid
when they don't get to fly. But let's
let's clarify that for a minute because,

(56:11):
they haven't said what the boarding pay is.
And the boarding pay at with Delta and
Alaska and American that they're given is half
pay. It's not the full pay. And my
opinion is that that's that's wrong. I can
understand why it might be half pay when
the flight attendants are prepping the plane. But
once boarding takes place, once one passenger gets
on that plane, now they are both public

(56:33):
relations and safety experts, and they are in
full flight attendant responsibility.
All their responsibilities
are there. So once the first person boards,
once that boarding time starts, they should be
getting full plane, full pay rather, not once
they pull away. And that's the thing That's
true. That's part of the thing that I
suspect will be part of the issue in
voting for this.

(56:53):
Sure. And the and and I again, we
don't know the exact details of this, but
for the pilots in the past, the pilots
would get a a guarantee,
that every month you get paid for
seventy five hours
of of flying or eighty hours of flying.
And it didn't matter if if you didn't
get

(57:13):
all those hours in, you still got paid,
but not the flight attendants. They've always been
treated like second class citizens.
And so I I agree with Mike. Yeah.
The thing about the flight attendants as well
is, like,
Brian had a delay the other night, and
his flight was supposed to leave at 06:30,
and it ended up not leaving until 03:30
in the morning. And if you had a

(57:33):
flight attendant that was they're scheduled to report
at 05:00 to be there for a 06:30
flight,
she's on duty waiting for the flight for
those nine hours and not being paid. So,
again, that's something something about that doesn't
doesn't sit well with me. Yeah. Yeah.
I understand that the, membership will be voting
in July between July 7

(57:55):
and the twenty ninth.
So it's,
some time off before we'll find out the
total outcome of this. But, yeah, hopefully hopefully,
the, the membership the union membership will find
this
an acceptable
contract
and, and move forward with that.
Alright.
Let's see. From

(58:16):
space.com,
Trump's twenty twenty six budget would slash NASA
funding by 24%
and is worth forced by nearly one third.
That's the
that's the title. But under the,
the proposed
cut,
the NASA budget would
go from $24,800,000,000

(58:39):
to $18,800,000,000.
And that would be fiscal year twenty twenty
six, which starts
10/01/2025.
NASA science funding would be cut by a
lot, by 47%
next year.
That would,
go down to $3,900,000,000

(58:59):
and affect 41
science projects. But
if this survives as is,
going forward,
NASA is
gonna be looking to,
well, cancel
a number of of missions. And then, of
course, there's also
a significant workforce reduction in there

(59:20):
as well.
So what is there left to say?
We've got this to say. I've gotta do
a shout out right now.
Bill, if you're listening, send us your commentary
on this so we can read it on
the show.
Okay.
Yeah. That may not happen. But Well, and
you know what's really sad about this?
Of course, the the budget is

(59:40):
an issue that has been under debate
for some time,
since this president
has taken office.
And,
the the goal has been cut, cut, cut,
cut, cut.
And,
when we get to the end of this
story, though, it has a very interesting twist
to it,

(01:00:01):
that
the missions that are gonna be canceled
are things that The United States has been
talking about for
decades.
And while we're not in the,
Mercury,
Gemini, Apollo,
space shuttle kind of,
atmosphere anymore, there were still some pretty cool

(01:00:21):
projects that were going to be,
that were going to be happening. I mean,
we've sent, you know, rovers to Mars to,
gather some
material from the surface,
and now they're just not gonna bring it
back.
There's the New Horizons mission,
which was to explore the outer

(01:00:42):
solar system after the craft
went by Pluto,
in 2015,
and,
another probe that's gonna be orbiting,
that there that's been orbiting Jupiter
for the last ten years, and all this
is gonna be cut.
And,
again, the the the big loser is the

(01:01:03):
NASA science program. Now and I understand
when people look at the
cost of, say, the shuttle. I forgot what
it what it, what it cost to send
up one shuttle mission, but it was in
the, you know, billion dollar plus,
for each flight.
And,

(01:01:23):
so okay. You're right. I mean, maybe
NASA has not been
the,
the best steward of,
some of the tax dollars that they were
allocated, but,
we don't have a whole lot of
good things to say here about this.
And the, the spokesman, the planetary society,

(01:01:44):
which
is a
large organizations
of people focused on the science projects,
said that the projects would require billions
in new spending
if after they're canceled,
they ever decide to bring them back.
And,
the,
the one good news, piece is that the

(01:02:06):
the Nancy Grace Roman Space
Telescope, which was
headed for,
for space
soon,
is not going to be cut. So they're
going to keep that going.
But, of course, as you mentioned,
the big news is that,
NASA's gonna lose a few people.
They expect the

(01:02:26):
population of NASA to drop from 17,000,
almost 400,
down to, just under
12,000.
And, so that's a pretty sizable cut,
for the people.
32%,
the, planetary society is is quoting.
And it's

(01:02:47):
the the they just call it a a
gutting of NASA.
And,
you know, maybe there was a better way
to do this.
We don't know because, obviously,
nobody is privy to the
discussions.
And,
I think what what is,
really concerning to me is that

(01:03:08):
not every piece of
space exploration
has been cut because,
there is a program called the
commercial moon to Mars,
m to m,
infrastructure and transportation
program that the White House has proposed,
and they're going to get $864,000,000

(01:03:29):
in this next budget.
So they're taking it away from NASA
and, and they're giving it to a,
again, I don't know who this
private concern is that's putting it together,
but it's it's kinda sad that we don't
have any idea at all what's going on.
And,
I I think that the,

(01:03:50):
as the planetary
society said,
but it's only if this budget passes.
And there are provisions in this budget that's
now in the hands of the senate that
are gonna probably make it very interesting,
as to whether it,
actually comes together because the the Republicans only
have a three vote

(01:04:11):
majority in the Senate.
And so if
four Republicans vote against it, this budget's going
nowhere.
And again, we're we're just talking about one
small aspect of the,
of the budget that's going to be,
affecting NASA. But what I do think is
also interesting,

(01:04:31):
and it's not part of this particular story,
is that just yesterday,
president Trump,
decided to,
pull NASA's
administrator nominee,
from the, from the pro from the program.
He was
surprisingly,
suggested by Elon Musk, which we all would
have thought a month or two ago would

(01:04:53):
have been a shoo in. And as it
turns out,
the president is saying,
not this time.
So it's gonna be real interesting here, among
all the other projects
to see what happens to NASA.
Alright. Another,
oh, this is an interesting story. This,
this comes from an ABC affiliate in, I

(01:05:14):
guess, in Chicago.
United plane makes a wrong turn nearly colliding
with another flight midair.
This is concerning
San Francisco International Airport,
which has,
parallel runways,
which many other airports do,
I guess.
San Francisco SFO was the first

(01:05:35):
major parallel
runway airport I flew into, and I this
was a long, long time ago, and I
didn't know that there were parallel runways.
And I'm looking out the window,
and I'm seeing us being
shadowed by another airplane.
And I'm freaking out because I'm imagining that
these two planes are gonna try to land

(01:05:56):
on the same runway because they're both obviously
coming in for a landing. But, of course,
I learned that that that wasn't a problem.
But,
Rob, we did have a
a little bit of a problem.
I guess this was last month at SFO.
Yeah. More than a little.
There were two aircraft
departing at the same time off the parallels,

(01:06:17):
and
the
traffic off the left runway
was,
instructed
to,
to basically proceed straight out, and the traffic
off the right runway
was given a right turnout
to the, which would then be to the
north
off SFO.
And,
for some reason,

(01:06:39):
the United crew
turned left instead of right,
and they turned into the path
of this regional jet that had departed the
left runway.
Luckily,
the crew of the regional jet,
was paying attention,
which is pretty hard not to do when
you're let's say you're sitting in the right

(01:07:00):
seat and you watch this guy,
out of the right window and you go,
man, he's
he's pretty close because these are not,
parallels that are terribly,
far apart.
And and then you look and you say,
I think that guy's turning into us. And
so the the RJ crew was able to,
to maneuver around

(01:07:20):
the, the seven thirty seven, and they said
something to the tower like, oh, we're we're
just maneuvering around this traffic out here, tower.
And,
then then the controllers,
got into it and basically said, you know,
what the fuck are you doing?
To the guy off the right runway. And,
I didn't hear the end of it, but,

(01:07:41):
I'm sure that,
that Max, don't you think that would count
as a, a pilot deviation?
Oh, yeah. For sure. Yeah. Not only do
they have parallel runways, they're parallel intersecting,
and they intersect right in the middle, kind
of like, across.
And so I got to spend some time
up in the tower one day. And what
they do, as it explained to me, is

(01:08:03):
they put people landing on the two eights
left and right,
as close to each other as they can
because they'd like those two aircraft to land
at about the same time.
And then once both those two aircraft clear
the intersection,
then they clear the, the two aircraft from
runaways, one in left one left and one
right to take off.

(01:08:23):
And the instructions standard instructions are the aircraft,
taking off from one left is supposed to
turn 10 degrees left. The one from the
right turns 10 degrees right, and that's pretty
standard. It kinda makes sense,
but obviously, in this particular case,
the United aircraft got it wrong, and this
story says they came within about 2,000 feet

(01:08:44):
laterally, which is not very much, and 275
feet vertically.
So, yeah, a little bit of a close
call. Alright. And I guess the the FAA
is investigating this,
currently, so we'll we'll watch for the outcome
of that.
Alright. One last news story.
I read the headline. I thought, what is

(01:09:05):
this from? The Onion or
or something like that? But,
Micah, this is not a joke.
This is one of the saddest and funniest
stories I have read in a long time.
State representative,
Kimberly Landry Coates, who was a Republican from
Ponchatoula,
Louisiana,
defended state bill 46

(01:09:26):
on the house floor. The bill is to
prevent any chemicals above us in the air
specifically to modify the weather. The she's trying
to prevent when she's called them chemtrails.
Not contrails.
Not contrails.
Chemtrails.
And it's this crazy conspiracy theory, and she
was questioned on the house floor by by

(01:09:47):
other state reps asked about these chemicals and
what nanoparticles are there. She said, oh, there's
aluminum and there's barium, and there's a few
with some long words that I can't pronounce.
And she claimed that the national that that
NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is
sending chemicals into the clouds to cool the
sun, let's cool things down and cool the

(01:10:08):
Earth's surface and prevent sunlight from striking. And
it goes on and on and on. And
it just gets funnier and funnier as you
read it. And, again, it's this
this silly
anti science,
ridiculousness that is taking place
throughout the land.
It is kind of it is kinda nuts.
We'll put a link to the the actual,

(01:10:30):
text of the bill, at least as, as
it stands right now.
I'll put the link in the show notes.
It's very it's very short. Yeah. But what's
what's interesting about it too is that I
don't believe the states have any control over
the airspace Well, that's yeah. Over the land.
You know? The the states can't do anything
about that. That's federal documentation federal regulation. Yeah.
Yeah. It didn't seem like they, they have

(01:10:51):
jurisdiction.
The bill as written does make some exclusions.
It includes some exclusions
for,
for fire suppression
and for agricultural
or forestry
applications
under thousand feet.
Also, presently, the bill doesn't,
have any penalties for violation.

(01:11:12):
It does require the
establishment
of a reporting feature so that
concerned citizens and
those who like conspiracy
theories
can submit
their their claims that this is taking place.
And I think the way that's being justified
now is that they they don't wanna put

(01:11:34):
any penalties into law yet. They they really
wanna just collect data first,
you know, before they take that kind of
next step,
which is
extremely ironic because that's sort of a, you
know, a scientific approach to something that's incredibly
unscientific
to begin with. Yeah. And I wanna sponsor
a bill, by the way, the state of

(01:11:55):
Maine to prevent, witches on brooms from flying
over the state. I think that that that
should be outlawed as well. Of course.
What's up with the geeks?
This is a programming note or technical note.
Maybe it's a technical note.
So we've migrated

(01:12:16):
our media hosting.
We had been on Libsyn, but we're on
Blueberry now. What that means is that's where
the m p threes are when you listen
to this podcast. And when you go to
our website, if you click on the, podcast
player, that's that's where they come from if
you listen on on the website. So the
the new player has a lot of a

(01:12:37):
lot of additional features that weren't there in
the past, but
there is some kind of a
a bug with a download button that's built
into the player.
It works on some browsers, but not on
others. So in the meantime, before before that
gets figured out by the
technical support crew, we've reinstated a separate download

(01:12:59):
link underneath the player in the website.
And Robert pointed the problem out to us,
so we we thank him for that.
But if you,
any anything else that's seemingly odd, well,
besides the host, that you've
been encountering lately, let us know. Let's see

(01:13:20):
if it's
associated with this change, but it it
we should be good to go other than
that one problem.
And let's see. Max Trescott,
the, the podcast network is,
is is growing, I guess.
Yeah. It is it is indeed. I mentioned,
last week that we had, two new shows,

(01:13:41):
and there's another one which we have just
brought into the fold. One that I've been
working on for,
oh, probably a year, and that is the
Rotary Wing Show, which is a helicopter
podcast that's been around for over ten years,
and that went on hiatus for about a
a little over a year. It's out of,
Australia,
and I used to listen to it when

(01:14:01):
I was driving to, the thirty minutes or
so to, take my helicopter lessons, and I
really liked it a lot. It was the
the best of the helicopter shows.
And so the host, Mick Cullen, has decided
to go ahead and, pass the baton. So
we've done a transition episode that I'll post
here,
sometime in the next few days, and then
I've already got some other episodes

(01:14:23):
ready to go for it. So we now
have a helicopter
podcast as part of the fold, and we
finally have a network name. Spent a lot
of back and forth, a lot of time
trying to figure out exactly what the name
of the network was going to be, but
it is the Aviation New Stock Network. So
that's gonna be the umbrella for what our
four different shows that we, currently have in

(01:14:44):
the network.
Well, this is pretty cool. I was wondering
what you were gonna call the network, give
it a name for the, you know, the
entire collection. So
that's great. So is there a
web address yet for for the network?
There is a site, but I have not
associated the name with it. But it soon,
you will be able to reach it through

(01:15:04):
aviationnewstalknetwork.com.
Okay. And from there, you'd be able to
go
to each of
the component
podcasts.
Exactly. Each of the different shows under the
umbrella. Yeah. Terrific.
I love it. I love it a lot.
Been fun putting it together. Yeah. Oh, it's
been it's probably been a it's kind of
a trivial task.
Yes.
I've only took an hour or so. Yeah.

(01:15:25):
Right. Right. Right.
Months and months and months. Yes. Lots of
work. That's great.
Alright, Rob. How about you? Anything,
anything newsworthy
from
your little, corner of the globe?
You're muted, Rob. Saying anything good because I'm
muted. So now that I'm not muted, now
I'm gonna repeat all of the brilliant things

(01:15:48):
I just said. Can can you do it
twice? That's good. Sure. Oh, absolutely.
Because I am, of course, brilliant. I mean,
I can't spell it, but I can I
can do it?
Anyway, so, had a had a good,
time, on,
last week on Friday. I met a listener,
who, happens to be, Rob Miller over at

(01:16:10):
Pawelawky,
or Chicago Executive as you may call it.
And, he runs,
the pilot proficiency company,
that has a,
it has a Frasca
simulator that, people can use
to get out there and and, learn how
to fly a little bit better in instrument
conditions.

(01:16:31):
And,
so I was inquiring about it
and,
he asked me,
oh, I said something like, well, you know,
I'm an instructor. And he said, oh yeah,
I know. And
I thought,
how do you how do you know that?
I I just met you
five minutes
ago. He said, well, I I listened to

(01:16:51):
the show. I said, you what?
Airplane Geeks. He's, I've been listening to it
for years. He said, I recognized your voice
as soon as you you you and I
were on the phone. And I thought,
oh,
and how long have you been listening? And
he said, I don't know.
Years or something. And I said, oh my

(01:17:13):
god. I'm sorry. We we have an antidote
for that. We're we'll we'll send you, something.
You pop it into your coffee in the
morning, and and you'll be completely cured,
of airplane geeks. No. Actually but it was
really nice to,
to meet somebody that was a listener. And,
of course, he also
listens to,

(01:17:33):
Max on the
Aviation
News Talk,
network.
And, it was it was just nice to
hear
a a local person that's actually
a fan. And,
so,
so, again, hi to Rob Miller out there
at,
Pawaukee, and, go find him in the 1098
Building. If you're around Pawaukee, you know where

(01:17:54):
that is, and that's where pilot
proficiency hides out. Terrific.
Micah, what are some of the,
highlights of, your It's been a busy two
weeks. And, first of all, you may remember
two weeks ago that I was talking about
some friends that got stuck with a
canceled flight with Breeze Airlines. And I just
want to say that Breeze Airways

(01:18:16):
came through beautifully. They took care of them
perfectly,
took care of their hotels and incidentals,
got them on another flight, ended up it
was a different aircraft based on maintenance, refunded
them. My friends flew on the different aircraft,
had a wonderful time. So the service was
fabulous and just want to give Breeze the
bonus points that they deserve. Because while any
airline can have a problem, not every airline

(01:18:38):
solves it with grace and beauty like Breeze
did. So need to shout out to them
and thank them for everything. Yeah. But then
more things happened.
Steven Ivy, who has been a hasn't been
a guest on the show, but I think
we may have an interview with him or
so he flies for a fractional ownership company.
And he just moved up from the the
Embraer Phenom to the chat global five three
hundred challenge global three hundred.

(01:18:59):
He showed up on Saturday, out of the
blue, thought he was just gonna be here
for lunch was for a couple hours, ended
up spending a night, we went out for
lunch, we went out for dinner. And then
he had a deadhead flight to Norfolk.
And he said, you wanna come along? And
I said, yes. Let me call my brother.
He lives in Richmond. He'll come right down
and pick me up. I'll you'll drop me
off there. We'll have lunch. Well, with my

(01:19:20):
brother, we'll go to some museums, and I'll
fly back on Breeze at night because Breeze
just started seasonal service nonstop from Norfolk to
Portland for this season yesterday.
I had it all set up. I called
my brother, didn't make the reservation on Breeze
yet, called my brother, and my brother turned
into my grandfather.
And my brother said,
it's gonna be Sunday night coming back from

(01:19:41):
Norfolk through the tunnel with all the beach
traffic. I'm gonna be stuck in a tunnel
for an hour and a half. I'm not
coming down to get you. No. Absa
Ah. So I didn't go. It was just
it was so upsetting and missed opportunity.
Can't fault my brother. He's been so good
to me helping me with with my surgeries
and stuff, but I just couldn't believe it.
All of a sudden, he was Grandpa Sam

(01:20:02):
saying, grandma, we got to get going. We're
going to hit all the traffic. Yeah. So
and then,
this week, journey is reward episode one zero
seven was released, and, we talked about Brian's
stealth trip to New Jersey to celebrate mother's
day and his mama Coleman's ninetieth birthday.
And, chef Cathy and mama Coleman both make
an appearance on the show, and he had

(01:20:24):
a lot of fun. Yeah. Great. I I
like the, imitation of your brother.
Make sure that he hears that. Yeah. That's
pretty good. I'm sure he'll listen. We'll decide,
though.
So Sperwink Farm, the pancake breakfast and fly
in is,
well, is is coming up quickly.
July 13 this year, they wanted to take

(01:20:45):
normally, it's a Sunday after the July 4,
but being that's only two days away, they
wanted to give it another week. And,
so, yep, July 13, they wanted to give
it that extra week and, gonna be a
lot of fun. Great airplanes, great people. You've
heard us talk about it for years. And,
Max, I think you and Linda ought to
plan on coming up here. We'll get you
your usual parking place. We will try to
make it. Yeah. So if, if you haven't

(01:21:07):
heard us talk about it, this is a
great,
a great event. It's short. It's just part
of one day. Up in Maine, beautiful location.
Lot of folks fly in. All different kinds
of aircraft.
Quite a number of, Airplane Geeks listeners are,
usually in attendance or have flown in themselves.

(01:21:28):
And, of course, you can't beat the the
blueberry pancakes and maple syrup that you that
you can have for breakfast. It's all sponsored
by EAA chapter one forty one. It's a
big annual fundraiser. It's a terrific event. And
and and Max t, I'm pretty sure you
could get your Cirrus in. I don't know
if you'd get it out again, but I'm
pretty sure you could get the Vision Jet
into that field. It wouldn't be mine, but,

(01:21:51):
I'm always happy to fly with other people.
So the next item in the, show plan
here, I'm glad you put it in. I'm
not sure who Micah, did you put this
in? I was watching,
YouTube videos
maybe it was even this morning or at
least maybe yesterday. I'm not sure.
And
there was one that was great, and it

(01:22:12):
was all about air traffic control.
John Oliver from last week tonight on HBO
or HBO Max,
did a whole show about ATC
and all the issues going on. And he
does it with this humor that David described
when he attended the show
a couple of weeks ago. And but he
covered this just beautifully,

(01:22:34):
and then came up with a beautiful hysterical
advertisement
on why you should be an air traffic
controller. And it's just
absolutely amazing. And if you haven't seen it,
you gotta find it on YouTube or watch
the whole show on HBO because he does
cover it from a news perspective very, very
well, explaining all the issues that we talked
about for hours and hours and hours, but

(01:22:55):
he does it in twenty minutes and does
it perfectly. With a lot more humor.
Absolutely don't miss it. It's very good. And,
as I mentioned to Linda, it's like, I
think John Oliver's been listening to our podcast
for the last three or four or five
months because all the stuff that we've talked
about, all the stuff that Rob has all,
you know, the points that he's made,

(01:23:16):
they're they're right in there. So, yeah, it's
worth listening to for sure.
Alright. Some listener mail.
Let's see. We heard from, Dustin. He sent
us some feedback. It was, it was all
critical feed, feedback, but but heartfelt.
But he's, he's also become a supporter of
this podcast with a monthly recurring donation, which

(01:23:37):
we greatly appreciate. If you'd like to to
do the same, just go to airplanegeeks.com,
our our home page, and there's a button
or a link you can click up at
the top to make,
to make donations.
But
most importantly, he tells us that Angelo State
University, which is a public university

(01:23:57):
in,
San Angelo, Texas,
has launched a flight school
and an aviation
bachelor's program.
This is a,
commercial aviation undergraduate
degree, a bachelor of commercial
aviation.
As Dustin said, he's, they've grown this program

(01:24:18):
just really quickly in a few in a
few years, and we'll have a link to
that program in the
in the show notes. But the degree tracks
include
flight operations, fixed wing, flight operations, helicopter,
aviation
administration,
and air traffic operations.
Their partner,

(01:24:38):
is,
ASU
well, ASU's partner rather is Skyline Aviation.
That's the part one forty one flight school,
that's associated with, this university program. And they've
got the the aircraft, the simulators, instructional equipment.
Thanks to Dustin for passing that along.
Also, wanted to mention, we heard from Steve,

(01:25:01):
and he's working on a very interesting project.
He he says this is a comprehensive
aviation
mechanic
education site,
and it's at aviationmechanicschool.org.
And then we'll have that link in the
show notes as well.
And, this is an interesting project that I
think, has a lot of lot of possibilities

(01:25:23):
here, but it currently shows,
maintenance schools, aviation
maintenance schools
in Arizona, California, Florida,
Georgia, and Texas.
And then for each of the schools within
those states, it it shows where where they
are, their location, what the tuition is like,
the length of the program,

(01:25:45):
some of the features that,
that they offer, and, of course, the the
websites.
And then he also has a
a page, things to consider when choosing a
school, that offers some some interesting tips. So
if you wanna explore possibilities
with, regards to being an aviation mechanic,

(01:26:05):
be sure to check this out. It's aviationmechanicschool.org.
And
Patrick Wiggins sent us an email. I wish
David was here. He said This is so
cool. It is cool. He says, oh, to
see these birds fly again.
He says, silly maybe, but I really miss

(01:26:26):
them. So there's an article. It's an interesting
engineering
dot com.
Cold War era
fighter jets f four Phantoms could launch satellites
for US firm.
Say what?
F four Phantoms launching satellites. Well, there's a
company. It's called Starfighters
International

(01:26:47):
because they have f one zero four Starfighters.
And they use them for suborbital
payload launches.
And
I think what they do is is they
strap the payload to the thing,
shoot the, Starliner up there at a high
altitude,
and then
launch the the payload from there.

(01:27:08):
Well,
the Starfighter is great at high speed
stratospheric climbs,
but, the article says it has limitations.
And for larger payloads,
that are gonna take some significant thrust on
their way to low earth orbit,
the f four Phantom
might be an effective answer. So this company,

(01:27:31):
Starfighters International, plans to acquire
some,
some f four Phantoms
to carry the Star Launch two rocket, and
that rocket,
again, is intended to, provide
low Earth orbit access
and handle the heavy heavier payloads than what

(01:27:51):
the f one zero four based system can
currently manage.
So that's pretty interesting using old fighters to
launch,
launch satellites.
Yeah. Speaking of old, I mean, it is
kind of ironic, I think. We've got new
technology being launched by ancient technology. The f
four was, first flight was in the nineteen
fifties, '19 '50 '8, '60 '7 years ago,

(01:28:14):
and it was last built in 1981.
So what? Forty four years ago. I just
find that really fascinating.
And the f one zero four is even
older. It's a Kelly Johnson design, the missile
with the man in it. This is what
Chuck Yeager flew when he crashed down injured
terribly.
And just an amazing aircraft,

(01:28:34):
and a beautiful with those short stubby wings
and very dangerous, not very easily controlled, but
another gorgeous airplane for part of the Century
Series. And those are those are two of
my favorites. And they say the f four
was designed they they describe it as if
you put a big enough engine on a
brick, you can make anything fly because it's
got two huge powerful.

(01:28:55):
One final note, and this came from Mark.
He tells us that the Pacific Air Show
twenty twenty five in Australia
has been canceled.
So they had a tropical cyclone, Alfred,
and
it apparently, it washed a lot of the
beach away.
And
they've been trying to recover this and, perform

(01:29:16):
some remediation,
but, there's no way that that can be
completed by mid August,
when the air show is,
was scheduled. So they've had no alternative
but to cancel the air show on the
Gold Coast
for 2025,
but, look for it to return
in 2026.

(01:29:36):
Brian said he's really, really glad he went
last year,
because, obviously, he would have missed it this
year. But Steven Krant must be heartbroken because
that's one of their major events. Yes. Yes.
It's real sad. But, if the beach gets
eroded away, you can't really have
an event on the beach, I guess.
Alright. Well, thanks for listening to the Airplane

(01:29:57):
Geeks podcast.
You can find us as always at airplanegeeks.com.
We have a shortcut link right to the
episode post. Lots of links, videos, all kinds
of things in there. This is episode eight
fifty. So the shortcuts airplane geeks dot com
slash eight five zero.
Email address is thegeeks@airplanegeeks.com.

(01:30:19):
Alright, Micah. If folks wanna reach out
and contact you, how do they do that?
Well, you can find me on x Twitter
and Blue Sky as a main fly, and,
of course, you can always find me with
our good friend, Pasadena Brian Coleman, on the
Journey is Reward podcast.
And, Rob, Mark, how about you? Where do
people find the stuff that you do?
Well, I think they could find it on,

(01:30:40):
Twitter.
They could find it on Blue Sky.
They'll find me, at JetWine.com,
in the pages of certain magazines around the
country, and also
on the new NTSB
News Talk Show
with my buddy, Max Triscott.
Yeah. But he says I can only stay
if I'm good.

(01:31:03):
I don't I don't know if he means
content wise or if I just if I
behave. If you behave. Yeah. It it it
could be both. Hey. You wouldn't be so
good if you weren't so bad. Yeah.
And how about you, Max, or Scott?
The usual place. Folks can head out to
aviationnewstalk.com
and click on contact at the top of
the page.
And you can find me on Blue Sky.

(01:31:25):
Just look for Airplane Geeks on Blue Sky
or on my website, 30000feet.com,
all one word.
So please join us again next week as
we talk aviation on the Airplane Geeks podcast.
Bye, everybody.
Keep the blue side up.
Nighty night.

(01:31:45):
See you real soon. And from David, thanks
for listening.

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