LCO — Launch Control Officer
After Sunday's launch, I believe it's time, once again, to request that our members step up and be members by stepping up to be LCO for a part of our launches. LCO is not a difficult task, any/all of our members are capable of performing this task.
Why am I asking this? Because we are all members and we all love to launch rockets. It's difficult to launch rockets when your whole days is employed as LCO. On Sunday, Charlie took the helm for the better part of the day with a reprieve from Chris Oliver. Thank you Chris. I was proctoring an L2 exam and helping several newbies with their first foray into rocketry. I would have assume LCO too but I was unaware that Charlie was growing tired of the task.
LCO is not difficult! If you've flown a rocket at CENJARS and who reading this has not, you're quite aware of how it works. Rockets are placed on the pads which are numbered and a launch card is placed on the clipboard corresponding to the pad number. When it comes time to launch, the acting LCO takes and reads the card — flier's name, rocket's name, motor(s) and other comments that may be on the card. Then, the corresponding launch button is pressed after a countdown — 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. If the rocket launches, that launch card is then placed in the back of the blank launch cards in the gray metal box where you are all getting your launch cards! That's not too difficult a task, is it? It would, if you were to step up, allow some free time for everyone to launch, including the club officers.
If you perform LCO duty and one or more rockets misfire, place the corresponding launch card back on the clipboard. After all of the rockets have been launched, the flier(s) of the misfire(s) can check on their rocket and, hopefully, get it in the air next go-around.
Our next launch is the picnic launch. Everyone wants to fly, everyone wants to eat, and everyone wants to enjoy the day. If you contribute the time to launch even one round, you're helping all to better enjoy the day.
Thank you Brian for the LCO comments. While I do enjoy doing the LCO work, it was hot and was getting a little tired. I did get to fly a number of rockets, what I really missed was getting more pictures of the launches. It's kind of hard to hold a mike and a camera at the same time.
If anyone is interested in trying the LCO job, I am more than willing to help you. The only cost would be putting up with my bad puns. Then again, if I'm not the LCO, I won't be telling the bad puns. Another reason the help with LCO.