The 2017 Geezer TARC season begins...

The 2016 TARC Nationals were held yesterday up in Virginia, with two Alabama teams placing in the top 20. Russellville took the #9 spot, and Lincoln High School came in at #16 - a big congrats to them both! Alabama is becoming a regular at placing in the top ten, which is something I definitely like seeing.

The rules for the 2017 TARC season were also announced last evening, and I must confess to being a little psychic here. I told Duane that it would be nice if 2017 TARC forced the use of two different diameter body tubes, and sure enough, that's what happened. For a lot of the teams this will totally preclude the use of last year's design, which is very good - nice to have a little variety! Anyway, here is a short summary of the 2017 rules:

• The altitude goal is 775 feet, and the payload section must be down in 41-43 seconds.
• The rocket must be greater than 25.6 inches long, and must consist of two sections of at least 5.9" in exposed length. The lower section containing the motor must not be greater than 1.65" in diameter (Estes BT-60 tube).
• The payload section shall carry one large hen's egg (55-61 grams weight) and must recover by parachute separate from the rest of the model (which can use any type of recovery device). The rocket can contain only ONE altimeter - Perfectflite APRA, PNUT, or Firefly - which must be located in the payload section.
• The rocket must be painted and/or covered with adhesive wraps.
• 80 newton seconds or less total motor impulse (F class or lower).

The release of the 2017 rules officially kicks off the Geezer TARC competition, and I know Duane is already hard at work on a design using Open Rocket. Not to be outdone, I too got to work, and have an initial design completed. Payload section is minimum diameter (ST-18 tube) and the sustainer uses a BT-60; if all goes well, I should be able to achieve altitude with room to spare on a cluster of 3 C6-5 motors. Ladies and gentlemen, meet Agamemnon:

Agamemnon - My initial 2017 Geezer TARC design (Click to enlarge).

So what will be challenging in this year's competition? I think it will be a) getting both recovery devices to deploy successfully and b) choosing a motor that will not overshoot the altitude - the F's that most teams used last year have waaaay too much oomph.

Time to starting gathering some parts...