Ye Olde Rocket Forum - View Single Post - Countdown checklist "apps?"

I’ve been lurking for a while and maybe this isn’t the best place for a first post, but I do have a suggestion, a database. Since I couldn’t find an app like that, I decided I would try to create something workable for myself. I figured a database would be the way to go and started looking at different versions of databases out there and decided to give Google Docs a try since it’s, well, free. And it had the added bonus of being web based which means I can use it on my Droid, whereas I couldn’t (as least as far as I could figure out) use MS Access on there.

I created a form in Google Docs that has all of the information I need in it to prep my rockets put together in a flight log kind of format. Some fields are fill in the blank, most are drop down or multiple choice, and many of them I have set to require an input before moving to the next page. My checklist is pretty small, as I mostly fly LPR and have just started in on MPR a bit, but I have each rocket in my fleet listed with recommended motors, recommended parachute/streamer size, etc. I also have other misc. sections to fill out such as weather, launch location, flight info, deployment (early, late, good, etc.), recovery (lost, damaged, etc.), altitude, and a section for notes. Some fields mirror flight cards you fill out at a club launches, and other fields mirror those in common flight logs.

The form is web based and I open it on my Droid to fill out when prepping a rocket for launch. I have it set up in 3 pages, the first being fields with all pre-launch items I fill out as I prep the rocket, the second regarding the flight of the rocket I fill out while making that recovery walk, and the third with information on recovery after I inspect it. When the form is complete it sends it to my Google Docs account and I can then look at a report of all of my launches. So I can see that while the kit’s recommendation is a C6-5, deployment appears to be late regularly so in the future I might use a C6-3 with that rocket. Or if I consistently break a fin, I might decide to go with a slightly larger chute.

My particular form is pretty simplified just helping me keep straight what motors and parachutes to use along with a couple of other things, and would not be of any use to anyone needing a more comprehensive checklist for setting up dual deploy or anything like that. But I have little experience in working with a database and only spent about an hour putting it together, so I’m sure just about anyone could put together a really nice checklist using this and get pretty close to what they need. And I’m sure other database programs would work just as well, if not better.