Quote:
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Originally Posted by Carl@Semroc
As you join the team, add a brief resume to this thread so the other members know a little more about you. You might include such things as:
1. Real Name and City/State.
2. Local flying club.
3. Year started flying.
4. What you hope to gain from this experiment.
5. What you want the team to accomplish.
6. Your primary interest area (engines, rocket design, support, building, etc.)
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I accepted Carl's kind invitation to join the SVDT back at the beginning of January, but didn't find this forum until yesterday.
1. Mark Kulka, Tupper Lake, NY. Have lived in NY most of my life, but still have a sentimental connection to my native Michigan (which is, incidentally, where I began flying rockets). I have the decidedly non-technical, engineering-free profession of social worker (go figure).
2. NAR #86134 (oh yeah, I'm a 53 year old kid). My club is ASTRE #471, but because of the distance and travel time to and from the Albany area, I do most of my flying locally and solo. The last time I checked, I was the only rocketeer/NAR member in the 6 million acre Adirondack Park.
3. I discovered "model rocketry" while watching a "Sky King" rerun in the early '60's, but didn't find out that it was an actual hobby until 1967, when I wrote a letter to Vern Estes after seeing an Estes ad in a magazine. I fell for the hobby hard, and flew rockets from 1967 to 1971. I put it all on the back burner when I went away to college, but always intended to get back into it; I finally did so, after 32 years, in 2003-04. I still have all the same passion and excitement for the hobby now that I did back in 1967. I finally, finally joined NAR this year, hence my high number.
4. The experience of being part of something big, of being a contributor to a big project. Getting ever more deeply involved in the hobby and helping to insure its future. Rubbing elbows with and learning from some of the most creative and accomplished people in the hobby. Being on the inside and helping to create breakthrough products for a breakthrough company.
5. Keep the dream alive, so to speak, and insure its survival well into the future. Usher in the next golden age of rocketry (which may have already started). Insure that rocketry remains something that can spark the imagination and inspire kids to reach higher and achieve more than they ever thought they could, like it did for me.
6. I may have lofty ideals, but many of my interests are in down to earth, practical matters. They include prototyping designs and verifying that they are "buildable," verifying simulations with real-world testing in the field, and insuring that instructions and printed materials are clear, logical, concise, complete, educational and appropriate to the skill level (without patronizing or "dumbing down"). I also enjoy investigating new design concepts via some balsa, some paper, and a reaction motor. My personal design tastes mostly favor rockets that display clean, classic lines ("thoroughbreds," if you will; examples are the Lune-R1 and the Aero-Dart), but I can also appreciate more ambitious and visionary designs (and may come up with a few unusual or crackpot ideas of my own from time to time).
I have always been, and I remain keenly interested in all forms of atmospheric flight, but most of all with rocket flight. For me, it symbolizes the qualities of "purity" and "truth," for reasons that I don't fully understand.
Mark Kulka