Data sheet / Tampere / est 2017
Nine launch days a year, and a card for every flight on all of them.
Flight cards, build notes and launch-day logs from a small model rocketry club in Pirkanmaa: fin alignment, recovery wadding, wind limits, altimeter readings and the range rules we fly under.
We fly commercial low-power motors only, from a farm field we borrow between harvest and ploughing. Nobody in this club makes or modifies motors, and the range procedure is written down so that nobody has to invent one on the day.
- 6 m/sWind limit, sustained at the pad
- 15 mMinimum pad distance, smallest motors
- 30 mMinimum pad distance, larger low-power
- 60 mStanding clearance to the treeline
Four cards off the 2026 binder
Every flight gets one of these before it goes on the pad, and the bottom half gets filled in once the range is called clear. Reference numbers run in sequence from the first flight of the season. Card 26-052 is the one that is still up a pine tree.
| Ref | Airframe | Mass | Motor | Delay | Apogee | Recovery | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 26-041 | Club trainer | 74 g | Mid class | 5 s | 158 m | Parachute, 30 cm | Clean |
| 26-047 | Two-stage test | 121 g | Mid class | 7 s | 142 m | Streamer | Late by about a second |
| 26-052 | Long tube | 96 g | Mid class | 5 s | 171 m | Parachute, 36 cm | Lost to the plantation |
| 26-058 | Small kit | 58 g | Low class | 3 s | 91 m | Streamer | Clean |
Written up after the day
Four longer entries, each one written by whoever ran the range that afternoon. Last revision 2 Sept 2026.
- 04
Altimeter readings, and the airframe we left in the plantation
What two seasons of barometric altimeter data told us about our own estimates, and the flight in May 2026 that ended eighteen metres up a pine tree.
- 03
Wind limits, range distances and how a launch day actually runs
The written procedure we use for a club launch day near Tampere: measured pad and spectator distances, a wind limit we do not argue with, and the log that comes off it.
- 02
Wadding, streamers and the deployments we kept getting wrong
Scorched parachutes, a nose cone that never came off, and the recovery checks we added to the flight card after a poor season in 2023.
- 01
Fin alignment, and the jig that ended the argument
Four seasons of rockets that flew crooked, the measurements we started taking, and the cardboard jig that made our launch angles repeatable.
Range code, short version
Four lines that decide how a day runs
We fly commercial low-power kit motors from a farm field north-west of Tampere between April and October, and we write down every flight, including the ones that ended in a tree, so the next season starts from numbers instead of from memory.
- Range procedure first, flight card second, rocket third.
- Over the wind limit means the pad stays closed. No exceptions for a good rocket.
- Every flight gets a card, especially the ones that fail.
- Nobody walks downrange until the range officer calls it clear.