The FAA has renewed our Salome Airfield Waiver with an improvement. We now have the ability to schedule launches any day of the week. If you have a special need, please contact a member of the BoD at least 3 weeks in advance to coordinate a special activity.

Standing waiver is still 10K with call-in’s to 16K.

We’re still working on alternate sites closer to town. Our bid for two sites in Rainbow Valley and one near Maricopa were turned down due, in part, to increased Air Force activity, and a general realignment of commercial traffic. We’re still working on it, and have a direct line to a very helpful individual at the FAA now, so if you have coordinates, please don’t hesitate to share them and we can see what we can do.

The site near Maricopa was to have running water bathrooms and joint operations with SARA. We learned two main things from the members when we sent out the last survey: Closer Site and Better Bathrooms, so we are working on it!

Happy Flying

Chris Choffat

VP, SSS.

A New Board was elected at GHS. We welcome Joe Henkemeyer as our Member at Large. Former MaL Chad Ellis will be the Treasurer, Marc Casanova remains as the Secretary, former Treasurer Chris Choffat becomes the Vice President, and Guy Smith remains the President.

We had good feedback from the member survey sent out, and we hear you loud and clear, the sites are just too far for monthly day trips. Thank you all who responded.

We have some pretty exciting close-in sites on the list for review. We have been scouting sites nearly every weekend since the weather has cooled off.

We are hoping that as the club continues to grow, and with the potential newer, closer launch sites, (yes, plural) we hope attendance at launches increases.

In the interim, we will be reducing the amount of launches from Monthly to bi-monthly or even quarterly, as renting a $150 toilet for 1-2 flyers does not make financial sense.  As such, there will be NO December Launch this year. When attendance resumes, that will be reviewed.

SSS is now a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. Any donations to the club, be them cash or materials are tax deductible. If you wish to donate anything, please contact any member of the Board to arrange and we will provide the proper receipt.

Today, MARS announced that they have finally gotten their FAA waiver for the Red Dry Lake site. The waiver is for the second Saturday of the month and has an altitude of 5000ft AGL (7700ft MSL). It will be good for the rest of this year. MARS continues to look for alternate sites with higher waiver potential but they are back in operation. Congratulations guys! We look forward to attending your launches this summer when things heat up down here in Phoenix.

It was a small crowd (4 total) but clear skies and a very light breeze, and lots of fun. We had around a dozen flights, including the first flight under our call-in waiver to 16,000 ft. Geoffrey had the honor of making that flight. Joe had “closest to the launch pad” landing, and Marc had his first-ever case failure that resulted in the lowest-altitude flight of the day. Marc will post the statistics, sometime soon.

Superstition Spacemodeling Society has obtained renewed waivers for both the Hope Site and the Airfield Site. The Hope Site remains at 10,000ft MSL (8,400ft AGL). The Airfield Site has been expanded from 6400ft MSL (5000ft AGL) to 10,000ft MSL (8,600ft AGL) with call-ins for 16,000ft MSL (14,600ft AGL). The actual altitudes used by the club will be dictated by the wind conditions since I-10 is only 2 miles north of the Airfield Site.

The Airfield Site will be the location for this year’s GHS, the date will be October 16th thru 18th.

It has been a long struggle to get these sites approved by both BLM and the FAA but it has been well worth it! SSS continues to scout other locations in an effort to prevent the situation that occurred after the loss of the Rainbow Valley site. This has been mitigated considerably by having two viable sites in hand, each governed by a different BLM office.

We look forward to seeing you at our future events!

Superstition Spacemodeling Society
NAR Section 506

Folks, we’re heading into a really good flying season. With the BLM permit firmly in place for the Hope launch site in September, our ongoing launches and upcoming GHS at our Airstrip site in October, we are back on track to have regular scheduled HP launches at our sites.

A little History:

Since the unexpected loss of the Rainbow valley site to development by Both SSS and AHPRA, The SSS BoD has worked for nearly two years to find, secure, and develop TWO sites for HP Flying. Both of these sites are within 8 miles of each other, but in different BLM Jurisdictions, so we have full backup now if anything happens like what happened at Rainbow Valley and we lose a site due to ground related issues. We simply use the “Other” one.

The New Sites:

A lot of footwork has gone into searching, driving, visiting, and negotiating the use of these new sites. We now have two very good sites for the foreseeable future:

     Hope has a waiver of 10,000 MSL (8,400 AGL), a higher Standing Waiver than Rainbow valley, and

     The Airstrip with a 6,400 MSL (5,000 AGL) limit.

Both fully HP sites, we are poised to be in good shape for HP flying for the foreseeable future, FAA notwithstanding.

September Activities:

We will be camping at the Hope site this September and bringing the new trailer and a lot of items to sort, fix, clean, and renew. We need a few volunteers to help out with setting things up in the new trailer, and to help with our new equipment. The club has purchased new Indian Fire pumps, and the more people who are trained and familiar with these the better.

Going forward:

SSS is committed to serving our members and we have not stopped with just two sites. We are actively scouting other sites south and east of the metro area to further ensure we have alternates in the event that we lose another site.

If anyone wants to help out with the trailer upgrade activities, come out and join us friday, September, 11 and enjoy the weekend with us. We will be flying on both Saturday and Sunday.

If you haven’t been to the Hope site, you are in for a very nice weekend.

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has approved the Special Recreation Permit for the Hope launch site. This site is north of I-10 at the same exit as Airstrip site, but several miles to the north. Our FAA waiver for this site is 8,400 feet AGL, and the nearest structure or paved road is over 3 miles away.

Our first waivered launch at the Hope site will be Saturday and Sunday, September 12 and 13. Camping is permitted on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday Sept. 11, 12, and 13.

Details will follow.

All Hope Site operations are suspended until further notice.  The BLM cultural survey approval has been withdrawn.  This is incredibly disappointing to say the least.  The cultural survey requires a local indian tribe review which can take anywhere from 45 to 60 days.  If the approval is granted then we will continue the process for getting a permit for the site.  In the mean time, we are pursuing other options for a site that will allow us a higher waiver than the one we have at the Airfield Site.  Unfortunately, the MARS group has not had their waiver renewed either, so there is little chance of holding SpringBlast this year as well.  We still have our high power waiver and permits for the Airfield Site (5000ft AGL), come on out and fly a few!

Guy

The BLM Permit for the Airfield Site has been approved through September of this year.  We are starting the cycle for the application process for the next year.  The BLM Permit for the Hope Site is still in-work.  The BLM office that controls the Hope Site is issuing a provisional permit for the April weekend dates.  They will have a representative on site to verify that we work to the operations plan we filed and based on their observations they will then issue a permit for the year.  Let’s show them how it is done!

Guy