1. Some adjoining fields may be entirely off-limits. You may be arrested or fined for trespassing. Contact a METRA officer or BoD member if a rocket lands outside our perimeter. Typically, rockets are returned to the club by the landowner within a week.
2. The RSO or Prefect have final say on ALL flights. This is a Safety Code requirement. If it does not look safe, it will not fly, no arguments.
3. Your help is needed, so PLEASE sign up for range duty.
4. Alcoholic beverages may not be consumed at the field before or during a METRA launch.
5. You must remove your own refuse from the field. We don’t regularly provide trash containers or garbage bags. This is a zero tolerance field rule. If you don’t like garbage thrown on your lawn, don’t leave it on someone else’s.
6. Pay attention to the LCO and STAND when a HEADS UP flight is announced!
7. Spectators are to remain behind the indicated areas ONLY and NOT beyond the flight line.
8. Farm equipment and machinery are off-limits.
9. Children are not allowed to play near the river or in irrigation ditches. These areas are extremely dangerous.
10. Total impulse of all motors in a rocket allowed at range is 10,240N-s, equivalent to a full “M” motor, as long as the rocket stays below 4500′ AGL as stipulated by our FAA wavier.
11. All METRA launches operate under Tripoli research launch rules. Certified and uncertified commercial motors and experimental motors based on AP, AN, Sugar, or Hybrid technologies are all allowed.
12. No igniters are to be installed in high power rocket motors (H impulse and above) prior to passing an RSO inspection. Igniters in such motors shall be installed ONLY at the pad.
13. Only biodegradable wadding is allowed (eg/ dogbarf), please no Estes style “toilet paper” wadding, fiberglass, etc..
14. Do not recover any rocket that has landed in the launch area until the “all clear” has been given by the LCO.
15. Please keep any pets on the dirt roads and not on the sod, and clean up after them. This is a working farm and we must protect the farmers’ interests.
16.There is no barbecuing or other forms of cooking permitted.
17. No open fires of any kind for any reason ever.
18. NO RC’s permitted at the field. Our insurance only covers rocketry-related activities so anything other than that is not permitted. If you have an RC device in a rocket, please see a board member.
19. No gas-powered generators are permitted without board approval, because they burn the grass and impede the ability for others around to hear the LCO.
20. After the launch is complete and the field cleaned up, please leave the premises. The landowner permits us to fly rockets and that’s it.
21. Please set up camp 50′ from the entrance to the launch area. This area will be marked off by cone and is necessary to run safe launch operations.
22. We do not allow any dangerous payloads in rockets. This includes flares, smoke bombs/generators, explosives, or other combustibles, beyond that included with standard rocket motors in any flights. All payloads that are ejected from rockets must be able to recover safely. We require that you notify the RSO if there is anything unusual in your rocket before flight.
23. We will not make exceptions to these rules, so please do not ask.