Hi LakeMac26C!
Boy that there takes me back to my long ago childhood (not that far away if you ask my Admiral
)…..
Nice that you pointed out that there is an angular aspect to be addressed before being able to actually utilize the laser range return distance given by the device (unless one is measuring from the ground surface directly below whatever it is you’re wanting to know the distance to.
As kids, my friends and I launched many model rockets in the fields behind our houses. We initially wanted to know that our rockets were flying below 1500 feet above ground level as a self important Luddite neighbor (who was also a RWNC but that is a crowd that I still can’t figure out
). The RWNC reported us to the local Police who came over and said we were doing something illegal without any actual knowledge of just what the illegality was. Fortunately my Dad had previously had me research and document what the actual relevant laws and requirements actually were.
This involved going to a couple of the local lawyers in town who thought it was a hoot that kids were checking out the law first before doing something
) Model rocketry is not fireworks and as long as planned altitudes of operation were maintained below 1500 AGL (above ground level) then no notification to the FAA was required and that launch operations were not under a designated airport operations area. So there was a fair bit of bicycling around to the lawyers (who were great!) as well as over to the nearest operational airport to talk with the FAA control Tower and the FAA Flight Service Station Managers (who were cool!). We even call the relevant town, county and state offices. The actual staff were good at helping find the local requirements that differentiated between fireworks and model rocketry. My Dad had me make a small binder with all the relevant information and reference documentation along with contacts and phone numbers.
When the RWNC saw the local Cop out talking with us he “triumphantly” strode out to tell us we were a “menace” and should be “locked-up” to “teach us a lesson”. The Cop, who at that point was sorta impressed by our preparations and operations and documentation, turned to the RWNC and told him in no uncertain terms that we were well within our rights to do what we were doing and to never dare bother us again. The now deflated RWNC waddled away with his ego deflated.
To make sure we stayed within the requirements we decided to actually log and record our launches including how high the rockets flew.
As we got better and more proficient we started to get close to that 1500 foot AGL limit. The FAA people anticipated we might so told us to give them a call to coordinate with them. This worked really well. We’d call them a day in advance asking if it would be possible. They’d give us an appropriate tentative 2 hour time window that we’d then call them back to finalize on launch day. When we were finished we’d call them to confirm we had completed our launch operations. They must have had a good chuckle or ten over us but they were also genuinely interested as were the local Cops would occasionally come over to watch and encourage us they also had some stern words with the RWNC when they found out he’d attempted to harass us
).
To document our flights we figured out how to measure our flight altitudes.
We used a pair of ‘sighting’ tripods a set distance away from each other with a pair of protractors on each tripod.
One for the horizontal swing angles and one for the vertical sweep angles mounted with sighting tubes. In Grammar school we would track and record our experimental model rocket flights. Yes, track. We figured out how to set up a rudimentary paper chart recorder for each sighting tripod. We could reasonably calculate our flight path arcs for three dimensions. This was before we were even in the 8th grade… it wasn’t we were particularly bright, it was mainly just being curious and not thinking it wasn’t something we couldn’t do. Reality was it was actually pretty simple then and now. It just took the application of some basic maths and some graph paper. We were after facts, not conjecture or opinion.
We had a fantastic time at this. It opened up a new way of thinking for us as kids which I know helped me as I got older.
Open research, discussions with relevant accredited subject professionals, more research, accurate documentation, pre-emotive regulatory compliance are just some of the skills and concepts that have helped me numerous time over the ensuing decades and in my career.
Actual facts matter more than biases, baseless conjecture and ad-lib BS fear-mongering by RWNCs.
I still have used the maths skills to get an accurate measure of the distances when out on the water.
It’s a little bit backwards from the rocket days as I’m generally at the ‘peak point’ out on the water.
I’ve used two known reference points with a known linear distance between them.
I then measure the angles from where I am on the water to each of those reference points.
The use of the calculator on my phone saves me from having to look up the trigonometry values now vs the tables I had as a kid.
Still fun to do!
Best Regards,
Over Easy