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Jeffrey Gortatowsky's Page

Location: Redondo Beach, CA. USA

Certification Level: L2 NAR

Club Memberships: NAR, SCRA, ROC

Favorite Rockets: The Launch Pad Osiris

Biography:

I was a child of the 1960's and the dawning of the space-age. Aerospace and Astronomy were my passions then and still are to this day. Back then Model Rocketry was cool. Even science was cool. In the mid-70's I joined the Air Force and my rocketry went dormant for a while.

Fast forward to 1996. I moved to southern California (from Rochester NY) and I became a B.A.R. I was very active in ROC (NAR #538) from 1998 to 2002. In 2003/4 things changed professionally and again my rocketry went into storage. In 2010 things changed again, and rocketry came out of storage. So maybe I am a Born Again and Again Rocketeer. :)

I live in Southern CA with my wife and 6 wonderful kitties. I am a software architect specializing in Java and open source based web scale architectures.

Other activities I enjoy are Wooden R/C Gliders, Astronomy, live theater, fine dining, cocktails, and wine tasting.

I am a scientific skeptic believing in the scientific method and in critical thinking. I am a PROUD atheist. Believing in a god makes absolutely no sense. It's a relic from a long ago time and IMO is intellectually rediculous. I can not understand anyone who thinks the idea of god is different from Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny. I have been  sadden and angered as the dawning of the 70's , accelerating into the 80's, and dominating in the 90's people started rejecting science and critical thinking. Instead they want to believe in post-modernist fairytales and self-help reality.

 

Religion and post modernist views have, and will, doom the USA to a third world country as the 21st century progresses. We used to lead the world. Now thanks to an entire generation that thinks christianity is real, and thinks quantum mechanics exists at a non-quantum level, we are simply a society in intellectual decline. Rome. Greece. USA... all the same. Sad as science is so intrisically beautiful, and the idea of a god is so backwards, simplistic, and prehistoric. :(

 

Clubs: ROC and SCRA

 

Favorite Quote:

"(Scientific) Skepticism is not a set of beliefs, it is a set of methods for asking questions about reality." -- Doctor Steven Novella

Club Home Page: http://www.rocstock.org

RocketReviews.com Pages:

2012-04-22

Gyroc

Flight

Fantastic flight. Recovery worked perfectly. Some scorching of the vanes probably from the initial blast. - 1/2A6-2 - Santa Fe Dam Rec Area, CA [More]

Mudwasp

Flight

Perfect flight. Plenty high enough to recover under streamer. Maybe 75 feet. Perfect streamer recovery. Fun! - 1/8A-1 - Santa Fe Dam Rec Area, CA [More]

Dead Ringer

Flight

The first flight was so good I had to try another. And again it went higher than people were expecting with a perfect streamer recovery! - 1/8A-1 - Santa Fe Dam Rec Area, CA [More]

Dead Ringer

Flight

Perfect flight. Pretty high for a MMX. Perfect streamer recovery. Fun! - 1/8A-1 - Santa Fe Dam Rec Area, CA [More]

Arrowhead

Flight

Great flight. Very high and a good 9" chute recovery - A10-3T - Santa Fe Dam Rec Area, CA [More]

Squatty Body

Flight

Good flight though the chute was pretty badly scorched. Need to figure that out. - A8-3 - Santa Fe Dam Rec Area, CA [More]

Magpie Version 1.37

Flight

Crowd pleaser. Excellent flight with quite a bit of height. It is light after all. Featherweight recovery with no damage. - 1/4A3-3T - Santa Fe Dam Rec Area, CA [More]

Chute Howdy 13mm

Flight

This is its 3rd flight and the first where the 16 inch dry cleaner plastic chute fully deployed. I was rewarded with a 30 second or so flight that landed in a very low branch of a tree. Easily recovered. Nice to know I can pack a 16 inch chute in a BT-5 body tube. - 1/4A3 - Santa Fe Dam Rec Area,... [More]

Hex Courier

Flight

Tube fins I gather have a lot of drag. So I was not too concerned about using a B6 in the confined space of the smaller SCRA launch area. Plus this ole warhorse is pretty rough on the outside. Great flight with ejection just after apogee. The POS stiff Quest chute did not deploy but it tumble... [More]

2012-03-10

Hawk 1.6

Flight

D15-6 - Lucerne Dry Lake [More]

2011-09-25

The Launch Pad Hawk MIM-23A 1.6

Rocksim Design

[More]

Custom Rockets Engage

Rocksim Design

[More]

2011-09-03

Rockets by Manufacturer / Custom Rockets

Photograph


Custom Rockets Engage launches on a C5-3 with a backdrop of the historic Mount Wilson Observatory

Jeffrey Gortatowsky


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