More on the TARC Team Winners

This is an email I received from one of the proud parents. He included a bunch of pictures, which you can see here. Ralph Thank you for the nice article on the web site. The team was REAL EXCITED to win the TARC event. They launched very early in the day and knew that they had an extremely good score (1.79) but then had to wait for the remaining 89 teams to complete their flights. They hit the 800 foot target EXACTLY and only missed the in-air time by 1.79 seconds (hence their score). The final hour was the most tense. We all huddled around the scoreboard anxiously awaiting each new result. It really became exciting when the final results were known and it was apparent that Statesville Christian School had won. I don't think that winning a lottery could be any more exciting.

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Team America Rocketry Challenge Crowns New Champion

Everyone: I got great news tonight about the Statesville Christian School's TARC team. Bob Bernatchez called me on my cell to tell me they won the 2006 Team America Rocket Challenge competition. I called Doug Knight, their mentor and ROCC member, to discuss their trip. He confirmed that it was true. Way to go team! He also gave me a little history about their team. He informed me that their team lost two members in separate automobile accidents in Nov of 05 and Jan of 06 right after the TARC teams were forming. The current team members Michael Goetz, Will Cobb, and Myles Dunlap which we all knew from their visits to the farm went onto the National Finals this past Saturday (May 20th) and won with a perfect alt. of 800 ft and off on time by 1.74 seconds. Almost perfect, and per Doug, had they not landed in a tree and actually landed on the ground they would have been only a .5 seconds off, based on their predictions. They had an experience of a life time and got to meet and greet with NASA folk and others and their fun is just beginning. I and along with the other members of ROCC would like to congratulate them on a job well done. They worked hard and they succeeded, they even dedicated their victory to the fallen teammates. What a great group of guys to deal with such adversity and apply themselves in a common goal to succeed and become the best of the best. Doug has promised pictures from the finals so we can show their smiling faces. You know, it is days like today and knowing people like this that make those long hours helping others worth it. This hobby can be so rewarding in so many ways. To say you have seen these guys grow from test flights to qualifying flights to National Champions is awesome. You guys are truely awesome!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Thanks, Ralph Roberts ROCC Prez News story from Aero-News network follows at the "read more" link:

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May Launch Update

Everyone: The May Launch is a go at Williams Farm for May 20th and 21st. Corn will be anywhere from 6" to 12" tall. We can not trample the corn, so watch your step. We will have limited retrieval teams so pay attention to where your rocket comes down. I will have my field walkie-talkies to help guide people to the rockets. Recommend larger Estes rockets with large streamers to make them more visible. Note: Saturday night is the big All-star race at Lowes Motor Speedway so traffic around the speedway will be bad starting Saturday afternoon. If you are coming from that direction I would come early and stay until around 7:00pm, after everyone gets to the speedway traffic will be fine until they let out around 11:00pm Sunday should be OK, just watch for the campers coming and going. Brent Johnson from Hobbytown USA will be at the launch on Sunday. Note: Due to the recent fire danger alerts and if we don't get any rain we may have to limit flying power. Just keep this in mind if conditions don't improve. The 2006 membership drive continues, please renew or join at this launch. We will also have the T-Shirts for sale. Sizes from Youth Large to Adult 2XL. We will be running the launch from 11:00AM to 8:00PM Saturday and Sunday. We will have the Porta-A-Jon at this launch. This is another expense we have to add onto our budget per launch, it cost $70.00 a month to have a porta-Jon on the site. Please come out and support the Porta-Jon! We need as many people as we can to make our flyer fee goal. Last month we had a small turnout again. We need everyone and their donations so please contribute if you fly. Remember our recommended donation is $8.00-$10.00 per flyer per day, families with lots of young flyers maybe a $10.00 donation would be good. Again, these are recommendations not harden rule yet. The requested weekend land fee from the land owner is $250, so we need everyone to drop a little something in the jar. Anyone needing to certify, please contact me ahead of time. Todd Haring can arrange to have the Level 2 NAR test delivered to the field and we can have others administer the test. We will meet at around 4:00pm on both days to talk about launches and other activities for the summer months. This will be our last launch at the farm site until late Oct. Thanks, Ralph Roberts

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Launch Update

Ralph spoke with Kip about next weekend's launch and it appears that we're ON for the farm on the 20th & 21st. There are a few ground rules that we need to adhere to very closely. First... DON'T step on the corn!!! It's very fragile right now and it'll be about a foot tall next weekend. Please don't break the plants!!!! Second, again based on height, is long streamers, bigger rockets and things that will lay across the corn will really help in finding your rocket. You'ld be surprised how fast a small rocket vanishes in amongst the corn rows. Everybody come out and enjoy the last launch at the farm till fall!!! On that note, read on......

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March 2006 Launch Report

Welcome, Welcome, Welcome. The Post-Launch Report for 18-19 March 2006. Well, I�ve about caught up. I just don�t seem to have as much free time as I used too. But give me a rain day to spend home and no other distractions, and I can get a lot of things done. 1st point. I know a lot of you have �Spam� blockers now. And they work pretty good. Those of you who are about to get it installed, and those with it, (who will not see this) need to have my e-address listed to be passed through, or your messages, rocket launch announcements and post-launch reports will be intercepted and kicked back to us as �Non-Deliverable, Spam Blocked�. Some members are going to think that I�m deliberately not sending them any more reports and updates not realizing that the blocker is kicking them back.

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More weather updates for the weekend

Club Secretary here with some good weather news. It looks like the Rocket Weather Gods are going to smile down upon us this weekend. Saturday is projected to be mostly clear and sunny, 45 in the morning with a projected high of 69 degrees. As most of you know, it will be, or seem warmer out at the farm as the open fields act like a solar collector. Over night temps will be in the mid 40's with a Sunday wake-up of about 45 degrees again and a high of about 65 degrees. Only a slight chance of any rain late Sunday, so we should have the whole day to fly before we have to take down the flight equipment before dark. So, if your camping over, pack and be pre-paired for the cool night. Plan ahead and use common sense in that you are camping and walking around on a farm field. If your going to cook on site, bring a proper container for your fire. Portable and single use grills are a good choice, or like me, be sure you have a good portable fire pit. That way we can sit around the camp telling the story about "The Headless Rocketeer". OK, I hope to see everyone out on the farm this weekend and if everyone helps out, everyone will have a good time. Roy.

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LAUNCH UPDATE

Everyone: As of Wednesday evening, weather forecasters are predicting a chance of showers, Saturday afternoon, evening and all day Sunday with a chance of a Thunder shower Sunday afternoon. The percentages are varying all over the place. Based on the current forecast I feel Saturday may be the best day for flying. Sunday will have to be a Saturday night decision, mainly due to the runway conditions if we get a lot of rain. At this point I don't want to cancel any activities for the weekend, just make you aware of the situation. I have not spoken to Ken Allen from Performance Hobbies yet regarding the latest conditions. Note: You need to PRE-ORDER... especially High Power motors. Also if you call him with orders that will help him decide if he wants to drive down regardless of conditions, please contact him ASAP. www.performancehobbies.com One note on the history of Williams farm, the lay of the land in the area just south of Midland is that whenever there are showers around the Charlotte area, they somehow skip over the farm. A lot of times when it has been raining in Charlotte, we stayed dry on the farm. Will this be one of those times, who knows? I would suggest you contact my cell, 704-560-0147 for the latest conditions at the field. Those planning to camp, prepare for the rain as well. My take is that if we get a lot of showers, I will pass on the camping. Just using a little common since here. Thanks, Ralph Roberts ROCC Prez PS : If we get only one day in this weekend, we will go around for one more day next weekend, May 6th or 7th. Note: Ken cannot come back that weekend due to launches in Maryland.

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The Fastest Man Alive

Scott Crossfield, at one time the "Fastest Man Alive", passed away while doing what he loved, flying. He was at one time a test pilot at Edwards Air Force Base, and flew a wide variety of aircraft, including the X-15. Read more about this amazing man here: http://www.edwards.af.mil/history/docs_html/people/pilot_crossfield.html Here's the news from Space.com: http://www.space.com/news/cs_060420_crossfield_obit.html

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February 2006 Launch Report, Part 2

Welcome to the Make-up weekend February post-launch report Pt II. As stated in February�s Post-Launch Report, Part I, we did indeed have a rocket launch in February. In fact we ended up having 3.

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February 2006 Launch Report, Part 1

Welcome. As a lot of you might remember, we did indeed have a rocket launch in February. In fact we ended up having 3. Because as you might also remember, the weather was really kind of on the nasty, wet and on the cold side for our regularly scheduled 3rd weekend launch. So Ralph, doing what good club presidents do, worked out a make-up launch for the following weekend. Cool, huh?

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