Latest October Launch Info:

To all our members and friends; You are probably wondering about the reversal of excitement and cancelation of October activities in such a short time. The reason for canceling the October launch is that there has been a terrible tragedy in the Williams family, the landowners of the field. Mr. Wilburn "Squibb" Williams and his son Kip were in a traffic accident last Monday, Oct. 4th. Mr. Williams was killed and Kip was seriously injured and is still at Carolinas Medical Center this week. Out of respect for the family we felt canceling the launch was the only thing to do. They were responsible for opening up the gate and the house plus mowing the runway for us to use. This obviously will not be done. Moreover, we will need to check into our Tripoli and NAR Insurance to see if we will need to make changes to our policy since both Mr. Williams and Kip are listed as the land owners. So, at this time we are suspending launches until we have time to speak to the family about being able to fly at the Williams Farm Site. My hope is that we should be able to continue flying, however, now is a time to pay our respects and pray for family that has been so supportive of Rocketry going back to 1994. As a club we will be gathering contributions for a memorial for their church's "Cemetery Fund". The church is Crooked Creek Primitive Baptist Church in Monroe. NC. I will have more information on this later today. Please contact Ralph Roberts if you have any questions. 704-568-1070 or 704-560-0147. Sincerely, Ralph Roberts ROCC Prez

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October Launch Cancelled

Details to follow.

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Details for October Launch

Everybody: Well, finally we are back on schedule for the fall portion of our flying season, the Fall campout rocket launch 2004 is coming next weekend Oct 16th and 17th. Launch Times Saturday 12:00-Dark, Sunday 8:00am-6:00pm all day. We had two Summer Workshops at David Deason's Heating and Air Shop to focus on building techniques in July and August. They were successful, just wish more of you could have made it out. The hurricanes really messed our schedule up for September, nothing we could do about that. So here we are. I hope everyone can make it out. It should be a fun weekend.

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October Launch Dates Confirmed

Everyone: I had a conversation with Mr. Williams Sunday night to firm up the October Launch Dates, October 16 and 17th. Most of the field is cleared, all but the lower area next to the creek that was flooded out by Jeanne's rains. He is OK for us to fly our standard third weekend. He is also OK for us to Campout. I know this is also the race weekend which will may cause traffic headaches for people coming in via Concord. Hopefully, having the option to camp will provide people an option to stay Saturday night. The actual race will be Saturday night, not Sunday. Please encourage all friends and neighbors to come to the launch. We will need their support. More details are to follow as soon as I get confirmation on Ken's status from Performance Hobbies and status on the NAR contest. Thanks, Ralph

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Rutan To Go For Second Flight

Burt Rutan's Mojave Aerospace Ventures team will attempt the second flight in their attempt to win the $10 million dollar XPrize. The flight is scheduled for Monday morning. XPrize press release. For the first attempt on Thursday, space.com and nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv carried streaming video of the launch. NASATV also carried it. So check this out for Monday's attempt.

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44,000 feet PLUS

Here's one... a new world altitude record for TRA member John Rockdale in setting a new Tripoli Rocketry Association record for 'M' class altitude. John flew his "Tupelo" rocket at the Mudroc launch held at Nevada's Black Rock Desert on Saturday June 19, 2004. The flight was also a record for all Tripoli motor classes. According to the on-board RDAS GPS instrumentation, John's rocket achieved a maximum altitude of 44,958 feet (13,707 meters) AGL. Both stages were recovered intact. Check out his website for details: http://www.jrockdale.com/tupelo.htm

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TV for Rocket Fans

As Ralph mentions in the story below, Discovery has been running the LDRS rocket shows again, but we might have missed all except "How High Can You Fly" which runs Saturday, September 25th at 1pm. However, in trying to get the schedule for these, I ran across another show that may be of interest to everybody: Black Sky: The Race For Space

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October Launch possibilities

Everyone: There was no launch this last weekend due to the athletic field not being available to us at the Cannon school. We have to schedule around their activities and Charles did not call and say it was available. So no launch that weekend. I was out at Williams farm last night with Terry Baucom and Kip was in the field Harvesting Corn, Yeah! He was finishing up for the day, he had been on that tractor for 6 hours and he was whooped. He said we needed to check with Mr. Williams about the status of the field however I think we will be good for the Oct 16th, 17th launch at the farm. One other important note is that the fields on the other side of Hopewell Church Rd. have already been harvested. I will call Mr. Williams next Thursday or Friday to see where the progress stands and if we can plan on launching on our regular weekend. Lets pray for dry weather for the next week or two. I know several of you were planning on attending the Orangeburg Freedom Launch last month at and due to it's cancellation has really messed everybody up. So in speaking with others there is a lot of interest to go back for their October launch which will be sponsored in October by ROSCO their NAR section. This means they may run the launch for a shorter launch window, I will call Bobby Weatherford and see what their plans are for the Oct 9th and 10th launch. I don't know what kind of vendors they will have if any, I'll try to find that out as well. The Discovery Channel rocketry specials are running again. Not sure if there are any other dates scheduled however I understand they are re-running those Rocket specials they did last fall. Just FYI Thanks, Ralph Roberts ROCC PREZ

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New Website

We're in the process of launching the new website, and so far we're pretty pleased. We've got a few bugs to work out with the icons scaling between browsers (the site is best viewed through Mozilla or Firefox, but will work OK through IE) The new site will allow us to do some really cool stuff for the membership, like having almost anybody submit a story for inclusion onto the site, being able to contact the membership through the site about club activities, keeping up with the leagal battles going on around our hobby, and being a clearing house for our hobby and all things rocket-like.

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That's Amore'

A really cool link from a website called Astronomy Picture of the Day, managed by the folks at the Goddard Space Flight Center. It is an animated GIF of a complete lunar cycle, or a Lunation. This is one of my favorite sites to visit on the web, with a new and facinating photo or graphic every day. Just copy the link into your browser... have fun! http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap040829.html

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