Upcoming Launch Schedule

ROCC 2025-2026 Launch Schedule:

Nov. 15 & 16 (if field is available)

Dec. 20 & 21

Jan. 17 & 18

Feb. 21 & 22

Mar. 21 & 22

Apr. 18 & 19

May 16 & 16

June 20 & 21 (if field is available)

All launches are at the Midland, NC site unless otherwise stated.*

Here are some other launch opportunities in our area:

ICBM & ROSCO, better known as Rocketry South Carolina, flies near Dalzelle, SC., Just NE of Shaw AFB.  More information can be gotten at their site HERE

The Saturn Rocketry Club in Hendersonville is currently switching their launch field. As soon as we know where they land we will post it. Their FB site is HERE

NC Rocketry flies at Bayboro, NC in the northeast part of the state, information is HERE

 Set-up starts at about 9:30, launches commence about 10:30. Field closes about 60 min. before local dusk so we can clean up. Watch the site front page for specifics. Also visit us on FaceBook. You can also check for the FAA NOTAM at https://notams.aim.faa.gov/notamSearch/nsapp.html#/ and using KCLT (Charlotte) as the location. This will give you the starting and ending times for HP flights. 

* If field is available due to crops, etc.

Sunday
Sep132009

TARC sign-up is OPEN

Team America Rocketry Challenge 2010
 
Registration of 7th-12th grade student teams for the TARC 2010 national rocketry competition opened on September 2 and will remain open until November 30.  This competition, now entering its 8th year with the NAR and the Aerospace Industries Association as co-sponsors, has enrolled over 50,000 students over this period and got them excited about rocketry and about an aerosapce career -- which is why we do it.  The $60,000 in prizes for the top 10 teams and the free trip to the Paris or Farnborough European Air Show for the winning team help with the excitement, too!
 
This is the most effective youth outreach and national publicity program that the NAR has ever had.  Please help get the word out to students and teachers about this opportunity using our publicity handout, and reach out to help "mentor" these teams on basic rocket skills and welcome them to your launches to do their test and qualification flights.  See the event website www.rocketcontest.org for application forms, and see the NAR website's Team America page for more details. 

Click to read more ...

Thursday
Sep032009

Freedom Launch 2009

OK Folks... Freedom Launch is our next regularly scheduled event, over Labor Day weekend, Sept. 5th, 6th & 7th. Saturday & Sunday are standard sport rules, Monday is operating under Tripoli EX rules. I've been trying to find the updated EX rules on the Tripoli web site and haven't found them yet, so if someone knows them and can e-mail me i'll add them here. I know that there is a 450lb-plus V-2 that's about 12 feet tall to be launched around Noon on Monday, so if you needed a reason to just hang & watch for at least the morning... there you go! Roy sent out a great e-mail that i'll post on the "read more" link. So, in short, it's a really great time, I believe the waiver is around 12,000 ft., and they can easily handle up to an "M" motor. Ken will be there as a vendor, and he'll be loaded for bear, and I believe Chris Stockhart will also be there as a vendor. Some of you might might remember Chris from NSL last year. Here's a LINK to the SC ICBM site with more info. If you want to volunteer for range duties, 2 hour shift on either RSO or LCO, please drop a line to: William Daugherty at his address, wdaugherty2-at-sc.rr.com and let him know. (note... replace the "-at-" with the usual sign, didn't want the bots to scrape his name on our site) <UPDATE>If you still needed a reason to drive down to Orangeburg for the Freedom Launch, Burl Finkelstein sent me these two photos of what he will be launching Monday: Click on either for a (much) bigger version. </UPDATE> And now, please read Roy's e-mail below:

Click to read more ...

Thursday
Aug272009

A cautionary tale...

Just a brief note... the ATF released a report that was related to the fireworks explosion out on the outer banks earlier this year. The cause seems to have been the insertion of an igniter into a shell and a static discharge caused the igniter to fire, exploding the shell and all it's friends in the truck, killing 3 and seriously injuring an fourth. I bring this up because a bunch of us are going to be at a large launch in the next little bit and there is a really good reason why igniters should be shorted together until insertion at the pad with the rocket pointing safely up. Let's all be safe out there folks...

Click to read more ...

Tuesday
Aug112009

4H at the Schiele

On Aug. 7th, 2009 Bob, Ralph and Doc helped a bunch of kids launch some tiny paper rockets. Pictures here

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Monday
Aug102009

Scratch Building Vintage Rockets via Make

This turned up on the Makezine blog.Check it out.

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Saturday
Aug082009

August shuffled

Well, due to the crop situation and no alternate field in sight, we're going to shuffle our August launch date to September at Orangeburg. Freedom Launch 2009 will be held Saturday, Sunday and Monday, Sep 5, 6, & 7 at the Super Sod farm in Orangeburg, SC. It's about 2&1/2 to 3 hours away (shorter if you burn a few engines along the way) and is where we had the 2008 NAR NSL. It's a great field and well worth the drive. Saturday and Sunday will be standard sport days, under Tripoli rules, and Monday will be a research day. An incentive to stick around for Monday, at least for the early part, is between 11:00 and Noon on Monday is V-2 time, ending with Burl's 400-plus pound V-2 behemoth flying on (2) M2400's and an experimental "O" motor, predicted 4000' altitude. The story from the ICBM's website is after the "Read More" link.

Click to read more ...

Friday
Jul172009

LRO spots the landers

Where were you forty years ago? The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has taken photos of the landing sites of most of the Apollo lunar missions. Let's all hope they don't lose these tapes!

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Tuesday
Jul142009

July Launch info

Well, unfortunately because of the lack of rain a few weeks ago, the field on the north side that's full of corn isn't ready yet, even though it's like 8 feet high, and the other side is full of barley (or soybeans, or something green like that)... so the bottom line is that we can't fly on Kip's place this month. So, it's looking like it's either Orangeburg in a few weeks or the scouts launch to fly some small to mid sized stuff as a demo. Check out the Rocketry Planet ROCC discussion page to learn more. LINK

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Thursday
Jul092009

June Pictures

John Bergsmith sent some pictures from the June 2009 launch. Click on Photos above to enjoy!

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Sunday
Jun282009

Some upcoming events to mark on your calendar

While we're in between launch announcements and launch reports, just a few things that are in the near future... Our friends down in Orangeburg are having their regular Sport launch, scheduled for Aug. 8-9, sponsored by the NAR ROSCO section. Go to www.tripolisc.org for more info. Right after that we've been asked to participate with the Belk Scout camp again, with a demonstration launch and to help them launch their rockets. That'll be on August 15th. Then, back down in O'burg, it's the 3-day Freedom Weekend Launch. Schedule, as usual, is Sep. 5-6 Sport, Sep. 7 TRA Research. I saw a post from Burl I believe that there's a huge V2 to be launched that w'end. Then another scout troop requested us for Oct 3rd at Belk Scout Camp. Anyone who is available for this date should chime in on Rocketry Planet or drop Brad an email. That's it for now, be sure to keep an eye on this site and on Rocketry Planet for the details. DR

Click to read more ...