Neil McGilvray, vice president of the Maryland Delaware Rocketry Association Inc., has his hand on the launch controls as he watches another rocket blast skyward.
Kids growing up during the last six decades have had ring-side seats for spectacular scenes of rockets launched into space by the U.S. and other countries.
In those years, many young rocketry fanatics launched small model rockets made from kits. Some built and launched their own handmade rockets, using materials such as PVC pipes or cardboard tubes. As they matured, many gave up building model rockets, but a select core of die-hard rocketeers never gave up on their dream.
On April 25, 2009, the largest amateur rocket ever launched took off from Higgs Farm in southern Maryland. The 36-foot, 1,648-pound scale model of the Saturn V rocket that launched Apollo astronauts on their journey to the moon roared into the sky, reaching an altitude of 4,441 feet, said Neil McGilvray, a Westminster resident and the vice president of the Maryland Delaware Rocketry Association Inc, (MDRA).
Steve Eves of Akron, Ohio, who was 51 at the time, built a Saturn V rocket model in his garage, at a cost of $30,000.
Eves, an auto-body mechanic, said he never forgot seeing an actual Saturn V rocket at Cape Kennedy. Eves built his rocket to commemorate the 40th anniversary of Apollo 11, the first manned rocket to the moon, launched on July 16, 1969, and launched his own record-breaking rocket at the Higgs farm facility, McGilvray said.
MDRA, one of two mid-to-high-powered amateur rocketry organizations in the area, was formed in 2000 from the Tripoli Rocketry Association Chapter 69 in Gaithersburg, McGilvray said. The group’s mission is to “provide a venue to allow for witnessing and participation in the hobby of rocketry … making these experiences available and accessible to as many members of the community as possible with an emphasis on reaching and nurturing our children’s interest in rocketry.”
A high-powered rocketry club that serves the Delaware-Maryland area, the MDRA has a 17,000-foot Federal Aviation Administration waiver, McGilvray said. The most powerful rocket launched at the April Red Glare XVI event, the Dominator 4, is a two-stage vehicle built by Pat Harden, of Hampton Roads, Va. It reached an altitude of nearly 16,000 feet.
A team of 10 students with the Spring Grove Area High School Rocketry team, from Spring Grove, Pa., just north of the Carroll County line, built a 12-foot-long rocket that weighed about 30 pounds, explained Brian Hastings, physics teacher and coach of the team. With its L-1120 V-Max motor, the rocket, launched at Higgs Farm in Price, carried a scientific payload that measured magnetic radiation waves at an altitude just short of 6,000 feet.
“Last year, we worked with NASA and their SLI, [Student Launch Initiative], to build a high-powered rocket to take a scientific payload up one mile,” Hastings said. “We completed that project in May 2013.”
When launched at a NASA facility in Huntsville, Ala., the rocket, powered by a Cesaroni K2045 Vmax motor, boosted the 7.15-foot long rocket, named “The Phoenix,” to about 600 feet short of its 5,280 feet target altitude, said senior Spring Grove High senior Pandya. This year, Pandya served as the team captain and designed the rocket his group launched in April at Higgs Farm.
“I had a lot of experience from last year, since this was the second year the school built a high-powered rocket,” said Pandya, who plans to pursue a degree in engineering. “Last year, I helped design parts of that rocket. Using that experience this year, I did research on my own and came up with a new design.”
Another member of the team, Kyle Abrahims, a junior, was in charge of the fin design and main body tube of the rocket. During the project, Abrahims spent up to 15 hours each week working on the Vernier rocket project, and on a smaller rocket that he built for the Team America Rocketry Challenge (TARC), held in May.
“I’ve been with the club for three years, since I was a freshman,” said Abrahims, who may either pursue a degree in engineering or enter medical school. “My first year was just the TARC, and last year, I went to Huntsville.”
At a March 22 rocket launch at the Carroll County Agriculture Center, several TARC teams flew their rockets to qualify for the competition, said Alex Mankevich, president of NARHAMS, the National Association of Rocketry Headquarters Astro Modeling Section, which serves Maryland and Virginia. NARHAMS is the oldest continuously operating model rocket club in the United States.
The organization uses the Carroll County Agriculture Center, in Westminster, and the Old National Pike Park, near New Market, as launch facilities. Both facilities limit the size of rockets to “G” impulse motors – a mid-power range rocket engine that can reach altitudes of about 1,200 feet, he said.
Mark Wise, who served as launch manager at the March event, said he flew his first rocket in 1973, and then “fell in and out of the hobby. I got back in for good in 1999.” Wise said members of the club work in fields that include everything from engineering to military intelligence for entities such as NASA Goddard, for the National Security Agency, Federal Aviation Administration, Deprtment of Defense, the Maryland State Police and in a variety of other organizations.
“Rocketeers can spend just about as little or as much as they want,” Wise said.. “You can get started in the hobby, including a beginner rocket, launch equipment, and a couple of motors, for $30 or less. The most expensive kit I ever bought set me back about a hundred bucks.”
Ann Walton, a freshman at Bishop McNamara High School in Forestville, flew a test flight to qualify for the TARC competition. Her rocket was powered by a “G” motor.
“This is my first year,” Walton said. “In my old school, I wanted to take science and engineering, but they didn’t offer those courses, so I had to transfer to Bishop McNamara High School which has an engineering club.”
Rocketry mentor Jim Miers, also from the Forestville area, said that Walton’s team designed and built the mid-power rocket. The TARC competition, sponsored by the Aerospace Industries Association (AIA) and the National Association of Rocketry (NAR) involves launching a rocket to a minimum altitude of 822 feet, carrying two raw eggs for a payload; and returning the eggs to the ground, unbroken.
“Some members fly altimeters as part of a program we conduct at which you announce your target altitude, then try to achieve that altitude as measured by an on-board altimeter,” said Mankevich. “Cameras are another favorite payload. Some members got started with sport rocketry in the 1960s and 1970s and never stopped. Many of us are Ôborn again’ rocketeers who were once active as teenagers, but then dropped out due to jobs, families, etc.”
Rocketeers from both groups bring varied educational and professional experience to the sport. But they all share the sense of awe that accompanies the launch of rockets they helped design and build.
For more information on MDRA, visit www.mdrocketry.org; for more information on the Spring Grove High School Rocketry Club, visit www.springgroverocketry.weebly.com; for more information on NARHAMS, visit www.narhams.org; for more information on TARC, visit www.rocketcontest.org; and for more information on the record-breaking Saturn V launch, visit Liberty Launch Systems at www.libertylaunchsystems.com/saturn-v-project/Launch/.
