June 2011
Chris has been making rockets for years.
Each Easter we go camping with family and friends to a property near Bathurst and the rocket launching has become an integral part of our weekend, in fact one of the highlights.
Chris is known to all the kids and most of their parents as ‘The Rocket Man.’ In the past the rockets have been relatively small, although they have flown up to a kilometre, but this year Chris had decided to go for the big one.
This rocket was going to be a monster, the mother-of-all rockets. He started planning it a year ago, immersing himself in rocket catalogues and instruction manuals. When our grandsons came to stay they would rush into bed with us in the mornings: “Let’s talk rockets, Bop!” they would chorus and settle down to a manly discussion of engine sizes and trajectory. Rocket parts began to arrive, many of them imported from the States where rocketry seems to have a much larger following. In comparison to the rockets Chris had built before each part looked enormous. By the time the cardboard tubes and plastic nose cone were assembled they filled the doorframe. The engine had to be specially imported, as there was none available in Australia that was large enough. Inner tubes had to be fitted, fins constructed, a 70 inch parachute slotted in under the nose cone. The whole assemblage was then lovingly painted, red for the body of the rocket, black for the fins and white for the nose cone.
In order to get the rocket off the ground Chris then had to build a launching pad capable of being taken apart and fitted
together at the launch site.
As far as Chris was concerned, all this was completely experimental. He had followed all the formulae and instructions, but would the thing actually fly? Would it just sit there on the launching pad, or worse, explode in mid air? All the details were fed into a simulator, which produced positive and encouraging results. According to that, it should fly over 3000 feet at half the speed of sound!
Chris joined the NSW Rocket Association and went along to one of their regular launchings. The other members were all like him, amateur rocket enthusiasts, but only one of them had ever attempted any thing as large. However he was able to get some useful advice and made a few minor but fairly important adjustments.
Now came the time to get permission. As the rocket had the potential to fly so high and had such a powerful engine he had to apply to CASA for permission to launch it. This involved having to supply them with the exact co-ordinates of the launching site as well as all the technical details of the rocket. Phone calls and emails went back and forwards for two weeks. The day before we were due to leave for Bathurst permission came through. We were given an envelope of one hour on Easter Sunday morning and a notice was to be sent out to all pilots that a ‘high-powered rocket launch’ was to take place.
If the weather were bad, that would be it; there would be no second chance.
There was also a page of rules and regulations that had to be followed.
The rocket pieces and the launching pad had all been carefully packed in boxes in the back of the Ute, ready for assembly at the site. There was no room for any of our camping gear; the trailer had to be loaded to overflowing for that and we just prayed it wouldn’t rain. The gods were with us; in fact we escaped all the rain that besieged the eastern coast that Easter. However there were many anxious eyes and ears on the weather, on the wind, on the early morning fogs and on the cloud level, all or any of which could have stopped the launch.
By the Saturday the paddock behind our camp site was beginning to look like a miniature Cape Canaveral, the launching pad sitting stark and symbolic in the middle of acres of lucerne stubble. The rocket was all assembled, but where did it spend its last night on earth? In our tent, of course, a precious bedfellow.
Sunday dawned the most perfect day imaginable, clear blue sky, not a cloud in sight, not a breath of wind. Chris and his sons-in-law climbed on to the back of the Ute to slide the rocket on to the launching pad. Tension began to rise as over one hundred people assembled on the hillside. Would it fly? All the rules and regulations now came into play.
The range officer had to keep the crowd behind a designated line, dogs had to be leashed, a lookout was assigned to scour the sky for signs of any wandering plane. A lead led from the rocket 200 feet to the battery in Chris’ Ute. Our grandsons yelled out the countdown. “10, 9…. Blast off!” Everyone waited.
Nothing happened. “It’s alright” called an obviously nervous Chris. “I forgot to plug it in!” The countdown restarted.
This time there was an incredible roar, white smoke poured from the tail of the rocket and suddenly it screamed into the air, up and up without a waver, straight as an arrow, as fast and as far as the simulator had predicted, until finally, almost out of sight, it reached its apogee, turned parallel to the ground and the parachute released, not 100%, but enough to bring the rocket back down to earth at almost the spot it had left. This time the roar came from the onlookers. They all agreed it had been the most exciting spectacle, better than anyone had ever anticipated and one that none of us shall ever forget.
“No, I’m not going to make another one,” said Chris.
But we shall see.