5.. 4.. 3.. 2.. 1.. What do you get when you cross a recently picked corn field and those young at heart who love launching rockets? A fun two day event with young and old looking toward the sky as rockets race from launching pads.
Today, Sunday November 22nd, was a gorgeous day for this time of year, so much so I decided it was perfect for what may be my last motorcycle ride of the year. This morning while enjoying my coffee at K.Dees I read in the paper about a rocketry club called Tripoli that had held a day of launching model rockets in a corn filed out near Brookston Indiana. The article mentioned that they would be launching more rockets today during the afternoon. So when my friend Ross showed up we chatted for a bit and I asked if he had any interest in riding our motorcycles out to watch some rockets launch. He agreed and off we went. I went home and packed up my camera equipment as I knew this would make for some great photos.
After a short, but enjoying ride, we reached the launch site. We arrived late, about an hour before they were to finish, so not many spectators where present. As we pulled up a rocket shot into the sky like a bullet out of a gun, the smoke trail from its engine raced from the launch pad up into air trailing the path of the rocket. We parked our bikes and made our way up to where the action was. I sat up my tripod and pulled out a telephoto lens and began snapping some images. The image above is shows the proud owner of his rocket preparing it to launch. This particular rocket was a multi-stage rocket, 3 actually, and when it went up everyone watched as each stage fired off.
Here is a group of guys preparing another rocket for launch.
The man standing on the right is the owner of this monster. The rocket was probably as tall as I, 6 feet, and I had watched moments before taking it out to the launch pad as the owner strapped a small camera to the side of the rocket. He was recording video as the rocket shot up into the sky, sounded as if he had done a few times that day. I wasn’t sure what to expect when this monster launched and I have to say the first thing that was surprising was how much noise it made, this thing was loud! The first image at the top of this post was this rocket as it’s engine ignited.
The launch of the big rocket was absolutely amazing! I have never seen a rocket of this size take off and was pleased that I was able to today. But after launch, after the rocket had reached its peak altitude, something when wrong. When the charge went off to eject the parachute, it worked but the parachute didn’t deploy properly and couldn’t fill with air to open. The monster rocket came crashing to the ground. Fortunately there appeared to be no major damage.
All-in-all this was a wonderful little motorcycle ride and a great time watching some wonderful rockets fly into the air. If you’re in the area they do this once every month. Their next launch event will be December 13th at the same location. Check out their website for details and directions to the launch site.
~ William