June 11th 2000

High Power Rocketry history was made today at Lucerne Drylake in Lucerne California when all Five of the rockets took to the skys at High Noon. John Coker's OTRAG was first of the pad followed by Kurt Gugisberg's "Big Purple". Vince Catalano's "Extreme" left the pad in a hurry and soon opvertook the other two fliers. Kelly Smith's Patriot missile lifted off next in a cloud of smoke. Finally John Eric Thompson's Phoenix lifted skyward. All five smoke trails streaked torward the sky when Kelly Smith pushed the remote button and lit up the four J350 motors for a perfect clustered airstart of the Patriot Missile.

A hush came over the crowd untill one by one all Five parachutes opened at apogee. Three of the Five rockets had perfect deployment and recovery. "Extreme's" main parachute failed to open but the large drogue chute brought it down with only minor damage. John Eric Thompson's Phoenix suffered a tangled chute but managed to also come back with only minor damage.

I feel sorry for those of you who could not attent this awsome event.

January 24th 2000

John Van Norman has announced that he will be flying his soon to be completed "YamIdoingthis??" project in the World's Largest Level III Mega Event. You can get all the details in the Meet the fliers section of the Mega Event Webpage.

January 23rd 2000

Jeff Stai contacted Rockitz.com today to announce that he will probably not have his project ready in time for the Mega Event in June. Jeff says he will keep us updated on the progress of his project.

January 21st 2000

Vince Catalano Has made it known to Rockitz.com that he will be flying his rocket "Extreme" in the Level III Mega Event. Vince is with Tripoli Las Vegas and has flown this rocket many times before. It promises to be a great performer.

January 14th 2000

John Eric Thompson has announced to Rockitz.Com that he will be flying his Half Scale Phoenix Missile in the Event. He will be powering it with an M1419. John flew his Phoenix at ROC Stock X for his Successful Level III certification flight.

January 13th 2000

In a surprise announcement today Bob Csallo announced that due to financial and personal reasons he would be dropping out of the Level III Mega Event and postponing construction of the "Big Stick II" until such issues are satisfactorily resolved.

Kelly Smith's suggestion of launching the rockets one after the other in a continuous barrage instead of all at once has been well received on the ROC chat list and is being considered as a safer alternative to the drag race style of launching all the monster rockets simultaneously.

John Coker joins the fray with his announcement that "I've done the design of my drag race entry and am ready to order parts". You can see his OTRAG at http://www.jcsw.com/john/Rocketry/otrag.html