Remember the thrill of building and launching model rockets? You'd buy a kit from Estes or Centauri and spend hours aligning the fins, gluing, sanding, painting, packing the recovery parachute...all for the joy and promise of sending it skyward.
Tucson is hosting the the Southern Arizona Rocketry Association's 4th Annual Desert Heat event Saturday and Sunday afternoon in Avra Valley, northwest of the city. Officials expect between 60 and 100 modelers to bring a wide variety of rockets to launch. Ranging in size from about a foot tall to over 12 feet in length, hundreds of launches are sure to inspire, thrill and impress all ages.
SARA had to get flight clearance from the FAA for the event, because of local air traffic. Approval has been given for flights up to 4500 feet, but the organization is still working to get special permission for some launches to go as high as 6,000 feet! It is sure to be a great family-oriented event.
Admission is free for spectators, launchers will pay a $10 fee. Food vendors will be there and prizes will be given to children who launch. The event is at the facilities of the Tucson International Modelplex Park Association on North Reservation Road, between West Mile Wide and Manville Roads from 8am to 5 and 7 to 9pm Saturday and 8am to 3pm Sunday.
President of the Southern Arizona Rocketry
Association, Eric Burch, with a selection of rockets
ready to launch.
(Renee Bracamonte/Tucson Citizen)
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Kent, I used to build and launch rockets when I was a teenager..pretty fun! And Tucson is the ideal place for rocket launches.
If you're into amateur rocketry, check this out:
http://pages.total.net/~launch/ss67b3.htm
It's a liquid fuel rocket that weighs around fifteen pounds and the fuel is a mixture of gasoline & hydrogen peroxide. Very cool!
Kent -- The Hydrogen Peroxide (50%) serves as the oxidizer and premium unleaded gasoline is the fuel. The engine of the Solaire liquid fuel rocket mixes the two by using separate fuel and oxidizer tanks that empty into a common combustion chamber. The combination produces thrust at a velocity of Mach 1.82 and the rocket will fly at close to the speed of sound, with a burn time of eighteen seconds!
The method they use to power this rocket is very similar to that found in the German V-2 rocket during World War II.
Howdy Kent
That sounds like it's going
to be a lot of fun for folks for sure.
The Desert Heat 2009 launch was a lot of fun. Southern Arizona Rocketry Association (SARA) has launched once a month with the next one August 22, 2009. You can check out there launch schedule and get a map at http://sararocketry.org. We also have pictures from SARA launches at http://RoboRocketry.com. The blog has writeups and pictures and there are videos from Desert Heat 2009 from the video link. Come on out and launch some rockets with us August 22nd! Duane