Recovery Stupidity at Argonia

We had a launch at the Argonia Rocket Pasture this weekend and I witnessed stupidity of the highest order EVER from a rocketeer.

If you aren't familiar with the Rocket Pasture, we have a 40 acre pasture surrounded by farm (crop) fields in all directions. The fields are cut by roads running in a 1 mile square grid. It is flat here, really flat and you can see a long way in every direction. There are very few trees. It is quite typical high plains farm country.

Saturday afternoon, several of us were conversing and noticed a vehicle coursing back-and-forth in a zig-zag pattern for several minutes IN ONE OF THE FARMERS CROP FIELDS. This guy is looking for a rocket in a farmer's field from his vehicle. We can't believe our eyes and after a few minutes one of us heads out to tell this stupid goober to get the hell out of the farmer's field. A couple of our guys are farmers themselves in different areas and they are beside themselves.

Stupid stunts like these cost clubs their launch sites ... city folk showing up and acting with total disregard and disrespect for landowners' livelihood.

If you attend a rocket launch anywhere, don't drive a vehicle in a field unless you get explicit permission from a club official. Ever. This bothers me so much that if you are the person who did this, feel free to never come back to a launch at Argonia. We work our tails off at landowner relations and we're just hoping our efforts haven't been dealt a severe blow and set back years.

--Lance.

Amen brother. Besides driving we often have other, more restrictive guidance, for instance when crops are growing. As good as they have been to us, our hosts are more interested the their relations with their neighbors than they are with a rocket club. Best to keep everyone happy. I hope this doesn't cost you your field.

YIKES!

Lance, hope things work out without repercussions. /Tim

Wow, just wow.

I've heard of cases here in Ohio where automobile accidents resulted in cars or trucks going off into cornfields, etc. and the insurance claims included payments to the farmers for lost crops, soil compaction, etc. That might not be a problem this time of year, but make sure that you have license plate numbers or other contact information for the farmer, his insurance company, or the police just in case.

Thats just.... wow....

Impressive stupidity.

I was there on Saturday and I had to walk though the new wheat and burned stubble to recover my rocket. That's just part of the deal if you fly in Argonia, you walk and you better like it. Your rocket will plow a trench until it fills with enough dirt that the chute can no longer drag it. Drougeless??????? You better or you will pick your rocket up in Nebraska. Good paint job? Don't bother. The Kansas dirt is like 100 grit sandpaper.

I love flying with Kloud Busters in Argonia KS. They know what they are doing. They have a great place to fly and the Kloud Busters will make sure that you have a good time. If you can't walk to your rocket, just ask. Someone will recover it. There is no need to drive around in a money crop.

I just read this and had to reread it because that's almost unimaginable that somebody could be that stupid. I'm getting close to wanting to come back "home" to Argonia and start flying a little again and the thought of somebody being that stupid and that not happening really irks me. Especially as hard as Lance and Bob and all the other KLOUDBusters, past and present, work to make Argonia THE BEST place on earth to fly rockets.

Eric

I have permission to use two local farm fields and have never seen anything like that. However, I have been to some HP launches where, apparently, they had permission to use 3-wheel vehicles. In any event, I can't see anyone trying to do something like that without at least asking if it is appropriate.

Needless to say anybody leaving any road surface to drive in the fields in ANY kind of vehicle -- 4x4, ATV or dirt bike, should have the complete knowledge and permission of the RSO and the host organization.

The potential for major accidents goes way up and of course most land owners, especially farmers, aren't going to be happy about people tearing up the fields in cars.

That is just amazing Lance...
Absolutely terrible. ..
How is it humanly possible to be that thoughtless. ...
I certainly hope this causes you no trouble. ...

Teddy

Lance
Not sure how many people were at the launch but it can't be as many as an Airfest launch. You should be able to find out who this person was. Its just stupid of them to do something like that.

Similar problems here. I can't count the number of people I've seen go "off-road" at Snow Ranch. And then they wonder why someone jumps down their throats with both feet.

Just cuz ya buy 'em books and send 'em to school, don't mean they gonna learn to read.

That's not just your ordinary garden variety stupidity, that's some next level stuff.

Well, isn't it ALL ABOUT ME AND WHAT I WANT?!?!?!? Wah, wah, waaaaaah!

I start to blow a gasket when I hear about stupid sheeeet like this.

I would consider banning this person. If they were STUPID enough to do that who knows what else they might be capable of. This person is a danger to themselves and all around them.

Going to go walk out in the blizzard to cool off now...

Did anyone say not to drive in the field? (Before anyone complains about my question I grew up working on a farm and it wasnt uncommon to drive in the crop field out of season)

jrkennnedy2 said:

Well, isn't it ALL ABOUT ME AND WHAT I WANT?!?!?!? Wah, wah, waaaaaah!

I start to blow a gasket when I hear about stupid sheeeet like this.

I would consider banning this person. If they were STUPID enough to do that who knows what else they might be capable of. This person is a danger to themselves and all around them.

Going to go walk out in the blizzard to cool off now...

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Haha because you're the embodiment of perfect, right?

Being a city slicker I don't have much experience driving through corn fields and such. I have three questions. First, what did the goober say when your friend caught up to him? Second, was this person part of the event and knew about the rules of not driving in the farmland outside of the launch boundries? Third, how is the hunting out there?

Lance
My wife come up with an idea. Maybe when flyers check in at a launch they will need to give what type car one has with plate number.

Anyone who would do this is ignorant. Ignorance is not an excuse. I would invite them not to return on our field if it were mine.

Alethins said:

Did anyone say not to drive in the field? (Before anyone complains about my question I grew up working on a farm and it wasnt uncommon to drive in the crop field out of season)

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So it was common to drive in someone else's crop field out of season? Interesting...

jrkennnedy2 said:

So it was common to drive in someone else's crop field out of season? Interesting...

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We had events at the farm and never put signs up or made it against the rules to not drive in the crop fields out of season... Just wondering if there was a set rule in place that they knew about or maybe it isn't written but verbal?

We have permission to drive on the two fields we use once the crops have been harvested. However, we only do that on one field where we can park in a corner area. The farmer actually keeps a gravel drive maintained from the main road for our access.

In the middle of winter our kids were using one field and it was zero degrees out and we chose to drive on the frozen snow. Almost got stuck as it got deeper, so learned my lesson there. Though I was real careful to drive in slowly and kept checking that I could back out if needed. It was needed, and I didn't want to pay for a very long two from the main road.

Alethins said:

We had events at the farm and never put signs up or made it against the rules to not drive in the crop fields out of season... Just wondering if there was a set rule in place that they knew about or maybe it isn't written but verbal?

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You know, it might appear to be OK to drive into the fields when the crops are out of season but right now, every field surrounding the Klodbuster's Rocket Pasture are planted with winter wheat and it is up and growing. Tell me how you think it's OK to drive on our farmers GROWING crops?

This kind of information is something we provide at every fliers meeting before the launch gets started, the only people allowed to drive off the roads are certain club members and we are only allowed around the edges of the circles not actually on the sod. I'm sure we would be upset too, if this happened on our field.

BBrown said:

You know, it might appear to be OK to drive into the fields when the crops are out of season but right now, every field surrounding the Klodbuster's Rocket Pasture are planted with winter wheat and it is up and growing. Tell me how you think it's OK to drive on our farmers GROWING crops?

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Tell me why you assume I know what the farmer does and does not grow... I was asking a question if it was a rule and providing a reason behind the question... Never once implied it was okay to do so.... Hahaha

You know, it might appear to be OK to drive into the fields when the crops are out of season but right now, every field surrounding the Klodbuster's Rocket Pasture are planted with winter wheat and it is up and growing.

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Wow, that makes this story more amazing. A guy driving through the cash crop!!

There's no fences out there? Just roads and fields? I am not too familiar with farming and what I am familiar with have fences surrounding the field. I can understand that if you live in a farming community that you would know enough not to just drive through open fields but, I can also understand that someone not knowing the difference might drive across what appears to be nothing more than a dirt field.

Your being a bit of a drama queen don't you think Lance? As every story has two sides, I'll share mine as I assume you are talking about me. The field I drove out on was the second field to the North over the hill and I took the roads to get there. The only "crop" on that field was hard packed dirt and weeds, absolutely nothing was planted in that field and I barely left a tire mark. I would never think of driving over someones crops! I told that to the gentleman that came out on the 4x4 and talked to me, he seemed to understand that and we talked for several minutes. I apologized and he later came up to me and asked if I ever found my rocket. I didn't seem to feel any of this "outrage" you have from anyone else. I talked to several people out there including the LCO Terry, who just told me it probably wasn't a good idea, I agreed. Again, I apologized and everything seemed fine. So don't get on here and start name calling and exaggerating everything like I was out there doing donuts in someones freshly planted wheat field.

That is very good to hear your explanation! Like I said above, it would be amazing for someone to be driving through growing crops.