High Power Rocketry in decline, on the rise, or in limbo?

Bat-mite said:

I have met several people at LPR launches that express an interest in getting into HPR. But I have never met anyone at an HPR launch that said they were going to quit and go back to LPR.

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This right here is one of the biggest keys I believe to growing the hobby. I know in my club I am one of the younger guys and less experienced. We have one junior kid who is really excited about flying HPR and other than that, we don't have a lot of youth yet.

I think getting the youth involved in LPR and keeping their interest in it is going to be the key to getting more into HPR.

And that ultimately was the reason for my original question. If it is growing with adults then that is great but we have to begin reaching out to the youth, especially those in the 15-17 range that are within a couple years of being able to certify and what not.

There are lots of things we can do to help foster that. I think TRA and NAR members doing their own LPR/MPR launches on other weekends that aren't in the crux of launch season would go a long way. You could invite people to watch you launch or have kids make their own kit. Do some sort of annual launch maybe?

Just some ideas I have had since I joined in 2012 on how to grow the hobby.

JohnCoker said:

California HPR clubs I belong to (ROC, AERO-PAC) feel it's on the wane. Launches have about half the attendees of a decade ago.

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Im with you on that, When I certed level III in 2008 at ROC there were a dozen or more M flights at the launches. In fact we had 4 or 5 Level III certs the day I did mine. Last ROC launch I went to didnt see a single M or L. Mostly LPR and MPR flying

AHansom said:

Im with you on that, When I certed level III in 2008 at ROC there were a dozen or more M flights at the launches. In fact we had 4 or 5 Level III certs the day I did mine. Last ROC launch I went to didnt see a single M or L. Mostly LPR and MPR flying

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That is sad.

I know this thread is about HPR, but I wonder if the trend for rocketry in general is the same or different for LPR/MPR versus HPR and super-HPR. For me, I look at what it costs to move into the upper levels of the hobby, and I really don't see myself spending that kind of money on it. I'm sure economics and personal finance play a part for a lot of people in determining how far they go into any hobby. For rocketry, there certainly is a lot of fun to be had at the lower end. We always joke when someone gets their next certification level, "Congratulations! Now open your wallet!" It seems like you could have a situation where rocketry in general is increasing, but the number of people wiling to pay to move into HPR is dropping off.

Overall it sounds like it depends on the area. If more launches are being done and therefore less people per launch that isn't necessarily a bad thing.

Is the decrease in California due to all of tight rules out there on buying motors?

cwbullet said:

Is the decrease in California due to all of tight rules out there on buying motors?

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I dont think thats ROC's problem. Andy and then Jack with Whats Up Hobbies would show up every month with a semi truck and trailer full of all kinds of rocket stuff and a full assortment of Aerotech and CTI motors. Might just be the So Ca. economy or its that a bunch of the long time members that did a majority of the work arn't with us any longer or don't make it out as much ? The TCC launches in Central Ca. are still going fairly strong.

When I hear about clubs trying to get kids more involved, I always think back to this article from Tim Van Milligan. There is nothing wrong with getting kids involved, but when you make it tough for established club members to enjoy the hobby, things go south sooner rather than later.

https://www.apogeerockets.com/downloads/Newsletter212.pdf

Kid involvement is tough especially as more of TRA clubs are centering on research.

In our area, I am seeing a lot of new members coming in. Many of those are slowly working up from single use motors to reloadable ones. We have certification flights at least once a month. Our club, SEVRA, has a high proportion of Level 1-3 members. So at least in our area of SE VA, I think High Power is on the rise.

I'm seeing a good number of the estes MPR kits bringing people in. It's a visibility thing. They see those in hobby stores, then soon realize there's not a lot of parks to launch that size rocket in and find clubs. We've also got a sign on the road at the farm we launch at that's been bringing in spectators and new fliers. High Power just isn't that visible to the general public.

The vast majority of the clubs I fly with are L2 or above . Not much low power stuff and the fall launches are two days

Anyone have any ideas on how to expand memberships?

That is another thing in our favor. We currently have 24 NAR launches per year and 6 TRA Research launches. We are trying to expand that to a TRA research launch every month. SEVRA offers a lot of opportunities to fly. I think that helps attract and retain new members as well as get them into High Power Rocketry.

Having recently done my L1, I'd say the big thing for me was gaining an awareness. Certainly seeing the MPR Estes kits in local stores helped. But the big key was going to some club launches that had a variety of launches from LPR on up. It helps you see a pathway and get excited about the bigger stuff. Whether or not people stick with the hobby or burn out after a few years is another issue. I think one important thing there is the building of community and relationship - both through clubs and on forums like this. When you start to gain lots of friends in the hobby, it's less likely that you'll leave.
Cost is definitely a factor, as is available time. But I'm trying to play them off against each other. I have ideas for projects that will probably take me years to get to - and I'm sure I'll come up with more ideas on the way. But I'm in no hurry to get my L2; I'm pacing myself.

We have 24-26 launch days a year. 10 of them are research. The research days are much less attended.

Everyone as made some astute observations and I second most of those as an aging boomer. I was lucky living in Colorado when the hobby was first getting off the ground (yep-that was intentional!) then got moved to Britain until my teens. Came back and got right back into it (oooh- 2 companies now!). We had the luxury of living in a small town with wide open fields to fly off of with little restraints. Moved to California and when I called to ask where to fly I was told I needed "adult" supervision. Crap! No club no organization so I had to head out to the desert to fly. Not so easy when you are 16 and making hardly anything with a crappy car good enough to get you to school and maybe a date if you were lucky. Gas was like .27/gal during the gas wars and my wonderful T-bird with a 390 got maybe 12 mpg downhill with the wind behind it. We had local hobby shops and it seemed like you could buy a rocket at the grocery store.
Fast forward to today: No local hobby stores. No open spaces (locally) and can't fly at the school/park. Everybody is freaked at the 'fire danger' and liability issues. Busy parents who grew up playing the first/second/third gen video games didn't learn to build models, craft their own home projects or even tune up their own cars now don't have the skills/time/patience to pass that along to the younger generations. Prices have climbed to appoint where you need a pretty good job just to afford a plastic model and the general attention span seems shorter, so balsa flying models are out and plastic instant gratification ARF is in.
I was lucky as my Dad was always a hobby kinda guy-he built most all our TV's, had model trains/boats and the early R/C planes, so I had access to tools and a patient man to teach me how to use them. I know my kids suffered by me not having the time to teach them auto mechanics, but they knew how to use an Exacto knife. They grew up with rockets in the house and not one of them is interested enuff to have their own. They will come out to a launch but that's just to spend time with me, I feel.
So, to the point-things have changed all round. As an old coot, I've just been informed I have arthritis in my feet (WTF?-never heard of that) so maybe all the years of running up and down ladders has taken it's toll. Longer recovery walks from higher alt birds is less appealing and now the wife gets concerned about heat index in the deserts where I have to fly. The bigger birds from the early HPR days are aging horribly as they get drug around from storage space to storage space and the little ones get munched pretty regular as they get thrown around in footlockers and totes. I find my self 'donating' to new rocketeers to 'pass the fire' and keep the hobby alive. It's an exciting time to be in rocketry with reloadable motors, affordable off the shelf altimeters and timers and a much bigger selection of proven materials and suppliers.
Of course, the Internet has made the world more accessible and information flows a lot more freely and quickly. It's hard to maintain enthusiasm when you lose a field to fly at (Plaster) or a supplier you came to love and trust (Thanks Jack G.!) and that takes a toll on getting new people out and interested. As crass as it sounds-we need media exposure and advertising to let people know some of us are "still playing with rockets" (my 50 year old cousin's comment). Yes, it's an addiction and a passion and who knows how rich I would be if I had collected coins (Hi Fred!) or stamps? The hobby is alive and well, just different than it was like everything else in the world.
Fly what you can, when you can and if you see somebody with a little interest, do your part with patience and enthusiasm to pass the fire and build a new generation of rocketeers, however they may turn out to be. That one kit, the altimeter or calipers or balsawood or nose cone or parachute you give them can be the start of a great hobby for someone and the foundation of the next generation of TRF'rs. Thanks for trudging thru this if you got this far. Straight smoke and good chutes, fellow and future rocketeers!

Great post fyrwrxz. It is true. Open spaces and liberty are hard to find.

mikec said:

For NAR, this is all available on the NAR website. See slide 4 in https://www.nar.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/State-of-the-NAR-July2014.pdf for a graph of NAR membership over the past 4 years.

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Thanks, just what I was looking for. A keyword search of "NAR rocketry membership" (the "rocketry" required to exclude National Association of Realtors) didn't turn up anything, probably because it was buried in a PDF, although, amazing to me, I've found that Google in some cases must be doing optical character recognition within PDF documents since I've found PDFs that were made from images which when searched for the same keywords using a PDF viewer couldn't find anything nor could anything be highlighted within the document and cut/pasted!

Well I don't think the clubs as a whole need to help push kids into LPR to get them interested but as individual members we could try to do more.

Point of view.. Yes the 80's and 90,s were great. We were all still learning, Busting thru barriers and seeing how big fast and high we could make that rocket go and get it back for another shot. Without all that great technology we have easy access to know. We figured out our CP with paper and pencil then. I see more rocketry related products in hobby stores now . The owners saying they are getting alot more calls and sales the last couple years. An increase since all the ATF stuff . The whole world was rocked by 9-11. The economy (wow) .These past 15yrs. have been crazy..edView attachment 187015

Aksrockets said:

Not speaking in numbers but in what I've been getting from flying.
In my club it seems to be down. I remember going to launches where there was a line to get RSO'd. A line to get out to the far pads! Now the LCO has to practically beg people to fly something. We havn't had a launch with tons of fliers in quite a while. Maybe it just feels different because I'm more used to HPR.

Alex

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It is odd seems like people are showing up but no one is flying???

I think its a natural ebb and flow. 16 years ago when I joined Uroc it seemed about the same size it is now. Our big launch Hellfire is far more attended than it used to be, 3 times the size easy. In just the three years that I have been going to the HPR sport launches again I think they are down a bit from three years ago.

We did have a rash of bad weather on several of the launches and I have to admit it made me skip a few when it looked iffy. Last year sucked I went to only 2 launches and this years spring sucked. Its tough to drive out an 1 to 2 hours just to be turned away.

I think we need to spend some money advertising, have a free launch day buy some kits hand them out.

TA

cwbullet said:

Anyone have any ideas on how to expand memberships?

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I think that with any club you have to be actively getting new prospects. You have to recruit new members. After a while old members will leave and you need new members to replace them. I can say that I have brought two HPR flyers into the hobby and I am bringing more. I happen to be involved in Boy Scouts and they love coming to the launches. Most of these boys will move on to other things but in the long run some will return as BARs. In the short term these boys bring their fathers who end up getting involved.

One other thing I think is critical to having a successful club is being helpful to others. One thing I appreciate is when others help me out. So we need to go the extra mile and try to help others out each time we launch.

Lastly, and this is critical, we need to patronize the local vendor. If our local vendor does not get enough business he will fold. A club without a vendor is crippled. So support your local vendor.

Costs: Motors; reloads; hardware; kits - always ascending. For me the biggee was the 1+hour drive (each way) and the $3, $4 or $5 a gallon of gas that did me in. At some point, the fun to cost ratio goes negative, and when it is no longer entertaining (or fun), you tend to remove it from your life. I have tried to make several comebacks, as rocketry courses through my soul... but that cost demon becomes so hard to shake.

I think it is transportation. If RadRock didn't exist, I wouldn't be flying almost at all. 1 hour is near my limit for the trip length. That's not really a gas issue, just it being a pain.

Here in NE Ohio, access to decent launch fields is a problem. I think that is a problem everywhere. What is the hobby going to do without places to fly?

Back in 2008, MTMA secured a permanent launch field with a local city parks and recreation department. Our field is owned by the city, and it is dedicated for flying model rockets and airplanes. The field is not large enough and houses are too close to support HPR, but it's better than nothing. In the fall/winter when the crops are down, we have access to HPR fields. I think MTMA has grown because we are able to hold regular launches. I believe that is the key - to have and maintain a place for people to go.

Most, if not all, of the other rocket clubs in Ohio don't or can't hold regular monthly launches. It used to not be that way, and it's pretty sad. Field access is a real problem. I think MTMA is pretty lucky to be able to at least support LPR/MPR. It would be nice if we could support HPR all year, but finding a field for that is difficult.
-Wolf

Winston said:

Ah. Wonder how many current members they have and why they don't publish them. We shouldn't need to go to a NARAM presentation to see their membership figures either.

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Both orgs publish certified flyer lists for motor vendors (membership numbers only), so you can count them yourself. In addition, the NAR publishes the total membership (whether certified or not) each month in the Electronic Model Rocketeer.

When I joined Tripoli in Jan of 91, my number was 1303, it is now somewhere in the mid 15000's, so between 1/91 and 10/14, 23.75 years, the increase was 14200 (est.) That means Tripoli has averaged 600 new members per year in that time. The NAR's rate of increase is around 2000-2100 new members per year. For both orgs, a high percentage of those new members drop out after that year, so the actual rate of growth is a fraction of those numbers. TRA may have a slightly higher rate of retention, but, due to their emphasis on high power, I would think their total membership is 3500-4000.

A year ago the totals of high power certified flyers looked like this:

NAR . L1 and jr - 1260, L2 - 1110, L3 - 410 -- 2780
TRA L1 - 750, L2 - 1550, L3 - 950 -- 3250

No telling how many of those hold memberships in both orgs.

And I think someone had mentioned that doing displays at events and other outreach programs would be useful.

RoyAtl said:

Both orgs publish certified flyer lists for motor vendors (membership numbers only), so you can count them yourself. In addition, the NAR publishes the total membership (whether certified or not) each month in the Electronic Model Rocketeer.

When I joined Tripoli in Jan of 91, my number was 1303, it is now somewhere in the mid 15000's, so between 1/91 and 10/14, 23.75 years, the increase was 14200 (est.) That means Tripoli has averaged 600 new members per year in that time. The NAR's rate of increase is around 2000-2100 new members per year. For both orgs, a high percentage of those new members drop out after that year, so the actual rate of growth is a fraction of those numbers. TRA may have a slightly higher rate of retention, but, due to their emphasis on high power, I would think their total membership is 3500-4000.

A year ago the totals of high power certified flyers looked like this:

NAR . L1 and jr - 1260, L2 - 1110, L3 - 410 -- 2780
TRA L1 - 750, L2 - 1550, L3 - 950 -- 3250

No telling how many of those hold memberships in both orgs.

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So I just went and got the current data. Both orgs have increased since last year, with NAR having a larger bump.

Why do you think NAR is getting a bigger jump?