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

I am sure there has been a thread on this before and through a quick search I couldn't find one but I wanted to know, is HPR on the rise? Is it declining? Or is it kind of stagnant?

I am wondering if someone has numbers over the last 10 years on ACTIVE members of NAR or TRA and how those numbers have been moving.

I don't have the exact numbers, but I am 99% sure that it is on the rise...

Just speaking to my feelings on the matter, it seems to me that it's on the rise. As more BARs return to the hobby, they seem to have more $$ to go for the larger rockets that excited them as kids, or to recreate their favorite designs in a new and more powerful incarnation.

I don't have a lot of numbers to back this up, but my feeling is that for so many HPR is a three to five year fling. Level 1, maybe level 2 cert, and out for most.

Ain't many of us lifers

I think winning the BATF lawsuit helped a lot.
Mr. Bob
Countyline Hobbies
Grovertown, IN.

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

I'm seeing an uptick... but then again I'm part of it...so I can't be sure. I've been doing HPR for a couple years and it's surely growing here.

I agree it's like most hobbies.... you're going to see people get in, spend 2-3 years at it hard then burn out.

It's going to be very area and club dependent. I'm lucky enough to be part of a growing club with a waiver that puts out a good draw, and an awesome base of fliers that love to help people out. Pretty sure bill's helped me prep more rockets than I've seen him fly of his own. I lucked out for sure. seeing new people show up and keep showing up is awesome.

According to the presentation he gave at NARAM this year, NAR President Ted Cochran reported the NAR members has grown 700 over the past three years, and now stands at over 5,800 member, the highest totals in the history of the organization. Breakdowns are roughly:

4700 Senior
500 Leaders
600 Junior
35 life members
300 3 year members
3313 Section members

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.

I think the people to answer this question are the motor venders....anyone?

TheSamurai said:

I am sure there has been a thread on this before and through a quick search I couldn't find one but I wanted to know, is HPR on the rise? Is it declining? Or is it kind of stagnant?

I am wondering if someone has numbers over the last 10 years on ACTIVE members of NAR or TRA and how those numbers have been moving.

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Sam, having been to Tripoli Idaho launches from 1993 to the one last weekend trust me, HPR is doing fine. It was the most attended launch I've been to here. I wish I could have stayed longer, I left right after Vern's flight.

If we're doing that good here I think we as a whole are doing fine and building slowly. Tripoli member number just passed 15,000. I know most of those have bailed but there's still 0000X number guy's flying. What would be interesting to see is how many are back after the ATF case was finished. I'm one and if it wasn't for this place I think I'd be gone, too. I'm encouraged enough to go for 3rd again. I've seen quite a few here in the last month...well...4-5 but that's good, not all come here.

This is kind of a small forum but it's very active overall and overall the hobby is doing well. It has a geek factor that RC cars, trucks, and airplanes just don't have so it will continue to bring in new people. A lot of daddy's come for the LPR and the next thing you know they're 1st level and asking about a good rocket for 2nd

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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I've only been launching rockets this go around for the last 3-4 years so I probably missed the glory days of which John speaks and I don't travel to Black Rock in Nevada.

On the other hand, there is always a waiting line to be assigned one of the six or seven(?) pads on the High Power cell at LUNAR. That being said, IMO HPR is holding its own in Northern California.

bob jablonski said:

I think winning the BATF lawsuit helped a lot.
Mr. Bob
Countyline Hobbies
Grovertown, IN.

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I know I didn't want the hassles of getting a LEUP. After we won the lawsuit I've gone on to get my L2

I would say that it is fairly neutral over the last 6-7 years. This is far different from the 1996-2000 or so timeframe as I recall those launches frequently having lines for RSO and pads. The number of pads is pretty much the same something else is different.

I think it can be chalked up to a few factors.

Many of the core flyers dropped participation substantially in the last decade. I can say, being one of them, that several of us dropped out completely or reduced substantially due to getting married, having houses to take care of, having kids, and busy jobs. All these things are great, but take substantial time and money away from the hobby.

I think the economy is not very good. I know a lot of folks who used to make substantially more money than they do now still fly, but not as large or often as they used too. High power is a fairly pricey hobby. I think to certain extent you can tell a lot about a persons income by what they are flying. You see some folks throwing up m and n motors at every launch, and while I like watching them it does make me wonder if they are either far better off financially than I am, do they have substantially less financial responsibility than I do, or are they living off of credit card debt? Whatever- it is not my issue.

I think the other issue is demographic. The long timers in the hobby, the ones who are here to stay, are all getting older. Not as fond of trudging long distances to recover rockets through questionable terrain.

While here are younger people coming in I think the number of older folks who start to drop out due to physical/health issues in the next decade or so will substantially shrink the hobby. The number of members might be similar, but the number of actually actively flying people will drop.


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There's no broad answer that applies to everyone's situation. The effects are felt in pockets. To DizWolf's point, I feel the hobby is growing where he is located but where I am located it's suffering severely. Locally, CTRA appears to be waning, URRG appears to be growing, and Radical Rocketeers in NJ is growing. METRA is probably declining due to their decreased waiver, but I could be wrong.

Rocketry in the Northeast in total appears to be in decline. I feel this is primarily caused by a "changing of the guard" of sorts...as people get older, they move on to other things. As life events happen, their interest fluctuates. We'll see what happens when LDRS comes to town!

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.

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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That might be economy related. The dot com bubble was during the relatively early years of HPR, the housing bubble (i.e., home HELOC ATM) was during the time when it was more mainstream.

dave carver said:

Tripoli member number just passed 15,000.

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Where'd you find that figure? I just looked for that on-line and couldn't find it.

He's not talking active membership, just the number of folk who have ever joined. For example I am number 15163 and I joined in June.

In general HPR seems to rise at first and then decline. The speed of the decline depends on whether you use a drogue or not.

Talking to a couple other vendors here in the Midwest. Back in the day we had Danville IL. in late October then in November There was Three Oaks. Now there is a launch every weekend from the end of October till Thanksgiving weekend. Having that many launches in a 150 mile Radius cuts down on attendance at each launch How many folks can afford to go to 4 launches in 4 weeks (it is really 5 launches in 6 weeks around here)? That is one reason you don't see the long lines of flyers at least around here that was noticed a decade or so ago.
Mr. Bob
Countyline Hobbies
Grovertown, IN.
574-540-1123
[email protected]
www.countylinehobbies.com

That is a really good point, what may seem to be a decline may actually be a dilution of attendees due to more launch options. I know in the 90's when my dad started high power there weren't nearly as many launch weekends available.

Zebedee said:

He's not talking active membership, just the number of folk who have ever joined.

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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.

Much depends on advertising and that's kinda hard to do. Opportunities like the opening of 'October Skies' don't happen every month. One thing up here that added members was remote Saturday morning TV news. One of the regulars worked for a big radio station that was a part of the TV station conglomerate. He had the Sat morning color guy come out to the launch and do weather and short interviews. There were people that found us from that.

All it really takes is a 'go-getter', the one guy that will make the contacts to make things happen. Airshows are perfect for this but the contact needs to be made. Heck, even a big display at the state fair could be big especially with all the rocket stuff on all the TV channels. Even Ky Michaelson flying the "Crapper of DooooM" on TV helps. People see that and think, "Maybe me flying rockets isn't so crazy".

TheSamurai said:

I am sure there has been a thread on this before and through a quick search I couldn't find one but I wanted to know, is HPR on the rise? Is it declining? Or is it kind of stagnant?

Click to expand...

The only way to know that accurately would be through knowledge of the production and sales figures of the HPR motor manufacturers, figures which I suspect they aren't inclined to release.

I am wondering if someone has numbers over the last 10 years on ACTIVE members of NAR or TRA and how those numbers have been moving.

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You'd think that kind of basic data would be available, but I can't find it. I'm talking about just membership numbers, not the numbers of "active" members which I suspect would be impossible to determine without membership surveys.

In South Carolina, it is doing both. We loose a few and gain a few. In general, I would say it is rising.

Winston said:

We shouldn't need to go to a NARAM presentation to see their membership figures either.

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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.

K'Tesh said:

Just speaking to my feelings on the matter, it seems to me that it's on the rise. As more BARs return to the hobby, they seem to have more $$ to go for the larger rockets that excited them as kids, or to recreate their favorite designs in a new and more powerful incarnation.

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That's my story... Now that I'm an adult, I get to do all the things I wanted to do as a kid. Plus sharing pictures and videos on social media like Facebook have gotten s number of my friends interested. A few are starting to ask about going to a launch. That's where the hook is set, as we all know...

I think there's something in the Tripoli Report about membership numbers. I'll look for my copy but....

Because I am less than 2 years back in the hobby, I don't have the more recent baseline to compare it too. But I can say for sure that there is a FAR larger variety of kits and motors available now than I ever even knew existed in the past. I've only been to a few HPR launches, but there usually seems to be constant activity.

I would guess that interest in the rocketry hobby in general would fluctuate with interest in the space program or other cultural phenomena that tie in to rocketry. The space program of recent years has been boring. Once we get a new fleet of NASA and commercial rockets flying astronauts to interesting places, I would think there will be an uptick again. Or if there is another interesting rocketry related movie, that might have an effect.

Like most hobbies; demographics and economics will be the determining factors as to whether high power rocketry or rocketry in general prospers or declines.

Those participating in HP today may very well be witnessing its swansong.

By and large we are an aging bunch of old coots and it looks as if the Millennials are not going to have the $$$$ available to replace us. Yes, there will always be exceptions but they will be few and far between in the coming decades unless something radically changes, economically, for the better in the U.S.