Here is the history of LDRS ( PDF below )
Dave F.
The LDRS Story
(Originally appearing in SNOAR News, and reprinted in the Tripolitan. It is reprinted
here as an updated version.)
By Christopher T. Pearson
The story of the first organized national high power sport launch, the first to get a FAA
waiver, and the first to cause the NAR to expel members.
About the author: He got started in model rocketry in 1967, at the tender age of 13 years
old while the US and the USSR were at the height of the Moon race,. By 1976, at the ripe
old age of 22, he was ready for something more than NAR competition and Estes’ rocket
kits. Having been introduced to motors “bigger than a D” by Flight Systems Inc., he
entered the forbidden (at least as defined by the NAR) realm of what was called “illegal
amateur rocketry”, that was, at the time, anything weighting more than one pound and
having more than four ounces of propellant. Clusters of D, E and F black powder motors
soon gave way to early composites. Reinforced Estes and Centuri model rocket kits
adapted to take high-power motors quickly evolved into what was considered “big” for
the time, four inch diameter rockets of original design and later those produced by the
first high-power rocket kit companies. The rest is history.
The LDRS story actually got started a number of years before the first LDRS was held in
a northern Ohio farm field. Here’s how it began:
As with many people, I started into model rocketry as a teenager, but more adult things,
like cars, motorcycles, girls, a job and college forced me to put rocketry on the back burner
for a while. When I got back into rocketry, even though I was heavily involved in
NAR competition until 1978, I wanted to try something different. I got started in high power
rocketry, as it existed then, back in 1976. I quickly made contacts with people all
over the country that were involved in the emerging high-power hobby. Some of these
people were Gary Rosenfield (then of Pro-Jet, predecessor of Composite Dynamics and
Aerotech), Roger Johnson (aka: The Rocket Clown), Korey (the Ace from Space) Kline
of Ace Rockets, the first high power rocket kit company, Mark Mahyle of Small Rocket
Sounding Systems, another composite motor and kit company, along with others who
were, at the time, taking “model rocket technology” to the limits. MRT, as it was also
called, referred to high-power rockets made from model rocket components.
Between 1972 and 1978, unless you had an “in” with a motor manufacturer, about the
only thing there was for the high power crowd was either clustering D12's or using FSI
motors. Centuri/Enerjet had ceased motor production, although limited motors were still
available and being used. This was before any of the early composite rocket motor
companies arrived on the scene. Some of the people that were visible in the early high
power community were Scott Dixon of Vulcan Systems, and Irv Waite, formerly of
Rocket Development Company, father of the Enerjet line of composite rocket motors.
They were both producing professional rocket motors for military and industrial use, but
for the right amount of $$$, they could be persuades to make motors for you.
Before this time, there were many notable, and now very rare and collectable, high power
rocket motors. Pro-Dyne, maker of F thru G class motors. Coaster, who made large E, F
and G black powder motors, and Centuri Mini-Max, also D, E, and F black
powder motors. They had all vanished from the rocketry scene by 1970. Gary Rosenfield
was one of the new breed of composite motor manufacturers, as his first company, Pro-
Jet, produced F and G composite motors. Mark Mahyle of SSRS (later known as
Crown Rocket Technology) entered the foray with E thru H composites motors, and a
little known company called Plasmajet, run by John Krell and Randy Sobczak, made F
thru I motors. So with those new motor manufacturers producing a new generation of
motors, a number of high-power kit manufacturers soon followed suit. Unfortunately, as
with most hobby-type businesses, many people entered the hobby and left just as quickly.
Gary Rosenfield joined forces with John Davis and formed Composite Dynamics, which
gave rocketry mass-marketed composite 24mm E and F motors, as well as the first end-burning
composite, the 29mm E9, a motor which, ten years earlier, Enerjet had called
“impossible”. Other early companies produced specialized items for the high-power
community such as launchers, pads, etc.
Unbeknownst to the NAR, a number of people at the time were flying high-power rockets
at local sport launches or side by side with competition rockets at NAR events. Unlike
NARAM’s today, where the sport range is busier than the competition range, sport flying
was almost unheard of at a NAR launch. At one of our regional meets early in 1980,
several uncertified F, G and H motors were flown in overweight rockets. Somehow,
word of this leaked out and later that year while at NARAM-22, another SNOAR
member and I were called on the carpet by Mark Bundick, the National Contest Board
Chairman and questioned about it. This is where the famous, "Who flew the G?" quote
came from.
My high-power contacts in California told me of all the extreme rocket flying that was
happening out there: huge clusters of F and G motors, real metal vehicles, special effects
rockets and so on. I wanted to observe what was going on in high-power rocketry on the
west coast, so, in 1981; I journeyed to Smoke Creek, Nevada, to attend the annual
Memorial Day Amateur Rocket Launch. This was sponsored by the Rocket Research
Institute, and is primarily for the zinc/sulphur crowd, but they allowed the launching of
large model rockets and MRT vehicles, along with a lot of professional pyrotechnics
people who lit up the nighttime sky with fireworks demonstrations. While there, I heard
Roger Johnson say something that was to stay with me long after the launch, and that was
“We’re going to fly some large and dangerous rocket ships!”
To tell you the truth, I was actually somewhat disappointed by what I saw flying out at
Smoke Creek. Except for the zinc/sulfur and asphalt/perchlorate rockets being flown
by Dr. Key’s high school group, it was rather mundane. It was nothing like what is flown
at LDRS today. Primarily a lot of four-inch stuff with clusters of F and G motors, and an
occasional H or I motor. And as for the launch facilities, you walked out away from the
cars, stuck a rod in the desert floor and ignited the motors with fuse and a match!
Nothing like I was led to believe was flown.
Later that summer, the NAR section that I belonged to ran a regional meet in which we
flew a number of E and F competition events, which was very rare for sections even
today. We advertised it as a meet for "you Large and Dangerous Rocket Ship fans." Also
flown during that event were actual high power rockets powered by non-certified motors.
It was only a few months later that I let my NAR membership lapse after being a member
for 14 years. When other NAR members asked me the reason, I explained that it was
because I wanted to fly rockets that would exceed the NAR's limits, and I didn't want to
cause problems by doing so. I was later told by a NAR official that this was probably the
best way to have done it, rather than openly flying high power and daring the NAR to do
something about is, as some people did.
Shortly after that I began planning what would later become the first national high power
rocket launch, LDRS. The name LDRS was an acronym for “Large and Dangerous
Rocket Ships”, just as I had heard Roger Johnson say it at Smoke Creek the year before.
LDRS was the first MRT or high-power rocketry event that was promoted as such. I
found out what I needed to do to get a FAA waiver to legally fly “amateur” rockets.
When I contacted the Oberlin Air Traffic Control Center about the waiver, they were
baffled! They had never issued a waiver before! So it was a learning experience for both
of us.
Feeling rather the rogue at the time, I even managed to get the event listed in the contest
events schedule in the Model Rocketeer, the NAR’s magazine for one issue before they
discovered its true nature. The following is how it appeared.
CONTINUED BELOW . . .