Jeff,
You didn't go to LDRS did you? If you would have attended, you would have noticed the TV competitions were held in a vastly different (and remote) part of the range so as not to disrupt the flyers who came to LDRS to fly their rockets on their time, their way.
"Suspend BS competitions"! They are not ours to suspend! This was the work of the TV production crews. They had a contract with the Tripoli national organization and we, the Kloudbusters, (in accepting conditions to bid on LDRS) had to host them.
With that said, this is the second LDRS I had a part in for filming of a rocket show. This one and the "Rocket Challenge" filmed in 2003. Everyone on the Sharp Entertainment filming crew from the executive producer down to the guys who drove the golf carts were way more professional and understanding that the folks that filmed the Rocket Challenge. I was in charge of their safety. Never once was one of my requests to back up or to do something different was every questioned. I'd do it again in a heart beat with this same production crew. (I took the job as film crew safety officer so that none of my club members got put in a compromising position. It never happened.)
OK!
You didn't like the show. Fine! Everyone heard you!
Their job was to film a show and sell it to the Science Channel. They know alot more about was makes a successful TV show than any of us. If they were to take the suggestions of this forum, they would have accomplished one of their two goals. They would have filmed the event but no channel would have aired it.
Guys, quit whining! If they made a show you liked it never would have made it on TV. Nothing in the show that was aired is negative! It showed rockets that crashed (it happens all the time), it showed a motor CATO (it happens all the time), it showed a bride being launched (OK, this doesn't happen very often but whats the harm). If it gets someone's interest and gets them to look up the local rocket club and travel out to one of the launches, the show did it's job.
We worked really hard both before and during the launch to accommodate both the TV folks and the regular LDRS flyers. At LDRS XXX, if you didn't want to be involved in the TV crap, you didn't have to. The regular LDRS ran just fine with plenty of pads, a 50,000'AGL waiver, and no lines. What more could you have wanted?
Bob Brown
Ex-Launch Director LDRS XXX
"rocket challenge" is what got me into this hobby.
