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The National Museum of the United States Air Force held its annual build and fly rocket event on Saturday, September 28. The Wright Stuff Rocketeers brought our equipment to the museum, and we launched 621 rockets on the front lawn. We had 490 first time fliers this year.
Last year we launched 685 rockets, and that was a record for us. This year we only launched 621 due to the light rain we had almost all day. We started launching around 9:30 when the tower at the base gave us clearance to start. We launched the last rocket of the day around 3:30, and then the tower closed the launch window. The museum must have announced to the public that launching had been halted as no one came out as we were tearing down the range.
The museum and the museum foundation are fantastic hosts. They buy 750 Astra III rockets and 750 B6-4 motors. They hire a company to put up a large tent to give us shelter from the sun or rain. They cater food from City Barbecue for the volunteers on the field and for those assisting with the build inside the museum.
We only had to suspend launches once, and for just a few minutes when a C-17 did a flyover directly over us at about 500 feet.
After these big events we do a what worked well/what needs improvement discussion at our weekly Tuesday night meetings. Despite the rain things worked really well this year. We had good customer flow all day at the prep and launch areas, with few lines forming. We usually had 8 prep stations operating for loading motors, inserting igniters, dog barf and helping to fill out flight cards. That’s 8 people in the prep area. This is fewer than we normally use, but we were a little short of people this year.
You also need a few extra people who can fill in when people at the pad or prep area need a break. It takes a good 10 minutes to run into the museum, go through security, use the bathroom and then go back out to the launch area. And of course people need a chance to get something to eat or drink. So close to 20 people are needed for the prep and launch area. A similar number of people are needed in the build area; so about 40 people are needed to pull this off.
The key to making these big events work is people management. Most of the people showing up have no idea how a rocket launch works, so you need to direct people where to go and what to do. The first few times we did launches like this we didn’t dedicate anyone to doing crowd control. Big mistake. Eventually we had a person from the prep area leave their station and start directing people. They pointed them to open prep tables. They also directed them out to the pads once their rocket was ready. For this launch we had someone from the museum helping us with people flow in the prep area. He directed people arriving at the prep tent to an open prep station so we could prep their rockets. This eliminates a lot of confusion and speeds up getting people through the prep area quickly and makes for a better experience for everyone.
We used 5 banks of 4 pads, so we had 20 pads available. We use a Wilson FX wireless system, so we had no extension cords running through the areas where people were walking, thus eliminating significant tripping hazards. We had a pad manager for each bank to escort people to the pad and help them load the rockets, attach clips and in general explain what was going on at the pad. The LCO had an assistant to collect flight cards and manage them. This allowed the LCO to concentrate on announcing the name of each flier, their rocket and then launch the rockets. That’s 7 people just at the LCO/pad area. An extra person in this area can be very helpful if it gets busy as they can direct people from the prep area to the pads which takes some pressure off the pad managers.
The museum changed the sign-up procedure to build a rocket this year. People arriving at the museum had an option to sign up for a one-hour window to build a rocket. I never went inside to see the build area as we stayed pretty busy prepping rockets. I’m guessing that this helped to even out the flow to the launch area as we never saw large groups heading out to launch as we’ve had in the past. For those familiar with the museum, the build area is always in the large open space by the B-52.
Randy from eRockets posted three videos on Facebook from the event.
https://www.facebook.com/WrightStuffRocketeers/videos
A short video of the build area
A very short video of the C-17 flyover
A long video of rockets being launched and prepped
Last year we launched 685 rockets, and that was a record for us. This year we only launched 621 due to the light rain we had almost all day. We started launching around 9:30 when the tower at the base gave us clearance to start. We launched the last rocket of the day around 3:30, and then the tower closed the launch window. The museum must have announced to the public that launching had been halted as no one came out as we were tearing down the range.
The museum and the museum foundation are fantastic hosts. They buy 750 Astra III rockets and 750 B6-4 motors. They hire a company to put up a large tent to give us shelter from the sun or rain. They cater food from City Barbecue for the volunteers on the field and for those assisting with the build inside the museum.
We only had to suspend launches once, and for just a few minutes when a C-17 did a flyover directly over us at about 500 feet.
After these big events we do a what worked well/what needs improvement discussion at our weekly Tuesday night meetings. Despite the rain things worked really well this year. We had good customer flow all day at the prep and launch areas, with few lines forming. We usually had 8 prep stations operating for loading motors, inserting igniters, dog barf and helping to fill out flight cards. That’s 8 people in the prep area. This is fewer than we normally use, but we were a little short of people this year.
You also need a few extra people who can fill in when people at the pad or prep area need a break. It takes a good 10 minutes to run into the museum, go through security, use the bathroom and then go back out to the launch area. And of course people need a chance to get something to eat or drink. So close to 20 people are needed for the prep and launch area. A similar number of people are needed in the build area; so about 40 people are needed to pull this off.
The key to making these big events work is people management. Most of the people showing up have no idea how a rocket launch works, so you need to direct people where to go and what to do. The first few times we did launches like this we didn’t dedicate anyone to doing crowd control. Big mistake. Eventually we had a person from the prep area leave their station and start directing people. They pointed them to open prep tables. They also directed them out to the pads once their rocket was ready. For this launch we had someone from the museum helping us with people flow in the prep area. He directed people arriving at the prep tent to an open prep station so we could prep their rockets. This eliminates a lot of confusion and speeds up getting people through the prep area quickly and makes for a better experience for everyone.
We used 5 banks of 4 pads, so we had 20 pads available. We use a Wilson FX wireless system, so we had no extension cords running through the areas where people were walking, thus eliminating significant tripping hazards. We had a pad manager for each bank to escort people to the pad and help them load the rockets, attach clips and in general explain what was going on at the pad. The LCO had an assistant to collect flight cards and manage them. This allowed the LCO to concentrate on announcing the name of each flier, their rocket and then launch the rockets. That’s 7 people just at the LCO/pad area. An extra person in this area can be very helpful if it gets busy as they can direct people from the prep area to the pads which takes some pressure off the pad managers.
The museum changed the sign-up procedure to build a rocket this year. People arriving at the museum had an option to sign up for a one-hour window to build a rocket. I never went inside to see the build area as we stayed pretty busy prepping rockets. I’m guessing that this helped to even out the flow to the launch area as we never saw large groups heading out to launch as we’ve had in the past. For those familiar with the museum, the build area is always in the large open space by the B-52.
Randy from eRockets posted three videos on Facebook from the event.
https://www.facebook.com/WrightStuffRocketeers/videos
A short video of the build area
A very short video of the C-17 flyover
A long video of rockets being launched and prepped
