Saturday, for an nice change of pace I attended KLOUDBurst 14, high power rocketry launch, near Argonia, Kansas, an hour southwest of Wichita. It took place at a 40 acre lunch site surrounded by wheat fields. This site has a standing permit for launches up to 25,000 feet and has had waivers for rockets traveling even higher. This was the site of Discovery Channel's Rocket Challenge. The launch was sponsored by KLOUDbusters, a 100 member club, that hosts several launches a year.

Leaving Olathe at 7:30 AM, I met up with a half dozen Dawn Patrollers on the west side of Wichita a little after 10 AM and we drove out to the launch site in two vehicles. It was a beautiful day for the drive. Warm, mostly sunny (but VERY windy) with red bud, dogwood and lilacs in bloom. Going and coming, we saw many doves, pheasant and turkeys. After passing through Argonia, we were watching for a sign, when I spotted the contrail from a launch in the distance.

As we pulled into the parking area, we were met by David Means, another Dawn Patrol member who had driven up from Tulsa with members of another rocket club. He urged us to move the vehicles up closer. Just them a rocket coming down on a parachute struck the back fender of a nearby truck and we decided that with the wind it was safer being closer.

We parked next to David's vehicle and unloaded our chairs and coolers beneath his 10’x10’ fly. We were set up only a few feet from the snow fence marking of the launch site. The site had 4 launch stations, each with 7-10 launch positions. The smallest, safest rockets went up from only 50’ away. The other pads looked to be at 150 and 300 feet away, though the farthest set of launch positions were never used.

The day was spent talking and watching the rockets fly. Sometimes there would be 6-8 rockets within a few minutes or so. Other times it was up to 15 minutes between launches, particularly later in the day. 

When a rocket was going up that had not been launched before, the Launch Control Officer would make everyone stand, in case they would have to dodge a rocket making a line drive. Although there were several odd launches, only one rocket went straight into the crowd, near a table of rocket kits on the far side on the viewing area.

With the high winds, many of the rockets were coming down in wheat fields thousands of feet away. This was enough to discourage the builders of the biggest rockets from flying. I guess they didn't want to go too many miles to try to recover their rockets. The most powerful rockets we saw probably went up about 3-4,000 feet, sometimes disappearing into low clouds. Other rockets went only a few feet. One landed only a few feet from our group.

For the most part, the smaller rockets were more interesting, since we could watch the entire flight. The most powerful ones could only be tracked by radios. Sometimes they would fire 2-4 of the smaller rockets at once, calling it drag racing.

Some of the more interesting rockets were little more than a couple of plastic rings with an engine in the middle, they didn't have parachutes. One rocket was made from a small football, it had two engines - one to spin it and provide stability and one to propel it. One of the most powerful rockets was made from legos.

After about 5 hours, our wind blown but happy group returned to Wichita and had supper at Savute's Italian Ristorante, an airplane theme restaurant and bar that is popular with the Wichita aviation community.

I got home to Olathe about 9:30AM. I think everyone had a good time. Several were talking about the next time they would go. I think the group will be launching some rockets of their own the next time and I would like to organize a tail gate party, though I don't think fires are allowed.

Copyright 2004 by Keith Stokes