What would a rocket launch be without a bunch of crazy, fun-loving, competitive people willing to trompe through water, mud, trees, tall grass, and thick underbrush in order to see who can recover the most rockets and bring them back to smiling students? And let’s not forget encounter, pigs, snakes, ants, wasps, bees, chiggers, mosquitos, cows, cup eating donkeys, and any manor of small animals that run out from under foot unexpectedly.
This crews hardest job, is not locating and recovering the rockets, but instead getting the compass to give an accurate azimuth, (sometimes they stick), and inputting the coordinates in the Garman in time to beat the other team to the location.
Finding the rockets depends a lot on good coordinates, a good sense of direction, good eye balling of where you saw it go down, and a whole lot of pure luck.
A perfect launch and recovery deployment can put the vehicle almost back in easy distance and sight to find. On the other hand a high altitude deployment can carry the rocket for a long time, making what looks like right over there, end up to be a few pastures over, which entails a whole lot of walking and searching. And of course a ballistic landing means searching and digging.
No matter the circumstances, each rocket is a valuable learning tool for each class, and the ultimate goal of these teams is to recover all of it they can, and return it to those students.
Quite honestly, the recovery teams, probably have the most fun, and least stressful job of the group. Most of them are repeat crew members from year to year and wouldn’t miss it given the chance.
They all work closely with the Rocket Cops Crew, who also lend their ears, eyes, and communications to the teams on the ground. Officer Braxton Roemer coordinates the recovery teams.
This years’ teams included: Team 1, Jeff and Tina Landis; Team 2, Jerry and Judith Luckenbach; Team 3, Barry and Ann Bradley; Team 4, Steve and Ginger Burow; Team 5, Todd and Troy Kneese; Team 6, Guy Chadwick, Brett Burow, and Brittany Beisert ; Team 7, Freddie Kruse. There was also a 3 person team from Alpha Search and Recovery out of Houston that was here to observe, and helped in place of Team 7 on Sunday.
This group works and plays hard the whole weekend. They love to have fun while out there searching and recovering rockets. They are each here because they want to help SystemsGo and the students be successful and they all take that very seriously.
Thank you recovery teams for being a vital and important part of the project. This year this group had 97% recovery rate for all the rockets launched. Congratulations and thank you all for all your hard work.
www.systemsgo.org as always is the place for more information on this program. Take the time to get your school involved, the future of your students will be greatly benefited.
On the Wings of Angels 