By Tony and AJ Alcocer NAR#77549 TRA#8570

Have you been flying Estes and Quest rockets and want to get into HPR? This is where my 15-year-old son AJ and I were 16 months ago. And this is our adventure into HPR. It all started innocently enough. AJ was surfing the web one night and as I recall, it went something like this “Hey dad come check this out.” As my wife tells it.” It was the beginning of the end.” What he had found was Rocketry Online’s Web page. I can remember asking, “We can buy that stuff?”

AJ and I had been flying smaller rockets off and on since he was very young. We would get together with other families from work and go flying. We had the Alpha, Ninja, and our biggest rocket was the Skywinder. It was getting close to AJ’s birthday and my wife, Mary and I decided to get AJ one of those BIG rockets. (Yes I consult my wife on all of our rocket purchases. Doesn’t everybody?) Anyway after much thought it was decided to get a North Coast Rocket Phantom 4000. After all for just $100 it came with a launch pad and launch controller. You need to know that neither AJ nor I had actually even seen a High Power Rocket (HPR) before. So whether this was a good one or not who knew? We just knew that it was BIG.

Somehow we found out about a rocket club in Livermore, Ca. (LUNAR). We went to the next launch. The night before the launch I couldn’t sleep. I felt like a kid on Christmas Eve. We arrived about an hour early so that we didn’t miss anything. There were all kinds of rockets there small ones like ours and some great big ones. Hopefully like the one we ordered. We asked all kinds of questions. We, well I, didn’t know half the stuff they were talking about. Things like RMS, SU, AP CP, CG and even terms like, shred, fin flutter, through the wall construction and CATO. For a while I even wanted a CATO. I didn’t even know what it was, but everybody was talking about it. It must be good. Then we met Bryan Chuck.

Bryan was busy prepping one of his many rockets. After about the 20^th question he asked AJ if he wanted to load a motor and launch one of his rockets. I was hoping AJ would say no, so that I could have done it! AJ’s first motor was a F40 in a LOC vulccan. Bryan walked AJ and I through the assembly of the motor and prepping of the rocket and it was off to the pads.

As all this played out there were dozens of rockets being launched. The “High Power Pads” were amazing. We could not believe the power of these motors. We were used to our Estes D’s. Bryan and AJ checked in the rocket and placed it on the pad and we awaited “our” launch. As they counted down, I felt like a kid and it wasn’t even my rocket. At zero there was a puff of smoke and the rocket was gone.

At the next launch we had our Phantom 4000 ready and we chose the mighty G 64-4 for its maiden flight. After consulting with our newfound friend Bryan we were set to go. AJ and I walked out to the pads and set it up on lucky pad 13. We checked the angle of the launch rod and both agreed on its trajectory, said a short prayer and crossed our fingers. As the LCO launched the other rockets, most went well and one suffered a CATO. By this time we knew what a CATO was and did not want one no matter how much people talked about them. “On pad 13 we have AJ Alcocer with a Phantoom 4000 on a G 64” was all that I heard. From that point on it has been a blur.

In the last 16 months we have joined NAR and Tripoli and are members of LUNAR and Tripoli Central California. We achieved our level 1 certification in the spring and our level 2 this past summer. We are in negations with my wife in hopes of trying for Level 3 next summer.

My best advise for anyone interested in moving up to High Power is to ask a ton of questions and build your rockets strong. And by all means bring a friend, a spouse or a child and you both will be in for a BLAST.