The Rocketeer
At about 5,000 feet above ground, the altimeter registers the top of the rocket's trajectory. A second blast, the dull clap of the ejection charge, pops off the rocket's nose cone. A bright orange parachute, about the size of grocery sack, unfurls. As it drifts slowly downward, Dale Emery trots across the field to retrieve the rocket.
Tent stakes fasten the plastic pipe launch pad to a trampled patch of dirt on BLM land northeast of Billings. Spent cartridges from target shooters litter the ground around it. Emery, a Billings internist, triggers each rocket launch from a distance of about 100 feet. Phone cord wire stretches from the switch to a lawn tractor battery. The battery's electric current ignites the rocket propellant.
When rain spits from a storm cloud, Emery ducks for cover in his four-wheel drive. A doctor at the Billings Clinic, Emery is a tall, thin man with red-brown hair and a bushy mustache. As a kid, he built and launched small model rockets. About a year ago, he returned to the hobby of his youth.
"I always liked flames and noises. My dad drag raced," he said. His father crew chiefed for the Blue Max, a funny car. Emery sees some similarities between rockets and the drag cars his dad once drove.
"They're loud, their fast, they have no useful purpose except entertainment," he said. He laughingly describes himself as part of a far-flung fraternity of BARS, "born again rocketeers."
In the slang of "rocketeers," a "lawn dart" describes a rocket that nose-dives into the dirt because its ejection charge fails to pop the nose cone and unleash the parachute. "Cruise missiles" takeoff in the wrong direction, heading horizontally down range instead of skyward.
On his web page, "Dale Emery's Rocketry Page," he offers a quick-time video that captures the pfth-pfth sound of a rocket launch. The Internet links him to other hobbyists and to garage-type enterprises catering to rocket enthusiasts. He belongs to two rocketry associations. A Level 2 certification allows him to launch rockets up to an "L" size motor. Each year, he requests a waiver from the Federal Aviation Administration for the rocket launches. He also notifies the agency of each launch. He also has a low explosives users permit from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.
Rockets are classified by the size of their motors. Model rockets are designated by letters A through D, while letters H and above are considered high-powered rocketry.
As a kid, growing up in Northern California, Emery did rockets with A through C motors. He would spend $1.50 on a rocket.
"To me, I thought they were huge, until I got into the big stuff," he said. While tiny rockets often rely on single-use motors, most larger rockets use reloadable canisters. Small, single-use "A" motors cost slightly more than $1 apiece. Emery has a "J" motor that cost $50 to launch.
The rockets work on same principle as air released from a balloon, which pushes the balloon in the opposite direction. A rocket, burning fuel in a combustion chamber, creates a rapidly expanding gas. As the gas escapes downward through the rocket's nozzle, it propels the rocket upward. The motor contains both an oxidizer and a solid fuel. .
Different types of propellant are known for their burn characteristics. One propellant, called "White Lightning," generates an impressive white flame, while "Blue Thunder," makes smoke that's hard to see unless it's dark.
"The bigger ones have big bright flames and you go 'wow' and you're hooked after the first one," Emery said.
Getting the rockets to fly correctly and retrieving them successfully can be challenging.
"It's usually fairly easy to get it up in the air. It's getting it back in one piece that's hard," Emery said. He once blew the front end off a rocket, by over-zealously packing it with black powder. Using an overly-large motor can also shred a rocket.
He went to a group rocket launch in Casper, Wyo., and is interested in starting a rocketry club in Billings. Emery planned to skip a big rocket launch gathering in mid-August at the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah because his wife was due to give birth to their third child during August. But since their son, Jackson Rush, was born eight days ago and nine weeks ahead of schedule, Emery may still make the mid-August trip.
Billings man finds excitement in a little bit of PVC and a launchpad
By DONNA HEALY
Of The Gazette Staff
Hissing like a gas station air hose, a 5-foot cardboard rocket belches a plume of smoke. For a few seconds, the model rocket barely seems to lift off the PVC pipe launch pad. Seconds later, it's barely visible below the clouds. When the fuel burns out, after seven to eight seconds, the rocket momentarily reaches its peak speed, of more than 350 mph.
Gazette photos by Larry Mayer
Dale Emery, a Billings doctor, glues the fins on a cardboard model rocket in the basement of his home in Alkali Creek. His tallest rockets are 6-foot.
Dangling from a bright orange nylon parachute, the model rocket drifts back to earth.
On BLM land that's often used for target practice, Emery sets up a PVC pipe launch pad.
Spewing smoke, the cardboard rocket blasts off.
Updated: Sunday, June 28, 1998
Copyright © The Billings Gazette, a division of Lee Enterprises.