Teams Will Meet in Fly-Off May 20

To think, it all began with ancient Chinese fireworks... and continued through the experiments of Robert Goddard and up to the modern rockets employed today in the quest for space exploration. It all began with simple (and, sometimes not-so-simple) model rockets. Perhaps some of the space pioneers of tomorrow are now among the top 100 model rocket teams in the US, who will compete in the Team America Rocketry Challenge next month.

The Aerospace Industry Association (AIA) announced their finalists for the contest Friday. The teams will face off on May 20 at Great Meadow in The Plains, VA for the title. A total of 678 teams from 47 states and the District of Columbia took part in the qualifying round of the competition -- representing close to 7,000 middle and high school students.

AIA President and CEO John W. Douglass said there is momentum gathering in TARC, helping the core mission of attracting young people to aerospace careers.

"We are already seeing some TARC alumni studying aerospace-related subjects in college," Douglass said. "It looks like this year we have another good group of students who hopefully will be our future engineers and scientists."

As was reported in Aero-News last September, this year's competition is a little more complicated than previous editions. Students will be shooting for an altitude of 800 feet and an exact flight time of 45 seconds -- the first time the contest has included both elevation and duration criteria. The one-raw-egg payload must return safely to the earth, and each flight receives a performance score based on how close it came to the goals.

AIA created the contest three years ago as a one-time event to mark the 100th anniversary of flight, but overwhelming interest turned it into an annual event. The goal is to promote aerospace to students to attract more young people to careers in the industry. The contest is also sponsored by the National Association of Rocketry in partnership with NASA, the Defense Department, the Civil Air Patrol, and 39 AIA member companies.

The winning teams will share a prize pool of more than $60,000 in savings bonds and cash. In addition to that, AIA-member Raytheon also sweetened the pot this year by sponsoring a trip for members of the winning team to the Farnborough International Airshow near London in July.

FMI: www.rocketcontest.org, www.aia-aerospace.org