Tom Zachman and Jake Franklin recieving awards by the Wright Stuff Rocketeers. On the left is Tom Zachman and on the right is Jake Franklin.
RIPLEY, Ohio – A member of the Ripley Association of Rocketry and a local Ripley Rocketeer received awards at the 2023 awards program for the Wright Stuff Rocketeers.
According to a representative “The Ripley Ohio Association of Rocketry, (ROAR) NAR Section #851 Senior Advisor Tom Zachman and fellow Rocketeer Jake Franklin were honored by the Wright Stuff Rocketeers (WSR) NAR Section #703, Dayton, Ohio at the 2023 Christmas Party and Awards Program. The Wright Stuff Rocketeers is one of the largest sport rocketry clubs in Ohio sanctioned by the National Association of Rocketry.”
Tom Zachman a Senior Advisor of the Ripley OH. Association of Rocketry received an honor plaque that was to commemorate the flight of a rocket Zachman had demonstrated recently in Oct.
According to a representative “His topped fiberglass rocket screamed skyward on a red plume of fire breaking the sound barrier within less than four seconds reaching a speed of 1301 feet per second or 887 miles per hour then climbing to an altitude record at the WSR High Power Rocketry Launch site and finally gently landing successfully over a mile away from the pads.”
Due to Zachman breaking a record for highest altitude, there has been a new name made by the Veteran High Power Rocketeers that are in Dayton which is the “Von Zachman Line”.
“To memorialize his achievement Tom’s peak altitude mark is now designed by veteran High Power Rocketeers of the Dayton Rocket club as the ‘Von Zachman Line’. As a side note last year Tom’s sport rocket was featured in the lead article in ‘Sport Rocketry Magazine’ a bimonthly publication of the National Association of Rocketry” states a representative.
According to Zachman he and his wife formed the Ripley Ohio Association of Rocketry in Sept. of 2019 and when explaining the Association he states that “In the following years we have through grants from our national organization (The National Association of Rocketry) and Tom and Jane Zachman we have taught the art and science of sport rocketry to almost two hundred elementary, middle school, and high school students from Brown and Adams schools and distributed we over one hundred free rocket kits and motors for the students to build, fly, and keep.”
It was around the early 1960s that Zachman started to become involved with the sport of rocketry and throughout his early journey he got to feature in an article with the Cincinnati Enquirer and from that point forward he kept progressing his endeavours in the sport.
“That said I am still learning about sport rocketry and pursuing different aspects of the hobby such as radio-controlled rocket gliders and parachute recovery systems as well as GPS trackers with telemetry, computerized altimeters, and video rocket cameras” Zachman states.
Zachman described the meaning of being a recipient of the awards helps the rocketry program in Ripley and validates it as well along with the mission that the program communicated and showcases.
“Receiving these awards validates the scope and appeal of sport rockery in Ripley, Ohio. Our mission is to bring that passion for STEM centric sport rocketry to as many persons of all ages who wish to join us” Zachman states.
The second recipient of an award was a rocketeer from Ripley named Jake Franklin who was awarded for “Best new Volunteer of 2023” and a representative states that “Jake Franklin a 14-year-old rocketeer from Ripley was the recipient of the ‘Best New Volunteer of 2023 award’.”
The representative further states that Franklin, “Notably worked for hours without a break at the National Museum of the Air Force ‘Rocket Day’ at Wright Patterson Air Force Base at Dayton, Ohio aiding hundreds and hundreds of mostly young families fly their very own just constructed sport rocket many for the very first time.”
Franklin helped launch hundreds of rockets with the hours that he worked without a break and a representative stated that “Mark McBride Secretary of the Wright Stuff Rocketeers calculated that 665 sport rockets were launched in that single day at a rate of nearly a rocket accelerating from the launch pads every thirty seconds for over six hours.”
When asked what receiving this award mean to Franklin stated that “I thought it was really cool to get it, I did work really hard to get that to fly that rocket the one that I built and finish that build that I did and completed it and very successfully and then when I got the award I was pretty excited about it.”
The rocketeer program means a lot to Franklin who stated that “I love it” and that in the program you get to “Build the rockets and then you get to fly them, you learn about the center of gravity its all about aeronomics” and that “We get to go to different places like Cedarville some places out in Indiana, Dayton and then we fly in Ripley.”
The Ripley OH. Association of Rocketry will be launching its rockets behind the high school in Ripley as well as other launch sites that will be used.
According to a representative “Tom Zachman and Jake Franklin can be seen launching their fire-birds along with other members of the Ripley Ohio Association of Rocketry at the RULH High School Lower athletic fields, the Moran-McCaughey Sport Rocketry Range at Howland Road, and other launch sites.”
