WILSON COUNTY, Tennessee USA -- By day he teaches elementary school students about musical scales, quarter notes and the meaning of forte.

On stormy nights or summer breaks, Brian Waldrop chases tornadoes.

He once sat in a car, under an overpass in Thompson's Station, while a confirmed F1 tornado ripped up trees and rooftops around him. (An F1 tornado is capable of producing moderate damage while the most powerful F5 typically causes the most severe damage.) He has taken pictures and videos of massive storm systems and acts as a spotter for the National Weather Service.

Storm chaser Brian Waldrop of Wilson County shows his tornado research rocket at Peytonsville Road and Interstate 65 in Franklin on Nov. 15. Waldrop said the rocket, a prototype, can be fitted with sensors that measure electromagnetic energy. Photo: Steven S. Harman/The Tennessean.

Brian Waldrop opens his prototype tornado research rocket to show that it is packed with fireproof material to protect its payload of electromagnetic sensors. Photo: Steven S. Harman/The Tennessean.

Storm chaser Brian Waldrop shows the engine that powers his prototype tornado rocket. Photo: Steven S. Harman/The Tennessean.

These days, he is working on perhaps his most ambitious project, one that sounds like something from a Hollywood disaster movie.

Waldrop, 34, has constructed a rocket, capable of carrying small devices to measure temperature, barometric pressure and magnetic forces, which he would like to fire into a tornado. Weather experts say if Waldrop is successful, his rocket could help them predict or at least better understand where and why deadly funnel clouds will drop from the sky.

"This is cutting-edge stuff we're working on," Waldrop said. "It's the research no one else is doing."

Maybe that's because of the dangers that come with getting close to storms capable of picking up 18-wheelers, twisting homes off their foundations and producing softball-sized hail. Waldrop said he takes precautions and usually stays inside his black Honda Civic when the weather gets bad. He mounted extra bright caution lights to the front and rear of his car so other motorists will see him when he is pulled over during a downpour. His license plate, by the way, is "Storm5."

It has taken Waldrop, who teaches music at Lakeview Design Center in Nashville and lives in Wilson County, two years to develop a rocket that he thinks has the power and aerodynamics to pierce the strong winds of a tornado. He built a rocket stand out of plastic pipe, so it won't attract lightning. The 3-foot rocket is made of cardboard. Each rocket, which costs about $20 to create, is loaded with a digital data logger, a magnetometer, barometer and thermometer, said Richard Heene, Waldrop's partner in Los Angeles. The rocket can carry a small camera.

Jerry Orchanian, warning coordinator for the National Weather Service in Nashville, said he thinks the biggest challenge Heene and Waldrop face is getting the rocket into a tornado.

"I honestly don't know what magnitude tornado may dampen their efforts," he said. "The weaker ones, they may be able to penetrate. They'd have to be in the right path, take a shot and hopefully get into it. It's a very challenging effort."

Waldrop has two thoughts on how the rocket could get inside a tornado. One approach, which Heene favors, involves making the rocket more powerful by beefing up the motor.

"If a more powerful rocket motor is needed, we will need a high-powered rocketry license," Waldrop said.

The second notion, which Waldrop has focused on, involves letting the tornado do the work. He has designed the rocket so that it will drift or be pulled into the cyclonic winds.

"This will be the easiest method," Waldrop said. "In the drift-in method, the rocket will theoretically fly along the vortex wall upward into the core of the storm."

Waldrop successfully fired two rockets near a mesocyclone, or super cell storm, in Texas on June 6. A mesocyclone is a storm with wind and cloud rotation that can spawn a tornado.

"We did achieve some readings," Heene said. "We could see exactly where the rocket took off and when it gained a negative magnetic reading."

Brian Waldrop.

Heene, who is also a filmmaker, said he made a documentary about chasing tornadoes and hopes a television network will air it. Heene, who has created a series called "The Science Detectives," said he wants to ride a motorcycle under a tornado to take measurements. He said it also would make for good television.

Waldrop said he knows people are skeptical about the Tornado-Seeking Rocket Project but sees himself as a pioneer.

"I feel sure people doubted the Wright brothers," Waldrop said. "Some people say we are crazy, but they don't make jokes about us. The most common reaction is a laugh or a surprised look."

Channel 5 meteorologist Charlie Neese called Waldrop's goal an "aggressive one" but said getting weather measuring instruments into a twister could prove very informative.

"There is still a lot we don't know about tornadoes," Neese said. "We think we know the basic mechanics in what makes one, but there are also things we admittedly don't know. I don't think it's a bad thing to explore all possibilities about how they form, what makes them stay formed and how they become stronger."

Waldrop is not the first person who has tried to launch a rocket into a tornado. In 1981, government researchers attempted to fire a model rocket into a tornado from an airplane. The rockets failed.

People often ask him if what he's doing is anything like in the movie "Twister."

"Actually it is very much like that movie, except tornadoes are not as easy to find and we try to drive much more safely than what you saw in the movie," he said.

11-29-2006 10:47 AM  #1
ddmobley Administrator   Joined: Jul 2006 Posts: 3189	Quote: Waldrop has two thoughts on how the rocket could get inside a tornado. One approach, which Heene favors, involves making the rocket more powerful by beefing up the motor. "If a more powerful rocket motor is needed, we will need a high-powered rocketry license," Waldrop said. The second notion, which Waldrop has focused on, involves letting the tornado do the work. He has designed the rocket so that it will drift or be pulled into the cyclonic winds. "This will be the easiest method," Waldrop said. "In the drift-in method, the rocket will theoretically fly along the vortex wall upward into the core of the storm." Translation: Ir order to improve the quality of his research, Waldrop will need to get labeled as a terrorist and secure a federal explosives license. In other words, "It's less painful to get sucked up in a tornado than to obtain a federal explosives license." Isn't that strange, needing a federal explosives permit in order to study meteorology?

11-29-2006 10:28 PM  #2
baxterl New Member   Joined: Nov 2006 Posts: 2	Come on over and visit... Our clubs fly in the next county over from this fine gentleman, and we have plenty of folks who are fully certified, licenced, and itchin to fly strange and unusual rockets. If he would stop by a Music City Missile Club launch sometime I am sure we could hook him up. The next question is how do you get FAA Clearance to fly to 10K ft from a random, variable location in the middle of a storm. Even though it would be stupid for a plane to be anywhere nearby, they would probably still want 24 hours notice and your exact launch coordinates.

11-30-2006 08:55 PM  #3
crontab Certified Level Three   Joined: Aug 2006 Posts: 204	Quote: The next question is how do you get FAA Clearance to fly to 10K ft from a random, variable location in the middle of a storm. Even though it would be stupid for a plane to be anywhere nearby, they would probably still want 24 hours notice and your exact launch coordinates. If the rocket is less than 16 ounces in weight or contains less than 113 grams of propellant, there is no need to contact the FAA. On the other hand, I doubt the thought has ever crossed their mind.