Black Rock Desert.  Nevada.  Gerlach.  I just love this place.  The Black Rock Desert, just outside the town of Gerlach in northern Nevada is without question the rocket mecca of the earth.  Legends have been born here, dreams achieved, life-long friendships forged.  Likewise dreams have been shattered, relationships tested and the battle between gravity and rocket lost.

The Black Rock Desert is considered the go-to site for large rocket launches.  The vast openness of space is considered unprecedented for large rockets and their recovery. Due to the shear size of the lake bed, it draws large rockets with the ultimate in quality, craftsmanship, power and technology that cannot be compared to others anywhere.

ROCKETS Magazine's BALLS 15 Click to enlarge

The Tripoli Rocketry Association's annual experimental extravaganza, BALLS, is a demonstration launch of experimental motors and airframes designed using the top technologies in the hobby.  This is a venue for those projects not flown publicly because of safety and legal restrictions.  Here you will find large rockets that utilize complex clustering or staging techniques, metal construction, and home-brewed propulsion systems.

For this reason, I was excited when the ROCKETS Magazine BALLS 15 DVD set arrived in the mail. I have only been to Black Rock once, but that trip left an indelible mark in my memory that will never be forgotten. Anyone that has ever been there knows exactly what I am talking about. Some people like the islands. Some like the mountains. I like Black Rock.

Sadly, Alex's last hurrah.

Goodguy Gene Nowaczyk.

Wedge and Co.'s Nike.

BALLS is about power...tools.

Dave and Rob's SU booster.

The ROCKETS guys had me sold on their style of video composition from the moment I viewed their first DVD. They make you feel like you are actually there. And I wasn’t disappointed with the BALLS 15 DVD. The opening screens take you down the two-lane highway leaving Gerlach, heading north, and then make a right-hand turn onto the dry lakebed. Leaving the roadway to race across that dusty expanse is a great feeling, and the camera captured it perfectly.

Did I mention dust?  Yes, I did. Black Rock, for those unfortunate ones who have never visited, is a virtual dust bowl. It’s a fine, penetrating dust that gets everywhere and never comes out. The wind often obscures everything with large dust storms that will send you looking for cover. But I still love it. The expansive, wide open space. The mountains. The sky. Until you have seen the sky at night on the Black Rock Desert, you can’t really understand the beauty. The Milky Way is truly a visual masterpiece on the desert at night.

And speaking of masterpieces, there were lots of them at BALLS 15. One of the things I noticed during watching the DVD was the number of P motors there. It seems everyone had a P motor. Don Alexander didn’t have a P motor, but he had a nice N2000 in his 1/2 scale Nike Smoke. The propellant produced shockwaves that were hitting pretty hard even through my speakers. Thick black smoke, lots of sparks and very loud.

The guys with the Liberty Project had a professional painter apply a paint job on their huge rocket that looked like it was still wet and about a foot thick. I know a little about automotive spray painting, but that paint job was just beautiful. Nice work, guys.

The film crew spent a little time with Team Numb, who brought a fantastic O18800 from the Northwest. This project was impeccably constructed and looked great. The throttle-up on the O motor reminded me of a turbojet coming up to pressure. What a sound. And, I loved the doughnut!  But when it came apart under thrust, it reminded me that on-site observers should stand still and try to be very thin.

One of the highlights of the DVD and of the launch itself was the flight of Gene Nowaczyk’s PIPERR. 93,324 feet on a Q20000 is a considerable accomplishment. Taking a year of his life, Nowacyzk's metaculous attention to detail screams from every area of this all-aluminum project. Measuring 14 feet in height and 8 inches in diameter, the rocket weighed 318 pounds at liftoff. And as you will see on the DVD, Gene is such an unassuming person—a genuinely nice rocketeer.

Did I mention the great job the ROCKETS guys doing in making these videos?  I know following a BALLS rocket off the rail isn't an easy task, but these guys are getting pretty good at this. Nice video work, nice camera movement, no jerky motion. And the playful comedy sprinkled here and there was free and entertaining. Seriously, without Mark Clark's help, how would Bob and Neil get this video done?

I kind of felt sorry for Dave Leininger and Rob Grygar. How prophetic were Dave's word's when he said “this flight will be the first and last for the booster.”  True to his word, but certainly not the way they had planned, as I am sure “burn-em-to-the-ground” was not what they had in mind when they pressed the launch button. It really added meaning to his term "Single-use only."  Wow.

Like all ROCKETS DVD sets, this one also includes a photo gallery that featured over 1700 still shots compiled into a slide show nearly 90 minutes in length. You won’t be disappointed. BALLS 15 was a great DVD because it made me promise not to miss the next one, made me want to go to Black Rock and taste dust. If you want to understand why I would want to do such a strange thing, get this DVD set and see it for yourself.