Tom Kreyche <<tkreyche>>
writes:

At the Seattle Glider Council Meeting on March 7, Robert
Simpson-Clark, Operations Director of the Washington Aerospace Club gave us an
excellent overview of amateur rocketry operations at their Mansfield, Washington
launch sites. By coincidence, on the following weekend, WAC sponsored the annual
meeting of the National Association of Rocketry. I dropped by to check it out,
and was amazed at the knowledge and dedication of the members, and the great
technology they are developing. How about a MACH 2 rocket launched to 100k ft
sending telemetry?

Mansfield is the WAC's premier launch site, and it gets a lot of year-round
activity. It's not unusual for a couple hundred people to show up, with rocket
launches from morning until night. This year, there will be a lot of activity on
Memorial Day weekend. It might be interesting to check it out, maybe on the
drive back from a retrieve.

The club has an FAA waiver to launch rockets to 14,000 AGL for a two mile radius around the sites. They post NOTAMS per FAA requirements. The club is primarily
using the Sportsmans Club launch site, just to the Northwest of the town of
Mansfield. For either site, the actual launches may not necessarily take place
in the center of the 2-mile circle, to account for wind drift and other factors.
Most activities will take place within this airspace, but anything is possible,
for example if a chute deploys early a rocket may drift a long ways downwind.
They are dangling a lot of laundry and you definitely don't want to wrap it
around your wing.

The FAA waiver stipulates that launches must be suspended if aircraft are overhead, but there is no guarantee that spotters will see an aircraft at high
altitudes. In any case, you should stay out of this airspace when it is active!
Ideally, you will put the coordinates in your navigation computer and create a
zone with some margin, and a warning if you get close.

If you are going to land at the Mansfield airport, you should consider an approach from the East side of the airport to keep away from town and rocket
launch activities. Traffic patterns for both 03 and 21 are left. In typical
westerly wind conditions, a landing on 21 with a left hand pattern will keep you
well to the East. A left hand pattern for 03 will put you over town and closer
to launch activities.

Here are the coordinates for the two rocket launch sites near Mansfield, used by The Northwest Rocketry club. http://www.northwestrocketry.com/

Sportsman Club (just NW of Mansfield): 47 49.06’ N, 119 39.34’W; Alt 2255’

Snell Ranch (East of Mansfield): 47 47.20N, 119 25.66W; Alt 2146’

Mansfield Airport FAA Identifier: 8W3

Lat/Long: 47 48 33.7890N / 119 38 12.9460W

47 48.563150 N / 119 38.215767 W

47.8093858 / -119.6369294 (estimated); Elevation: 2272 ft. / 693 m (estimated)