Club History

Welcome to TRIPOLI TULSA'S website! Tripoli Tulsa, also known as Tulsa Rocketry, is a group of sport rocketry enthusiasts who share a love of the hobby in all its forms, from black powder "A" motors up through large composite "M" motors. We are Prefecture #42 of the Tripoli Rocketry Association, which is the national high-power amateur rocketry organization. We welcome anyone who is interested in the safe and enjoyable pursuit of this exciting hobby.

There are many benefits to joining the club. First, you gain access to a first-rate launch site. Second, you gain access to a wealth of experience and knowledge from other club members. Third, you will find that launching rockets as part of a group is a lot more fun than launching them alone.

Beginnings of Tulsa Rocketry

What is now Tulsa Rocketry began in the Spring of 1989. My wife and I were flying a couple of model rockets on a sunny Saturday afternoon in late March. We normally flew from a defunct business park in east Tulsa, and hardly ever saw another person. That day, as I was walking out to retrieve a model I had just flown, I heard a whoosh and turned around to see another rocket's smoke trail against the sky. What?!! Another rocketeer? I raced back to my vehicle and drove around to the far opposite end of the field and introduced myself to Ken Binkley.

Ken and I began talking about our chance meeting and theorized that there were probably other "lone wolf" model rocketeers in the Tulsa area. We decided we would try to form a rocket club to bring these rocketeers together.

I contacted the Tulsa Vo-Tech and found out we could get a meeting room for free, just by asking. We printed up a few flyers and placed them in several local hobby stores, advertising the first meeting of the rocketry club on Thursday night, April 20, 1989, at the Vo-Tech. Amazingly, about 15 people showed up.

Ken and I were both NAR members and Tripoli members at that time. We brought a collection of model rockets and high power rockets to that first meeting for display. It was obvious from the turnout that we had enough interest to form a rocket club in Tulsa, so one of the main topics of discussion that first night was whether we should affiliate with NAR or Tripoli.

Almost no one was familiar with Tripoli back then. High power motors were scarce and high power launches only took place on the West coast. But almost everyone was familiar with Estes and model rockets, so we voted that first evening to form the Tulsa Model Rocketry Association and affiliate with the NAR. I was elected President, Ken was elected Vice President and Sharon Ellis was elected the first Secretary-Treasurer. One of the other members in attendance that first evening was Dan Littmann.

The OKC club was also forming about that same time and they decided to affiliate with Tripoli instead of NAR. By 1991, Tripoli OKC began hosting the first Medford launches and several Tulsa members attended those early launches. I flew my Level 1 flight at Medford on June 23, 1991, using a LOC Vulcanite and a single-use Aerotech H70. That summer the Club was becoming interested in High Power so we became Tripoli Prefecture #42 in September of 1991.

About that same time, we decided that the word "Model" in the Club name was no longer appropriate so we voted to change the name of the Club to the Tulsa Area Rocketry Association. We also began advertising ourselves as a "dual" Club, since we held both NAR and Tripoli charters, and began our tradition of flying everything from 1/2As to Ms. We dropped our NAR charter a few years later and became primarily focused on high power, but we still welcome anyone with a love for the hobby.

I remained the President and Prefect until 1994, when Ron Dunn took over the reins. Over the years the Club has had as many as 40 members and as few as three. In 1997 we lost our flying field at the business park and could no longer fly even model rockets, much less high power. Membership shrank to myself, Dan Littmann and Dave Towers. The three of us continued to meet monthly and tried to figure out how to attract more members. We realized that the lack of a flying field was the major problem but we had no luck finding a new one.

We happened to run into Jay Rickerts, who was working at Channel 2 News at the time. Jay was aware of a sod farm south of Bixby because of a news feature they had recently aired. We soon approached the land owner about the possibility of launching rockets on his property. He was quite agreeable and the Leonard Launch Complex became the site of our monthly Club launches. Since then, membership in the Club has swelled once again and our future looks very bright.

It has been my pleasure to be affiliated with this group over the years and I look forward to many more good times to come.

Hal Ellis

Founder and Prefect
Tulsa Rocketry

Copyright © 2007, Tulsa Rocketry
Page last modified Tuesday, February 27, 2007