The Lirpa Sloof Foundation is pleased to announce the 2nd Quarter 2004 Sloof Amateur Project Grant goes to Project Stratofox, a hobbyist aerospace tracking and recovery group based in San Jose, California. The grant is in the form of a Lockheed L100-30 cargo aircraft, the civilian version of the Lockheed C-130 Hercules.

In announcing the award, Dr Lirpa Sloof, founder of the Sloof Foundation, said Project Stratofox is a unique example of a group which depends entirely on invitations to other groups' events to perform searches for rockets or research balloons that are launched. "We were impressed by Stratofox's accomplishment in locating a research rocket 15 minutes after it touched down from a flight to 82,000 feet. The military would be hard-pressed to beat that and would have used orders of magnitude more resources." This grant will allow Stratofox to bring ground search vehicles to their search area by air, including landing on dry lake beds. The plane can also be used for aerial searches.

The grant includes creation of an account to be managed by the Foundation which will cover fuel, insurance, maintenance and ramp space at the San Jose International Airport.

About the Sloof Foundation

The Sloof Foundation is a non-profit philanthropic organization which supports science and technology research projects. The foundation is based in Las Vegas, Nevada and was founded by Dr Lirpa Sloof. The Foundation's primary focus is on university research projects, and also offers a quarterly grant to amateur projects which provides them with tools of the professionals in their subject area. The foundation's web site is at www.sloof.us.