Visitors Enjoy Rocketdyne’s Red Glare on Tour : Aeronautics: For the first time, a group of spectators at the Santa Susana Field Laboratory near Simi Valley experiences the test-firing of an Atlas engine.

Unlike some other Ventura County residents last Thursday, the 100 or so people who showed up Saturday to watch and hear Rocketdyne test its Atlas rocket engine knew what was coming. Even so, most stood with their fingers in their ears and a fierce vibration in their chests and heads as the rocket revved up.

The test Saturday at Rocketdyne’s Santa Susana Field Laboratory southeast of Simi Valley was the first ever offered during a community bus tour, company officials said.

The tour was set up after a blast from the same engine last Thursday evening prompted more than 200 phone complaints, mostly from the Thousand Oaks area, to the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department.

The Saturday crowd included aeronautic enthusiasts, Rocketdyne employees and their relatives, and some people just looking for something different to do on a weekend afternoon.

Diane and Greg Hultgern of Newbury Park and their three children read about the tour in the newspaper. Seeing the test fulfilled a longtime desire for Diane.

“I grew up in the San Fernando Valley, and I heard the engines’ sound, and I always wondered where it came from.”

From the spectator bleachers about 1,000 feet away, the rocket engine was not discernible from the structure around it. In the final seconds before the test, water was sprayed on the structure to keep the fuel tank cooled.

On ignition, the rocket engine was a brilliant and noisy display, and the test, which lasted approximately 50 seconds, sent a plume of fire and steam into the air. The Atlas engine uses 7,200 gallons of liquid oxygen and 4,600 gallons of RP-1, a kerosene-type fuel, per minute to provide 425,000 pounds of thrust.

Twenty-two of the spectators were members of Shalom Seniors, a senior citizens group from Thousand Oaks.

Monica Frame of Newbury Park received a phone call Saturday morning from her husband, Gary, who works as an inspector at Rocketdyne.

“My husband called me at 10 o’clock and told me to ‘get up here. They’re testing, and you’re allowed in,’ ” said Frame, who had her three children and some friends in tow.

Dale Beck, an English teacher from North Hollywood, said he was there because a friend who works at Rocketdyne told him about the firing. Beck confesses to being an unabashed aeronautics enthusiast.

Steve Lafflam, Rocketdyne’s director of environmental and energy conservation, said the company instituted the community tours in response to some negative publicity it has received regarding reports of atomic and other forms of toxic contamination at the facility.

Lafflam said there had been too much “mystery and folklore” regarding the Santa Susana facility since its opening in the late 1940s, and the tours are intended to make the public more aware of Rocketdyne’s environmental programs.

Rocketdyne personnel even held a question-and-answer session at the conclusion of the tour. Questions ranged from those concerning ground-water contamination to those about the previous ownership of the mountain property.

Diana Croon White, a Rocketdyne spokeswoman, said the company will continue the tours as long as there is public interest. Company officials stressed that future tours may not include an engine test, although that was the highlight of the day Saturday for most onlookers.

Victor Kastner, one of the Shalom Seniors and a former worker at the Olive View Medical Center, said “It was the most exciting thing I’ve seen since the 1971 earthquake.”