So, BARs, what brought you back into rocketry?

I watched a season or two "Master Blasters" and an LDRS show BEFORE Mythbusters got involved and I was reminded of the rockets out in the garage but nothing happened.

Then one day I cleaning out the trunk of the car and found my daughter had bought an Estes almost ready to fly (ARF) model and for some reason that did it.

Fast forward five years and some 8k Ns and a couple of grand, here I am working on my Level 2 rocket and had to build another workbench/storage cabinet for my range boxes, motor hardware boxes, reload boxes, parts boxes, rocket cradles, etc.

Money going up in smoke...literally!

I thought it would be something to entertain my son and niece with while on a family trip to Texas in 1994 after stumbling onto a hobby shop in the middle of closing. I bought an Estes Ninja and a pack of A10 motors along with a Michael Waltrip Pontiac Gran Prix model and got change back from my $10. I started building it at my in-laws house when I got back from my little sanity excursion, not knowing that my brother in law had also been active in rocketry when he was a kid. He came home, saw what I was doing, heard the story, and said "Get your coat." We sat around the table that night building after dinner, then went to a park later in the week and burned off our motor stash. Tony was hooked and joined DARS. My Ninja got crushed on the way home. My wife and sister in law snuck out one day and bought the rest of the rockets they could find for Christmas gifts for Tony and I. My son and I would launch once a year after that until 2001 when Tony and his family moved back to Ohio. We were going up to see their new house and Tony mentioned that there was a club launch and that I should bring something to fly. Everything I had at that point had been put into a closet in the basement, and all I found when I went to dig it out was a bunch of bent tubes and shattered balsa. When we got to Akron, Tony was disappointed that I didn't have anything to fly, but we got to talking about our favorite rockets from the 70's while we were sitting around having a beer or four. Tony got the bright idea to check the internet, and we found the JimZ plan site. The next day we hit a hobby shop and I bought the parts to build an 18mm Estes Condor, along with an Estes Alpha IV and Rattler 7, two birds that I could build in an afternoon for the launch the next day. It was cold and windy that next day, and the recovery walks were awful. I made two C6-5 flights with the two birds I'd bought, saw the launch of a G motor, which sounded like it was ripping the sky in half, and saw an LOC bird come in ballistic and rekit itself on the frozen ground. With a break here and there I've been hooked ever since.

I believe most people knew there was a Semroc before 2002. Carl started it in his home town his senior year of college. He had around 25 employees and they were even making engines. It went insolvent after a few years so he had to close. After many years as a design engineer, he decided he was tired of supporting everyone else (he had a design company) and wanted to get into something just for the family. He has designed some games on the internet for fun and was going to do something like that but Bruce suggested restarting Semroc. They had been flying for fun for a few years. That a short version of the rebirth of Semroc.

Sheryl

My parents handed me a box of my old rocketry stuff and said, "get it out of our house." ... I saw a half built Estes phoenix and decided to finish it... Headed to a launch at the Bong, Tim sold me a G64 for my Lil nuke, and the second it took off... Insta-hooked. I blame Tim. Cause he takes all my money.

That's a familiar sentiment, Cz. I blame WOOSH/Bong/Tim for venturing beyond paper and black powder.

Thanks Sheryl

Carl McLawhorn as a BAR... I wonder how many of us didn't know that? I knew Semroc as a company that had been around, went under, and then came back (from the website and info on the kits), but I didn't know any more than that.

Like everyone here, I'm thrilled that it will be returning again.

God Bless!
Jim

Buddy of mine called said he was in a hobby store with his son and guess what he was looking at. I said, "You're looking at rockets aren't you". We had built and launched LPRs twenty years prior. Just the mention was enough to buy some kits. It was the internet that kept me drawn into it. The last time I had done it, the web was barely a thing. With so much information within easy reach I learned so much more than I had known in the 90s. So many new things to try.

A sudden lapse into insanity.

Hard to pinpoint exactly where my BAR moment(s) were, I've got a complicated personal history with rockets.

I started in summer 1968 aged 10 in Webelos Cub Scouts flying an Estes Streak on 1/4A's. Lost the thing on an A5-4 (hah!) but the hook was set. My Dad started helping me when the same summer I got an Alpha run over by "four cars and a semi" as my launch buddy David Moore put it. Somehow Dad reconstituted the flattened Alpha and it lived to fly again -- and I still have the body.

My first attempt to exit the hobby happened when I was about 13. I shouldn't have done that...gave away an Estes Space Plane, a Mark that probably had a Gleda-made parallel wound tube, an original Mars Snooper, an Avenger and a couple of others. But that only lasted a few months. My first BAR event happened in the spring of 1972...that summer I took a bus ride to a contest in Davenport IA, started DART that fall, and there was no looking back. Dad and I did NAR competition for the next 20 years.

Dad's passing in 1991 triggered my second exit from the hobby...NARAM-34 in Las Vegas was my last for a long time. Except it wasn't quite an exit...I kept all my stuff but just went inactive. In the next 20 years I went to a mere handful of DART launches. But I never felt like I was gone and not coming back.

My "re-BAR" happened around 2007 when a bunch of things coincided...I reconnected with Kenny Harkema (KenRico here), found TRF, YORF and SEMROC, and within a year or two attended Plaster Blaster 9 and saw some serious HPR action, and went to NARAM-54. Since then it's been full on, or as much as work will allow. I've been enjoying HPR in the desert and getting back into LPR comp at the same time (talk about burning it at both ends).

So I may not quite qualify as a BAR, but my name is Dave and I've been addicted to rockets for 47 years and counting.

So it's normally the kid's fault. Fair enough.

Not in my case My daughters were actually obstructive because neither one of them turned out to like rockets, and neither does my wife.

I'm all alone and swimming upstream. And we know what happens to salmon when they get where they're going.

My kids kind of like the rockets - they're very proud of their baby berthas, but could live without. My wife actually seems to enjoy going to the club launches in Geneseo, NY once or twice a year...

So what brought you back into rocketry?

Divorce and freedom!

blackbrandt said:

So it's normally the kid's fault. Fair enough.

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That's the "kid in all of us's" fault... :wink:

I got back into rocketry about twenty years ago. My parents had given me a birthday gift with permission to exchange it of I already had one. I did. So, I returned it for store credit. Looking around the store, I spotted an Estes starter set. I bought it along with a Bullpup kit.

But, that wasn't really what got me back into the hobby, it just led to it. Shortly afterwards, I visited a hobby shop and saw a rocketry magazine for sale. Reading it, I learned that Estes had reissued the Saturn V kit that I never could afford to buy as a kid. Now, I could. I spent about six weekends building the kit.

A few months later, my wife and I bought a new house. The builder, Ken, came over to do some repairs and he saw my small collection of model rockets. He remarked that he had enjoyed rocketry when he was young. Soon, he had built a few kits and we began launching rockets together. Then one day he told me that he had learned of a local rocketry club that launched big rockets. We began going to the Spaceport Rocketry Launches then the NEFAR launches. That's when I really got back into rocketry.

-- Roger

I've never really left the hobby since 1968; I've always flown at least one rocket per year. But there have been a couple of times that I've drifted away from the NAR (and therefore, connection to the hobby in the times of no internet). The first was '74-'77, coinciding with college years, and then again '82-'88 which were my "discovering computers" years. Since I was still buying motors and flying the occasional rocket, what "brought me back" was simply the desire to see what was going on in the universe beyond Estes and Centuri. Finding a small hobby shop in Snellville with LOC rockets and Vulcan motors in 1988 that sponsored a fledgling NAR Section (GAMMA #494) also helped.

What's BAR stand for?

I'm assuming it has to do with coming back to rocketry as an adult.

Anyway, I used to tag along with my older brother and his friends when they launched in the early 80s. I especially remember an estes x-wing model that I thought was super cool.

I launched a few times in the cub scouts, and then my parents bought me a set in the late 80s. I launched from that set once and lost interest.

Fast forward to this Christmas when I got an estes Alpha III starter set for my son. I enjoyed the whole process of assembly and launching so much I went out and bought my own- a hi-flier. I lost that one on the second launch and just finished a Baby Bertha. Now I'm looking at non-estes kits like Semroc and Newways for my next build.

BAR: Born-Again Rocketeer
BABAR: Born-Again-Born-Again Rocketeer
Re-BAR: Any more than the above.

caveduck said:

My Dad started helping me when the same summer I got an Alpha run over by "four cars and a semi" as my launch buddy David Moore put it. Somehow Dad reconstituted the flattened Alpha and it lived to fly again -- and I still have the body.

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Now THAT I'd like to see!

While cleaning out my parents' attic I opened a box, and I smelled a faint odor of burnt black powder mixed with baby powder.

As a 14 year old, I started with mail order catalogs, and local hobby shops. I got in to some pretty big LPR stuff and flirted with MPR. Then I got old enough to worry about going to college and going after girls. This combination was the end of the rockets for a while. To get back in, I won't pretend it was kids, I saw my old rockets one day and looked things up on the 2001 internet, and BOOM. I was was now an adult, had enough money and sometimes enough time to build and launch rockets. The rest is history. Now I have 4 kids, and even less time, but I use them as an excuse to get more rocket time building or flying.

My wife and I got into rocketry for an outlet for my son and a family hobby.

A blended family arrangement when I remarried, I now had my (then) 6 year old son and 10 year old stepson and wanted to get these kids out of their rooms playing video games and doing stuff together. We walked into a hobby shop that was Rocket-centric, and that is all it took. That was in 2001.

rbelknap said:

This:


and also this:


and then there's this:
View attachment 252662

okay, and also this:
View attachment 252663

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I've never seen better reasons!

FastCargo said:

This kid's fault:

View attachment 252660

Found him playing with my Estes 1/100 Saturn V a few years ago, asked if he was interested in it. So, I dug out my old rocketry stuff (that I hadn't touched in over a decade) and went launching. Up until that point, I had forgotten how much I enjoy the building (except for sanding...hate that) and launching aspect of the hobby. Been back in it ever since.

FC

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You're going to have to tell us about that Soyuz there in the picture...really nice!

K'Tesh said:

I'm sitting here killing time before my next class, and I got to thinking about what got me back into rocketry this time (my first BAR period was just picking up where I left off (being stationed overseas does that to people)).

My flame for rocketry re-lit with the discovery of the 808 #16 camera, and a desire to record my bike commutes of all things. The camera was finally affordable, and I picked one up. Then I glanced at a Semroc reproduction of the Cineroc, and that was all it took.

So, what's your story? What got you back into it?

Pointy Side Up!
Jim

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1st BAR- the arrival of the mighty D motor back in 1970's.
2nd BAR- seeing the cover of High Power Rocketry in a hobby shop in 1991- cover shot was a huge rocket at Culpeper in Virginia
3rd BAR/reBAR- after a career change and a move, I watched October Sky, too much fun and memories to quit.

Currently Level 2...maybe a Level 3 someday. No rush.

When I was 12 yrs old I received my first rocket kit. When I finished it I realized that I didn't have a launch pad or any engines and my parents didn't realize that this model rocket was actually meant to fly. It was a full year later that I purchased a PowrPad and a package of engines with money earned from mowing lawns and piling firewood. That year I met another kid with like interests and we built rockets and flew according to what we could afford or what our parents gave us. At 16 I received a Centuri Saturn V and that gave me the bug for scale rockets. A couple years later life took other turns. Now I'm 48 and I was looking for something for my wife and three kids to do together that was both fun and educational. My whole family loves archery and we shoot recreationally all year, but I felt we needed something different to add and model rocketry came to mind. I bought a couple of E2X kits and my kids loved them. As with other members here....my boys enjoy launching and recovery but my daughter is the builder.

I got back into rocketry partly for something to do with my small children (oldest is 6 now and the youngest 3 weeks), I needed something that wasn't to high energy for a 43 year old. I still had all my rockets from 30 years ago, including a Estes Courier (kit 1911), Space Shuttle Orbiter (it looks like a impatient 12 year old put it together, which is the truth), an Estes Sentinel, Comanche 3, a busted up and repaired Alpha (red white blue version) from the Boy Scouts 75th Anniversary Jamboree that was held in Nashville, TN where I grew up, the kits were built and launched, when recovered someone gave it to me. Now my fleet keeps growing with a 29mm powered Mean Machine clone, 24mm APCP powered Blue Bird Zero clone, my daughters Semroc Skyhook, and Snipe Hunter re-releases (she won at club launches). Now its on to L1 and L2.

One of my inspirations for getting started in rocketry was my uncle who is a Electrical Engineer who works with rocket/jet engine controls and still works at AEDC today, get to play with the real thing. He had an old Estes BigFoot pad. My first pad was a was the starter kit with the space shuttle orbiter and the Solar Launcher that used the Pola-Pulse P-100 battery.

My first BAR was short lived as my son wanted an Estes starter kit but lost interest. Ten years later my dad found a box with rockets from 70's. A few were my brother's but most were mine. Remembering how much I enjoyed building them got me back in it. My youngest daughter likes to be there when I do get the chance to launch. I've only been back at it for a year or so but it's fun. My goals this year is to send more of them up and try to make a club launch somewhere.

I remarried back in 2009 and my wife had seen a couple of HP rockets in the garage. She was interested and we watched some high power video and she wanted to go to a launch.

We put it off for a few years (I am very active in RC and fly most weekends and attend 8 or 9 RC events a year)

Last summer a buddy of mine scored some super deals on a collection of Aerotech kits and on an impulse, I bought an ARCAS for Robin. The kit delighted her and she built it with some guidance on modifications from me, mostly to make it accept longer motors.

Her first flight was picture perfect on a G40-7 at the DARS HP launch last July and she will eventually certify L1 with it later this year.

This got me interested again and I have made it to 3 of the HP launches since then. Several projects currently being built.