Poll: How long-time Rocket Enthusiasts got their start

dward · Jan 30, 2015

Ok, this poll is for people who are addicted to the hobby and have been so for at least two years. No newbies please. The RTF, ARF, and E2X option in the poll refers to rockets that require little to no assembly before flying. I am trying to form an opinion on the notion that RTF/ARF/E2X is a gateway drug to model rocket building.

blackbrandt · Jan 30, 2015

Estes Taser.

H_Rocket · Jan 30, 2015

I grew up at Ft Bliss (Air Defense School HQ) and my dad worked at White Sands until I was in High School. I spent entire summers there as an unpaid intern on the range. I can actually say I have seen the following missiles fly:

Talos
Arcas
Nike Hercules
Sparrow
Loki

The streets around my house had names like

Sidewinder
Bomarc
Thor

I really did not have much choice...

les · Jan 30, 2015

one question is - which time? Being a BAR I "started" twice.

But both times it was a skill level 1 or greater

ThirstyBarbarian · Jan 30, 2015

I got my (first) start before there really were any kinds of RTF/E2X types of rockets, at least that I am aware of. You had to build them. My first rocket was an Estes Alpha, and my dad help me build it.

chadrog · Jan 30, 2015

I started in the mid-eighties-ish when my (much) older brother bought an Estes Designer Special, all downhill from there.

K'Tesh · Jan 30, 2015

1st Estes Spin Fin (#1355)
2nd Estes Stiletto (#1323)
3rd Estes Cherokee D
(and it goes on from there)

chrisudy · Jan 30, 2015

Alpha III bought as a present from by grandparents in the early 1980's. Return to LPR was a RTF Patriot starter set I got on clearance at Walmart.

RocketT.Coyote · Jan 30, 2015

Centuri Micron--$1.25

BEC · Jan 30, 2015

E2X, ARF RTF did not exist when I got my original start (1966 or so). I can't remember whether it was a Streak (50 cents) or a Sprite (75 cents), but I also had an Alpha (the original, cut-your-own-fins variety - $1.50). My reentry about six years ago was facilitated by a starter set that included an RTF Patriot, a Porta Pad II, an Electron Beam and three motors that I got at Wal Mart. Many kits of various levels, scratch projects and yes, E2X and ARF and RTFs since.

Added:

Since others are mentioning launchers - I had one of the first iteration red plastic Electro Launches (which ran on four, or preferably 8 "photoflash" D cells) as my first launch system. Of all the things I had "way back then" for some unfathomable reason I really would like to get another. But when they turn up they don't come cheap...

blackjack2564 · Jan 30, 2015

They didn't have starter sets when I first began.....heck they didn't have launch pads either. You had to build your own. [1965]

WOW just hit me, that was 50 years ago.......

dward · Jan 30, 2015

blackjack2564 said:
They didn't have starter sets when I first began.....heck they didn't have launch pads either. You had to build your own. [1965]

WOW just hit me, that was 50 years ago.......

I wasn't sure if they had some RTF equivalent back when dinosaurs roamed the earth or not. I get that gives the poll a bias.

les said:
one question is - which time? Being a BAR I "started" twice.

But both times it was a skill level 1 or greater

I guess the best choice would be initially--prebar, if you will.

H_Rocket said:
I grew up at Ft Bliss (Air Defense School HQ) and my dad worked at White Sands until I was in High School. I spent entire summers there as an unpaid intern on the range. I can actually say I have seen the following missiles fly:

Talos

Arcas

Nike Hercules

Sparrow

Loki

The streets around my house had names like

Sidewinder

Bomarc

Thor

I really did not have much choice...

Cool. I stood directly beneath (one deck below) a space bound missile during liftoff during a LEAP missile test off the coast of Virginia. I estimate I was about four feet below the nozzle. The deck dropped a bit and it sounded like being inside something that is being sandblasted--very loud. I think it was the first test of that concept. Totally missed its target, but very cool. I wonder if there is anyone lurking this forum from Hughes or Rockwell that worked on the project and recalls the weekend at sea waiting for the people at Wallops to come back to work. Someone told me that oversight cost us about a million dollars a day.

FastCargo · Jan 30, 2015

Yeah, this is one of those polls where the age of the responder matters. The better question might be is asking the question only of those who got their start in rocketry AFTER RTFs/ATFs/E2Xs were introduced.

FC

fyrwrxz · Jan 30, 2015

blackjack2564 said:
They didn't have starter sets when I first began.....heck they didn't have launch pads either. You had to build your own. [1965]

WOW just hit me, that was 50 years ago.......

LOL- Lost my first rocket in the early 60's! We lived in Aurora. Co at the time. My Dad was a big time hobby lover and it was FF balsa, ship models and TT gage model trains. These were in the hobby store one of the rare times he let me go with him and I freaked so hard he got me one and had to help build it. No plastic then. Yep-a little over 50 years ago, so I don't qualify to answer. Where did the time go?

Kirk G · Jan 30, 2015

I specifically went to a hobby shop, and told the clerk that I was sampling the waters...I wanted something that I had to construct, but since I was inexperienced, I had no idea what I was getting into. They had suggested a Level 2, if I had any construction skills...but I opted for a "Freedom II" from Custom Rockets...and though extremely simple, I made my mistakes on that primitive one, and have progressed some....

(For those not familiar with it, Freedom II has four balsa fins to sand and glue onto a paper tube, a balsa nose cone, and a plastic
parachute with shock cord. The motors, like always, were separate and totally foreign to me...)

billspad · Jan 30, 2015

blackjack2564 said:
They didn't have starter sets when I first began.....heck they didn't have launch pads either. You had to build your own. [1965]

WOW just hit me, that was 50 years ago.......

Same here but a couple of years before that. The Astron Scout required assembly and I made the pad with a piece of 1/8" brass brazing rod stuck in a coffee can full of concrete. I believe the launch controller was a doorbell button and a battery.

les · Jan 30, 2015

billspad said:
I believe the launch controller was a doorbell button and a battery.

As another old fart - I can't remember what I used for a launch pad.
But when I started (too many years ago) they did not even have electrical igniters. The motor packs came with a 12" fuse that you were supposed to cut in half.
Being a kid with limited funds, they often were cut into thirds or even quarters - you just had to run faster after lighting them....

nute · Jan 30, 2015

Estes patriot starter set. 3ish yrs ago. It's been growing since then.

Nate

billspad · Jan 31, 2015

les said:
As another old fart - I can't remember what I used for a launch pad.
But when I started (too many years ago) they did not even have electrical igniters. The motor packs came with a 12" fuse that you were supposed to cut in half.
Being a kid with limited funds, they often were cut into thirds or even quarters - you just had to run faster after lighting them....

Estes motors in the early 60's came with piece of Jetex wick. You would bend it in half, strip the ends and hook it up to the clips. It worked some of the time. I too found that a match was much easier.

ballistic_trep · Jan 31, 2015

All Centuri kits circa 1978-84:

Thunderhawk
Bandito
Snipe Hunter
Jayhawk (not the magnum version)
SAM-3 (was my favourite til a tree ate it)
Gabriel
Saturn V (never flew it)
Saturn 1B (flew it once but forgot to glue on the capsule, so guess what?......)
Mercury Redstone (flew it twice successfully)
Alien Scoutship (flew it a lot to impress friends with the flip over landing....always flew well)

boomtube-mk2 · Jan 31, 2015

It began innocently enough, hanging out at the malt shop with friends when a seedy looking guy wearing a ragged trench coat sidled up to me and asked “Hey kid; want to buy a rocket?”.
How was I to know that this would be the beginning of the end, of my budget, for the remainder of my life.

Sure it wasn’t so bad when I was just building a few “Skill Level 1” kits and launching them on cheap black powder “B” motors.
But like all addictions it grows in insidious ways until it completely overwhelmed my life.
“Skill Level 1” it sounds so innocent but having tried it I felt compelled to go higher and higher; “Skill Level 2”, “Skill Level 3” there seemed to be no end to the degradation I was willing to inflict upon myself as I inevitably attempted a “Skill Level 5”.

And then it all came crashing to Earth as my reach exceeds my grasp and my “Saturn 5” turned upside down and. . .well, crashed to Earth.

You would think that a crises such as this would lead me to the realization that my life was in a retrograde orbit, a collision with fate just around the corner but I was hooked on rocketry so there was no hope for me.

Having barely survived the above crises I set out to get that next big high and just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse I discover AP motors and “High Power” rocketry and the dreaded “Cert”.

RoyAtl · Jan 31, 2015

Like some others, my entrance to the hobby pre-dated "e2x" style rockets by a year or so (The MPC Pioneer 1 from 1970 I think was the first such model on the market; the current Quest Starhawk is its closest direct descendant).
Because the first model rocket I ever saw was the Estes Honest John (K-27), that was the first one I attempted to build, and screwed it up royally to the point where it never flew. I then got a Deluxe Alpha Starter Kit, and the Alpha was the first rocket I actually flew.

Paul · Jan 31, 2015

Alpha starter set, and back then you had to build them.

rcktnut · Jan 31, 2015

billspad said:
Same here but a couple of years before that. The Astron Scout required assembly and I made the pad with a piece of 1/8" brass brazing rod stuck in a coffee can full of concrete. I believe the launch controller was a doorbell button and a battery.

The Scout was my first rocket also, remember well. Shortly after made a big step up with a Skyhook with parachute recovery. I remember slitting the body tube to attach the shock cord. Always used fuse for launching, stuck the rod in the ground. There were not to many models to choose from the first few years.

grouch · Jan 31, 2015

I had some Christmas money sitting around and my brother took it from me to buy an Estes Alpha starter set. I was pretty pissed because I wanted to buy a couple stompers. Long story short he got bored with it and I loved it. I have no idea how many Estes rockets I built over the years, most were Yankees. Loved it all but got distracted with other things until I decided just to build something again after 15 years or so of a gap. I don't see myself stopping any time soon.

Steven · Feb 1, 2015

Centuri Mercury Redstone was my first, followed by their Saturn 1b and 1/45th Little Joe II. I didn't mess around. :bangbang:

mikeyd · Feb 1, 2015

Mri Wac Corporal, about 1967-68

ThirstyBarbarian · Feb 1, 2015

boomtube-mk2 said:
It began innocently enough, hanging out at the malt shop with friends when a seedy looking guy wearing a ragged trench coat sidled up to me and asked “Hey kid; want to buy a rocket?”.
How was I to know that this would be the beginning of the end, of my budget, for the remainder of my life.

Sure it wasn’t so bad when I was just building a few “Skill Level 1” kits and launching them on cheap black powder “B” motors.
But like all addictions it grows in insidious ways until it completely overwhelmed my life.
“Skill Level 1” it sounds so innocent but having tried it I felt compelled to go higher and higher; “Skill Level 2”, “Skill Level 3” there seemed to be no end to the degradation I was willing to inflict upon myself as I inevitably attempted a “Skill Level 5”.

And then it all came crashing to Earth as my reach exceeds my grasp and my “Saturn 5” turned upside down and. . .well, crashed to Earth.

You would think that a crises such as this would lead me to the realization that my life was in a retrograde orbit, a collision with fate just around the corner but I was hooked on rocketry so there was no hope for me.

Having barely survived the above crises I set out to get that next big high and just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse I discover AP motors and “High Power” rocketry and the dreaded “Cert”.

You got the Rocket Madness!

And it won't end 'til you hit Rocket Bottom!

BobH48 · Feb 1, 2015

Estes Astron Sprite.

jd2cylman · Feb 1, 2015

I think mine was a Estes X-Ray. Or Big Bertha. I think X-Ray though for some reason sticks in my head. Don't remember what year. '76 maybe. I still have the Big Bertha. I also remember building a Centuri Arrow 300. I remember the first stage burned out about head high :surprised:

Adrian

Poll: How long-time Rocket Enthusiasts got their start

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If you have been building rockets for at least two years, how did you get your start?

RTF/ARF/E2X rocket

Skill level 1 or greater rocket kit

Scratch build or other

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