Beginnings

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43 years ago yesterday, I watched on TV as Apollo 4 (the first Saturn V) was launched. That day I walked into school with my wimpy science fair project (it was a classroom-only science fair, so I didn't waste a lot of time on it) which was a detailed drawing of the inside of a Saturn V, as much as I could tell from various magazines and books.

The kid setting up next to me, Elrich Kirchman, brought in what I later learned to be a Centuri launch pad with an Estes Honest John (K-27) painted dark green and bright red. He tried to explain about the engines and the parachute, etc. But I could not comprehend exactly how they worked, so he lent me an Estes catalog.

I was hooked immediately, but couldn't get the parental units to go along with the idea. They got me one of those fairly impressive Park Plastics water rocket sets for Christmas (the one with "console" and "launch tower" and a couple of rockets, one of which was two staged), which I played with all day Christmas day, but was bored with the day after.

I convinced them to let me get a kit in February (an Honest John) and build it, but I screwed it up royally (tried to install the engine mount before all the glue had dried. A couple months later I'd saved enough allowance to buy the deluxe starter set, and finally made my first rocket flight in July.
 
The first time around, a friend of mine during the sixth grade brought an Estes catalog into class. The summer between sixth and seventh grades was my first "summer of rocketry." It continued a few years after that, but at a much lesser extent.

The second time, I was sucked in when this video first went viral:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8kG2g8BMJs

Summer 2009 was the second "summer of rocketry."
 
I started back in the 1980's when one of my sons became interested in Estes rocketry. He ended up doing a science project based on our experiences. We flew a number of small rockets and managed to lose most of them but I still have the original Alpha III range box, launcher, etc. The bird is long gone, tho.

I came back to rocketry about three years ago when I discovered a well-used Estes Taser launch set in the trunk of my daughter's car. She said she'd burned all her motors and did we still have some leftovers in my workbench...

The rest as they say is history.
 
I was always interested in space exploration -- I was 4 years old for Apollo 11, and remember watching the telecasts of the mission (and the other Apollo missions). At that time, Gulf gas stations were giving out cardboard punch-out models of the LEM -- I had three of them (one made by my father, and two others given to me by neighbors, who knew all about my interest).

When I was 11 (summer of 1976), we took a driving vacation to the eastern U.S., including visiting my aunt and uncle in Virginia. They had several sons near my age, and they had all gotten into model rocketry. During our visit, my cousins took me out one afternoon to launch a couple of rockets, and I was hooked. One of my cousins gave me the 1976 Estes catalog to take home with me, and I pored over it. I eventually convinced my parents to get me a starter set (which contained the Citation Patriot as the rocket). I didn't realize that it required building the launch controller (a major project for an 11-year-old), but I had a lot of fun building both the controller and the rocket. Alas, on its maiden flight, the shock cord came undone from the nose cone -- the nose cone drifted off on the parachute, while the body came crashing down.
 
I saw my first rocket launched at a Day Care center where I was working
back in 1986. I remember my older brother back in the mid 60's trying to
launch a rocket from a science kit, only to see if fail. But this rocket launched
at the Day Care was stirring to the soul. A year later, after I first began
teaching, I bought an Alpha 3 starter set. I still have it all except for the
rocket. My second rocket built was an Estes Starhawk. It still flies well
today.
 
I was walking through a cemetery when I was 7 (1963) when I saw some high school kids launching a rocket. I watched and talked with them a bit but walked away none the wiser.

A short time later my dad brought me to a hobby shop to pick up some fireworks (yep, that's where you got fireworks when I was a kid. there and the hardware store... LOL). I saw a rack of Estes rockets and begged, pleaded, cried for one.

My dad bought me the Sky Hook. I built it with help from my mom (she was the crafty one) then realized I only had the rocket. Apparently I needed something called a "motor", "launch pad" and a "launch controller"...

Back to dad, but he would have nothing to do with it. He was done spending money. So, what to do? I then hit up my grand pa (Elmer). He was fascinated with the space race and quickly agreed to get the additional material as he wanted to see it fly too. But there was a catch...

I spend the rest of the summer in Schroon Lake making dough and sauce for my grandma's pizza shop to pay for the equipment.

'twas worth it though :)
 
Got into it as a boy of about 10 right around 1979 or so, started with the Alpha III launch set which I still use today, including the rocket! The rockets got put away when I went off to college, and then I would periodically re-discover them every few years. But when my oldest son was about 5 he discovered all my stuff, and I got back into it with him on a more consistent basis. On the internet we found our local club that we launch with almost every month weather permitting, and we're still going strong. My daughter has shown a little interest but I also have a younger son who I think will be into it as well, he's shown some signs at 3 but the jury's still out. But at this point I see myself staying in the hobby regardless of the kids level of interest.

Glenn
 
My first launch was when I was just a kid. My Uncles took me to a field somewhere, I think I was about 8 or 9 (I'm 45 now). They launched their rockets using the car battery as I recall. Not long after than I had my own Estes Box. I built several rockets over the next few years launching from a field across the street from our house, nothing big though.

That was long ago. I recently jumped back in with my 9yo daughter. We have 3 rockets (2 FlisKits, and 1 Estes) we are working on now, and I also plan to continue even if she looses interest. I'm enjoying having something to do that the whole family can enjoy, and gets us away from the computer/TV :D

Welcome back!
 
I was walking through a cemetery when I was 7

I'm certain there's a story behind what a 7-year-old Jim Flis was doing walking through a cemetery...

(yep, that's where you got fireworks when I was a kid. there and the hardware store... LOL).

In the mid-1970s, my father and my uncle bought a hardware store which had been in business for decades. There was all sorts of random stuff in the basement, things which hadn't been sold in years (but were still in storage, forgotten). The best part was when the building inspector came by.

"Where are you storing the dynamite?"
"Dynamite?!?"
"Sure...this store always used to sell dynamite. If you still have any, where is it?"

My father and uncle spent days tearing apart the contents of the basement, just to make sure that there weren't any leftover explosives lying around.
 
I was always interested in space exploration -- I was 4 years old for Apollo 11, and remember watching the telecasts of the mission (and the other Apollo missions). At that time, Gulf gas stations were giving out cardboard punch-out models of the LEM -- I had three of them (one made by my father, and two others given to me by neighbors, who knew all about my interest).

Hey I remember those!!! I remember attaching a string to it, throwing it over something high and doing my own "landings". I was crushed when my Mom ended up sitting on it, but not as crushed as the LEM. :D

I don't remember exactly how I came to the hobby, it was 1973. But I flew for 5 years until we moved to Houston and other than a brief dip back into the hobby in the late '80's, nothing until 2005. Now I'm hip-deep in it... this hobby sure is a LOT more fun when you have money. :2:
 
They got me one of those fairly impressive Park Plastics water rocket sets for Christmas (the one with "console" and "launch tower" and a couple of rockets, one of which was two staged), which I played with all day Christmas day, but was bored with the day after.
That sounds very much like the one I had. Seems the console was light blue. There was a yellow hose, I think. At least one of the rockets was red (I wanna say both were).

I recall having one accident with it in which it prematurely launched while I was still pumping it up, and it hit me, but I was unhurt, fortunately.

I googled for a pic, but all I could find were the hand launched versions. No luck on finding the console.

Doug

.
 
My first rocket was an Alpha Range box given to me by Hewlett Packard as a Christmas present for 8 year old boys in 1974. Imagine that, a corporation giving all employees kids a Christmas present…and a rocket at that! Oh, the good ole days. Any way, the deal with my parents was that if I built a rocket kit and finished it to look like the one on the face card I could then get another kit one skill level higher. With the enclosed catalog firmly in hand I began dreaming of the Saturn 1B. So I cranked up my building skills on a Der Red Max, then the semi scale and Maxi BruteV2, then the brand new Space Shuttle kit was skill level 4 and then the mighty Saturn 1B was finished out for 1976. After that I built all the skill level 5 models and then started back down the scale with the Orbital Transport, Pershing 1A and Star Wars kits. By 1978-79 it was al over as cars, home computers, and Dungeons and Dragons caught my attention.

Time warp. As a wee BAR in 2007 I bought a Sheri’s Mercury Redstone, opened the box and could only think of how I was going to get my building skills and patience level back up to what I had possessed when I was 10. I simply closed the box and went out to get a Skill Level One D Region Tomahawk to start all over again.
 
I'm certain there's a story behind what a 7-year-old Jim Flis was doing walking through a cemetery...

It was just the quickest way home from school. See, back in *those* days most folks just walked home from school if it was under 2-3 miles... :)
 
this hobby sure is a LOT more fun when you have money. :2:

I've actively avoided getting into anything other than LPR during my return to rocketry. Due to that, it's remained a relatively inexpensive hobby for me...leaving me to be able to spend money instead on my more expensive hobbies (role-playing games and guitars...)
 
1970 or so. My brother came home from school with an Estes kit.
All he let me do was fasten the damn paper disc to the streamer and shock cord :mad:

I took up rockets for myself a couple years later while still in grade school. The classic Alpha starter kit in cardboard box. Paper route money. I flew either in a local park else adjacent to cornfield next to grandparents home in central Minnesota.

The *big* event for me back then was celebrating the bicentennial by flying an Estes Scrambler on July 4 of that year. Duck down behind the car door as I hoped the 3 motor cluster worked (did not) and the egg shell stayed intact (did not).
 
I saw an Estes ad in a science magazine (probably Popular Science) around 1960 and placed an order for an Astron Scout, one of their experimenter kits and a bunch of engines that came packed in red cardboard tubes. In those days, you just put the cash in an envelope along with the order form.
 
I was at my Uncle's house and a neighbor said he and his kid were going to launch a rocket. They wanted to know if I would liek to come along, so I dragged my dad with me to the local softball field.

It was an orange and yellow alpha, and the shock cord broke, but I was jumping around shouting "COOL!" for the rest of the day. My parents, however, said I had better thigns to do with my time and their money that launch silly rockets (Michigan farmers...)

A year later I was at my other Uncle's house (the weird uncle with the "Coffee substitute", flower-power art, granola, and black powder rifles), and it was my birthday. He asked what I wanted while we were patrolling the Rim-Rock Mall and I said a rocket. He grabbed a Starblazer X-20 and we flew it from his front yard.

My parents found out about it when I launched from our pasture. I guess they figured it was mostly safe, because they let me keep doing it. My dad even helped me build a range box (which is now used to tote his bee-keeping stuff)

I kept going from that point (sixth grade) until I went off for basic training. I got in a little trouble in the Army for launching from the parade ground, but since there was no regulation expressly forbidding such weirness, I was spared harsh punishment.

After the Army, my interest re-lit when our records clerk ("Dangerous Dan") and chief pilot were talking about rockets one day (I worked at a tiny airline in Grand Rapids, MI). We all went to a Three Oaks HP launch, and I had the smallest rocket there :confused2:

Then I took ajob in California and started launchign with LUNAR and BayNAR. Then to Indiana where I didn't fly... it was too flat there, no challenge.

Then to Atlanta to fly with Roy, et al.

That's my beginning. I'm just comming up on the middle now.
 
Whered did you all start? Did you pick this up as a hobby or in the classroom?

When I was in grade school I was building and flying (badly!) balsa "U" control airplanes (my dad had gotten me into the hobby as he did it when he was a kid). I was also an astronomy buff and followed the Apollo space program fanatically!

When I hit high school I heard an announcement that the school's "rocket club" was having a "launch". That sounded really cool! So I went to watch.

I'll never forget that 1st rush I got watching these brightly colored streamlined machines launch! They went so much faster than my balsa planes and looked so much better!! And they even had automated parachute recovery devices!!

When someone told me these things were made of cardboard tubes and balsa fins I couldn't believe it! How could such fragile materials resist such huge accelerations and speeds?!?!

I joined the club immediately and ordered my 1st rocket supplies and kits through the club...the old Estes Alpha starter kit and some other neat kits.

My earlier Balsa plane building experience had instilled a discipline of careful building that I applied to my rockets (airfoiled well sanded and sealed fins and all that). I also read & reread every TR and rocket publication I could get my hands on! I was HOOKED! I was quickly building among the best rockets in the club and became the club president the following year.

Now I'm yet another B.A.R that has gone back to this amazing hobby..what fun! I hope to found a local club in my area soon.
 
For Christmas one year, my dad got me an Estes Citation started kit with the Quasar. Mine was one of the original kits, with the Chrome fin can, nose cone, and launch pad.

I remember the first launch on an A8 in a parking lot on a Sunday. (Stores used to be closed on Sundays back then.) The rocket drifted right back to us about 100 feet from the launch pad. Then my dad repacked it and we launched it on a more powerful engine. I don't remember what it was. The rocket took off and just disappeared. We never saw a chute. We packed up and started driving home.

As we got to the end of the parking lot, I saw something and started shouting to stop. We got out and found the rocket totally destroyed. The nose cone never blew, and it was shattered and the whole front of the body tube was crushed like an accordion.

After that, I remember my dad getting me an Alpha that I built myself. We both built and flew rockets together for quite a while after that.

I remember when my friend Charlie got a Citation started kit a while after that, we though it was defective because the Chrome nose cone and fin can were white. We thought Estes accidentally left it off the plastic!
 
I was in elementary school and my friend's class got to build a rocket (~ 1979 or so). I asked for one for Christmas and so did he. We had a pretty good assembly line going in his basement that winter. We launched on a public golf course green... until we got caught! My friend got the coolest rocket - the Astrocam - with a 110 film cartridge. I think we sent it up about a dozen times altogether (his dad thought it would be cool to see pictures too, so he subsidized the motor purchases). We ended up with three mostly-non-blurry pictures.

In high school, I had two classes that built rockets. As a hobby, I had outgrown it though. When I was in my mid twenties, I just happened to see an Astrocam RTF kit for sale at Wal Mart. It was just an impulse buy. I had no place to launch rockets, so it sat in various garages until I got married and we bought our own house and had a son who - finally - grew up enough and noticed it sitting on a shelf and asked if we could fire it off. That was about 100 launches ago :)
 
It was just the quickest way home from school. See, back in *those* days most folks just walked home from school if it was under 2-3 miles... :)

And and thru the snow all year and uphill both ways too I bet... LOL:) :D

At least that's the story the way my grandmother used to tell it...

I got into rocketry looking at catalogs a ne'er-do-well buddy of mine in middle school had... Mostly Estes but he did have one of the last Centuri catalogs and he flew mostly Centuri stuff... I got a Alpha III starter set for Christmas of 84 and went from there. Lost the rocket the following summer, the box played out awhile after that, but by then I got a tackle box and the rest of my stuff to get going well on my own anyway. Still have the launch controller but it's heavily modified. Joined NAR in Jan 86 and still have every issue of "American Spacemodeling" from those days, starting with the Jan. 86 issue, and the subsequent Feb. issue where John Pursley (editor at the time) started putting the seven stars on every "AmSpam" to commemorate the Challenger Seven.

Got out in around 90-91 when I was in mechanic's school and just was flat broke and too busy to mess with it. Dabbled a bit sometime in the mid nineties, but didn't really get back in as a BAR until about 2006...

The hook sets deeper the second time around... :) Later! OL JR :)
 
Ok, before I tell my rocketry story I have another story to tell briefly, directed at OL JR. My curiousity got the better of me and I googled the device in your signature the "X-87B Cruise Basselope." Wouldn't you know it, MOST of the top results were to forums you post on with that same signature, two were links to pictures that appear to be a different version of your avatar pic. :pop:

I got my start into rocketry in the late 80's about 10-15 years later than most of you. Was likely 87-89 range, I had a few friends I flew with, my dad and his brother had flown model rockets in their youth and my parents bought me the Estes alpha starter kit as a gift. I funded MANY a build with my paper route and there was a decent hobby shop that sold rockets within a long walk or a short bike ride from where I lived. All I knew in those days was Estes and their catalogue which I ordered from regularly. As time became shorter the hobby waned as I got older and into high school and dropped off completely when I went to college. I had a good friend and roomate there that got rather wide-eyed when an Estes catalogue showed up once. He had fond memories of rockets himself.

After college, marriage and small children rockets were a memory that came back briefly when I'd run into a store display. Didn't have a good local hobby store to get them at for quite a few years either (still doing more internet now than store shopping). When Hobby Lobby opened up in our area (closer to us) about 2 years ago my wife was there with our boys and saw rocket kits. She figured she'd get them inexpensive ones in case they ended up not being built correctly; came home with the Estes Wizzard and Baby Bertha. She had ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA what can of worms she opened up that day. Not long after that I went to my parents house and brought back a bunch of stuff she never knew I had (finished and unfinished kits, launch pad, controller); I'd never discussed that old hobby with her.

The rest is history and you're right, the "BAR bug bites hard" now I almost exclusively scratch build and have RockSim. I never imagined the hobby going where it has since I left. I remember seeing the Estes Pro Series Patriot which had a 4 D engine cluster and 2 nylon parachutes and I thought that was something else. Now I'm seeing video's on Youtube of rockets flying on Q motors and wondering what I've been missing all these years.

You know one of the biggest differences from my story compared to all of yours. A lot of you had to convince your parents to let you start and mine got me started when I didn't even know you could fly a model rocket. Then my wife brought the BAR bug into the house. Just an observation...
 
went to a summer camp and one of the activites you could sign up to do for 2 weeks was rocketry. I'd seen my brothers extremely old estes camera rocket (the name escapes me) and i'd always wanted to launch it.

after two summers of having fun launching rockets i built at the camp, i decided to fix my brother rocket. Of course i glued the launch lug so bad that when i hit the launch button i got yelled at (The motor ignited, dragged the unweighted pad about 100 feet away, destroyed the blast deflector, and then broke away from the lug and crashed shortly before deploying it's ejection charge).

Since then i've gotten much better at keeping glue out of the LL :D

Stopped for a few years, realized how much i missed the excitement and anticipation, remembered that i could drive now, and i'm back into it :D:cheers::cheers:
 
I think it was in '69 when my older brother brought home an Estes catalog. I built my first rocket, a scrach rocket from parts. Lost it to some trees on it's first flight :p
 
When I saw this topic had to think of how I got started in the hobby back in the late 80s. I can not remember what sparked my interest. I remember checking books out at the library and reading about model rocketry, and saving up some money to get my Sizzler starter set at Arlington Hobby Crafters. The best I can figure is that I saw the kits on the wall at the hobby store and wondered what they were all about, that is the best I can figure. I got some other friends into the hobby but we never ended up flying together. Eventually my family moved to a different county and then I started High school and did not fly again until we did a rocket project in an engineering class, and I did fly sporadically after that. I graduated in 93 and I flew a few more times until 95 or 96. After that Other things consumed my time, and the lack of a flying area. I came back to the hobby this summer after seeing a show with Kari Byron on TV at a High Power launch, and I found NOVAAR... and like everyone else the bug bit very hard. Flying LPR is quite cost effective .. lots of bang for the buck.
 
Ok, before I tell my rocketry story I have another story to tell briefly, directed at OL JR. My curiousity got the better of me and I googled the device in your signature the "X-87B Cruise Basselope." Wouldn't you know it, MOST of the top results were to forums you post on with that same signature, two were links to pictures that appear to be a different version of your avatar pic. :pop:

(snip)...


hehehe... Yeah I found that awhile back as an avatar choice on some forum or other... can't remember where exactly...

When I was in high school, I worked in the library for two years... got the first run of all the "comedy cartoon" books (Far Side, Calvin/Hobbes, Bloom County, etc) anthology type books that came in... I LOVED the Farside and Bloom County ones... there was a cartoon in one of them, single pane, full page... it was a picture of this pathetic looking pot-bellied sway-backed Bassett hound with antlers, with a rubber band stretched back to his tail, with an atomic bomb sitting on his back, labeled "X-87B Cruise Basselope" (or something to that effect) with a big red "TOP SECRET" "stamped" across the top of the page... the picture was labeled like a military-style cutaway diagram of a weapons system, and it had two sidebars showing the "mission modes" of the Cruise Basselope. The first inset pane was labeled "Launch Phase" and showed an MP standing next to an open dog carrier from which a wet nose was protruding, yelling "SIC!" and pointing to the horizon... the "Cruise Phase" followed, showing the dog bounding along, bouncing along the ground under the radar, heading for target. The "Deployment Phase" showed the dog standing on a hill overlooking the Onion Dome Spires of Moscow, next to a "Moscow" town limit sign, with the rubber band flinging the atom bomb off his back toward the town with a loud "ZING!", and then came the "ENJOY A MILKBONE IN A COMMIE-FREE WORLD PHASE", showing the dog sitting on his haunches in the smoldering rubble, happily munching away...

cruisebasselope.jpg


Sorta summed up a lot of the stupidity I watched with the war scares and arms race of the early 80's when I was in middle school... scared the crap out of me... Remember "The Day After", "Threads", "Special Bulletin", "Countdown to Looking Glass", Tom Brokaw (who was a junior reporter then, WAY before his anchoring stint) doing news specials on nuclear attack, the turmoil over the Pershing II's, and later cruise missiles, in Germany, the neutron bomb debate, the Soviet counterplacement of SS-20's in East Europe, etc... Hard for a kid to understand, but I guess it beat Watergate and ABSCAM and Cambodia, which seemed to be all that was on TV except the Waltons until I was about 6-8 years old... then we got Reagan.... never a dull moment!

Anyway, I used to have a copy of that cartoon in the clear cover of my binder all thru high school... I was an "FFA/rocket/library/drafting nerd" and so my nickname was "OL(d) JR" (after JR Ewing, from the "Dallas" TV show that I watched too much of, so I've kept that ever since... went with "luke strawwalker" because OL JR is too short for most forums to allow you to have as a name... Luke for obvious reasons (Skywalker) and a "straw walker" is a component inside a grain threshing combine which is fitting for a farm boy "Star Wars" nerd... LOL:)

I added the signature line a few years back after going to the "Power of the Past" Steam Show in Winimac, Indiana... guess you guys up north kinda go stir crazy during the long bouts of cabin fever when everything's covered with snow, because there are some REALLY intricate "gizmos" there made by tinkerers with WAY too much time on their hands... one was a box with a motorized device underneath it, a concoction of gears, cams, levers, springs, and latches... the box mounted over it had a hole on one end, and a slot, with a piece of fake plastic cheese mounted on the other end, with a large flyswatter hovering over it. It was labeled "TOP SECRET!!! Dept. of Homeland Security Prototype-- estimated cost, $52 million each" or something to that effect... when the device was switched on, a little rubber mouse would emerge from the hole, "run" down the slot in the box top, get to the cheese, and just as the flyswatter started to come down to smash him, he'd "run" back down the track and hide in the hole, leaving the flyswatter to vainly smack the spot where he was right in front of the cheese... a whir and click later, and the flyswatter would "reset" itself up above the cheese, and the mouse would again venture out to try to steal the cheese again... It was HILARIOUS to watch... Seemed a typical government 'over-engineered' and certainly OVER EXPENSIVE type of solution to a straightforward problem... LOL:)

Later! OL JR :)

PS... I got into scratchbuilding quite a bit too... had a lady at church that used to save all the wrapping paper tubes she could come across... kept me in building supplies for a LONG time... :)
 
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Summer before third grade (July 1975) my grandparents took me and my brother to Florida for a week. We hit Disney but unexpectedly took a trip to the Cape. There I got to see my first real launch. Deke Slayton was going up in the last Apollo for the American half of the ASTP. I was mesmerized. After the launch we went to the KSC Gift shop where my grandfather baught me an X-15 starter set (the old one that actually flew). When we got home (southern MD) I found a number of other kids in the neighborhood had caught the bug too. In no time we were having impromptu neighborhood launches complete with cookouts and spectators. One of the best summers in my memory.
 
First, a comment to luke…that particular basselope, Rosebud, is/was the last of her kind. IIRC, she had an affair with Hodge Podge (the jack rabbit) and had a whole bunch of jackabasselope babies. I believe she was also used as a control system for a space weapon of some kind. Yeah…big fan of Bloom County here.

As to my beginnings, I call myself a BAR, but really only had limited model rocketry exposure as a youth. My older brothers had some model rockets and they would occasionally let me watch them launch. But their interest was pretty short lived. In middle school shop class, one of our projects was to build two rockets, of the same basic design, one “light weight” and the other “heavy weight”. We rolled our own paper tubes, cut the fins, everything from scratch, but to a specific design. If we finished those two early, we were allowed to build an “experimental” rocket, also from scratch.

Fast forward to adulthood and on the occasion that my wife and daughters would drag me to Hobby Lobby, I would eventually meander over to the science kits/models section to kill some time while they were looking at yarn or whatever it was they were looking at. I had pondered the model rockets for a few visits, but didn’t ever buy one, then one day I had, in my hand, one of the starter kits reading the packaging to see what all was included when my oldest daughter came down the isle, saw what I was looking at, and said “Cool” or something very similar. My other daughter came by shortly after, and I asked her if she thought model rockets would be fun and she whole heartedly agreed. That was all the encouragement I needed.

So over a mere 5 months or so we have been attending club launches, joined a club, joined the NAR, I/we have built 12 rockets (including two boost gliders and a Qubit), and rebuilt two of those. They Range from E2Xs up to Level 3 and from mini engines up to Es…is that a normal progression over that period of time? Maybe it’s a good thing we’re heading into winter.
 
But there was a catch...

I spend the rest of the summer in Schroon Lake making dough and sauce for my grandma's pizza shop to pay for the equipment.

'twas worth it though :)

ya do what ya hafta do when ya knead the dough
 
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