funny rocket stories

Anyone have any really funny rocket stories?

Hmmm ....

About a week after the infamous "balloon boy" hoax (where a family had claimed that their young child was in a helium balloon that drifted over three counties in Colorado) I was at a NEFAR launch when a large saucer was launched.

As the saucer soared into the sky, some wise-cracker (yeah, it was me) yelled "Oh no! My six year-old is in there!"

-- Roger

I figured out the hard way why you don't use Elmers white glue in a rocket. I had just finished my Estes Hi Flier and went out and launched it. The fins stripped off and the rocket launched right at me! luckily it missed me! The glue hadn't dried yet!
(Oh yah, it was my first rocket)

If you let it dry, it works fine... like a lot of things, it works better when you follow the directions.

This goes back a few years, but I was attending one of the larger launches based on a farm (may have been a Red Glare or LDRS, can't recall).

Someone had launched a Level 3 bird (big sucker too) with a main deploy set for about 500 feet. We all watched it go up, deploy a drogue chute and begin to drop. At about 500 feet... ...nothing... 400 feet, nothing, 300, 200, 100 feet, nothing... Then...

Just as it was dropping behind a small hill you saw the main ejection charge go off, clearly far too late to be of much help to the rocket. That wasn't the bad part. The bad part was that within a few seconds of the charge going off you could see smoke billowing up over the hill top.

The field was on fire!

The range was quickly shut down and folks began running up the hill with whatever implements they could get their hands on. Several fire extinguishers were headed out as well as 1--2 trucks with water barrels. Within a few minutes the fire was out and the ground soaked thoroughly...

That wasn't the bad part...

The "bad part" was when the farmer came running out of a small out-building screaming "What the heck are you DOING!? I just LIT that fire!" Turns out this was a controlled burn by the farmer and had NOTHING to do with the rocket.... LOL

Well, after everyone had settled down the farmer *was* quite impressed with how well we guarded his farm from fire!

good day!

Everytime I get a box,the wife gives me a funny look.
Oh come on,thats funny,isnt it?
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Nother mind. :cyclops:

Just heard this one from a flyer I met at Metra's monthly launch this past weekend....


He had his 29mm Stealth on the pad - someone thought it was a blast deflector and loaded his rocket
right on top of his Stealth.... you can guess the rest....

Evidently the damage was not too bad - he just put some tape on the "affected" areas and launched it for a perfect flight !

Bob
TRA6797

One time, when I was a lot younger, I finished up a nice Quest Nike Smoke. One of my best models back then.

Everything was hooked up, pressed the ignition button and she lit up. went about eight inches up the rod and then hooked on a barb. it took almost the entire burn of the motor to dislodge it, and it went up.. about ten feet. It came right back down, lawndarted and the ignition charge fired. Blew out the entire tube. Needless to say after that, it was scrap.

A picture is worth a thousand words...

Back in the late 80's when I was in high school, I flew a lot of Astrocams... and videotaped my launches using one of those HUGE old VHS camcorders-- now I'm not talking about the little bitty palmcorders that came out in the 90's... I'm talking about one of those 20 pound suckers the size of those old "boom boxes" guys used to haul around back in those days... a little smaller than a professional TV station camera they'd send out with a reporter nowdays... SO, of course manhandling that beast, most of the launching was left to my 8 or so year old brother...

Well, the biggest problem I usually had flying the Astrocam was forgetting to open that "shutter lock" button that slid a bit of plastic inside the camera over the lens hole and prevented ANY light from entering the film box unless it was opened... that way you could reset the shutter without accidentally exposing the film. The instructions carefully advised you to IMMEDIATELY close and lock the shutter lock upon recovery to prevent accidentally ruining the exposure, and keep it closed until right before liftoff... but all too frequently I'd forget the instructions reminded one to open this shutter lock after hooking up the ignitor. Result-- burned motor, no pic...

SO, one particular day I had everything set up in the edge of the cotton field and was preparing to launch, and my little brother had manned the controller and was waiting for me to give the countdown... he inserted the key and told me the light was on, and we started the countdown... got to "3" and remembered that I didn't open that darn lock... so I called "HOLD!", which meant "remove the safety key", but evidently an 8 year old playing with his goofy dog that had wandered out to join us didn't listen or hear it and certainly didn't act on it... I looked his direction through the viewfinder and saw him lay the controller on the ground and start petting his goofy dog, who was dancing around him as I started out to the launcher to open the tiny lock lever on the Astrocam... of course I'm still filming the whole thing and lean over to open the lock, looking through the viewfinder (which was like a binocular cup back in those days) and reaching for the rocket when suddenly WHOOSH!!!! the darn thing looked like it was about to fly up my nose in the viewfinder as the rocket blasted past my outstretched hand just before I opened the lock... I released a stream of epithets as I swung around to see Jason's moronic dog, happily wagging his tail like an idiot, standing on the launch controller... I gave my brother quite the tongue lashing and what-for, but he thought that was about the funniest thing he ever saw... having the stupid dog launch the rocket past my face...

Later! OL JR

Not exactly funny, well, to him, but back in 78, my Centuri Taurus stuck on the rod of my friend's much coveted Centuri Powr Pad launcher. Burned right through the top of the lantern battery.

At the US internats team trials the day after NARAM-21 ended (Houston, 1979), an RCBG pod with a FSI F7 (9 seconds of black powder terror!!) detached from its glider on the pad and landsharked *directly* at the launch control table and proceeded to chase LCO Chris Tavares all over the place. It's amazing how long one of those motors would flop around, and it seemed to have a homing beacon on Chris...the most hysterical thing I've ever seen in rocketry, nothing else has ever come close.

Hey, sounds like the time my fins stripped off...

caveduck said:

At the US internats team trials the day after NARAM-21 ended (Houston, 1979), an RCBG pod with a FSI F7 (9 seconds of black powder terror!!) detached from its glider on the pad and landsharked *directly* at the launch control table and proceeded to chase LCO Chris Tavares all over the place. It's amazing how long one of those motors would flop around, and it seemed to have a homing beacon on Chris...the most hysterical thing I've ever seen in rocketry, nothing else has ever come close.

Click to expand...

Is that anything like the 9 seconds of terror in a hotel room in Danville?

Damn Dave I remember that!
I wasn't there, but the original Danville (Chicago) site was next to a prison and the hotel rooms opened onto the field.
Welllll...Flyers would prep rockets in their rooms in cold weather..and one guy had an ignitor inserted into an Aerotech I-65 motor and it ignited when he used a cheap lightbulb tester that was supposed to be transparent in the circuit ....
Good thing it wasn't a J because he held the rocket blasting into the corner keeping it away from his wife and new puppy:y:.....
I think he settled with the Motel for about $300 damage.

I wasn't there either but I've heard the story several times from someone who was - but I am not going to reveal my sources. I thought it was an Ellis Mountain I69? I donno, when I was told the story I was laughing so hard I may have missed a few details.

Danville launches were *apparently* quite a wild event. I learned a few things from those Danville stories:

- J motors fly quite well when taped to a broom handle. Hotel staff are quite willing to provide said handles for those flights provided no one reveals the source of the handles to hotel management.
- Prison guards get VERY cranky when you near their fence - even if you are looking for a rocket.
- Tripoli used to call board meetings to order with a ....





...Ok, I'm going to shut up now before I get in trouble.

In the 60's and before Estes had started marketing the D motors, my neighborhood of rocketeers and myself, well invested in a great many C6-5's by then, needed something with a little more punch so I invested in an Astron Cobra. "Yeah Buddy.....three C6-5's ought to get the job done." Having read how to make the "clip whips" Estes recommended, I took what little electric experience I had (at that time) and made do with what I could find. "Hmmmm....all the clips have continuity so I reckon this bugger's gonna work." I already had a car battery launch controller so I knew we had enough power to fire all three motors. Came time to launch this bird and everyone in our neighborhood club was there with some of their rockets anticipating what a cluster of C motors was going to do. 3, 2, 1, blastoff!.....OK, this rocket is ascending way too slow.......OK, it didn't go up more than 100 - 150 feet. There I was scratching my head wondering why this Cobra wasn't flying like a bat outta hell until it reached apogee and had turned downward, when all of a sudden another motor ignited. :y: It was at this moment when I realized not all of the motors fired at liftoff. We came to the conclusion that somehow the 1st motor to ignite had dribbled some of the delay out of the nozzle and into one of the 2 remaining motors while it was in that downward position. There's nothing like having your brand new rocket that you just built for a terribly anticipated awesome flight, powerhouse itself into the hardened summer Carolina soil. Yea, we have all that red dirt here and it hadn't rained in weeks. It sorta looked like an upside down launch coming out of the sky like that. The ground was so hard it may as well have bitten the dust on a paved road. There was absolutely nothing salvageable of that Astron Cobra. And I can honestly say that I have never seen a rocket fly that fast straight down. There was a lesson learned here though. Never use lamp wire to make clip whips. True story.

Now you fellas got me going...

I was LCO once for a Team1 launch when a father/son duo came up with a 2 stage D to D rocket. 3..2..1..Up part's good..arcs over..coming in ballistic..upper stage lights going straight down thus sending the rocket to terra firma post-haste. I thought about it a minute and asked the dad, "Did you put the D12-0 in the upper stage?"

Dad says, "uhhhh"
9 year old son says, "I TOLD YOU THAT WAS WRONG!"

Nike smoke and multistage in my agenda aren't looking so good...

DAllen said:

I wasn't there either but I've heard the story several times from someone who was - but I am not going to reveal my sources. I thought it was an Ellis Mountain I69? I donno, when I was told the story I was laughing so hard I may have missed a few details.

Danville launches were *apparently* quite a wild event. I learned a few things from those Danville stories:

- J motors fly quite well when taped to a broom handle. Hotel staff are quite willing to provide said handles for those flights provided no one reveals the source of the handles to hotel management.
- Prison guards get VERY cranky when you near their fence - even if you are looking for a rocket.
- Tripoli used to call board meetings to order with a ....





...Ok, I'm going to shut up now before I get in trouble.

Click to expand...

I remember most of those stories. I always heard I65. I think it was at one of the launches I attended. I missed out (but heard about) the broomsticks.

I remember sheepishly going to the prison with my brother to fetch our LOC magnum, and another time a LOC Mini Viper that went the entire way horizontal. Those were awesome - the motor mounts were far apart and the rocket was short. Mis-matched igniton with 3 H125s was very entertaining.

caveduck said:

At the US internats team trials the day after NARAM-21 ended (Houston, 1979), an RCBG pod with a FSI F7 (9 seconds of black powder terror!!) detached from its glider on the pad and landsharked *directly* at the launch control table and proceeded to chase LCO Chris Tavares all over the place. It's amazing how long one of those motors would flop around, and it seemed to have a homing beacon on Chris...the most hysterical thing I've ever seen in rocketry, nothing else has ever come close.

Click to expand...

F7s were cool. They could barely lift their own weight (29mm BP motor). We had a similar land shark with andEstes Phoenix. Keep going back and forth, up down, sideways, back up, across the other way . . .

Ok, here's another

My chem teacher used to let me launch rockets with his R/C club. One day he invited me to come to a family cookout and to launch rockets...

One of the first ones up was the Estes SR71 glider. On launch, the trim flaps kicked (glide mode) and the rocket inscribed a LARGE arc under power. Still under power, this thing made a bee-line to the neighbors back door...

Yep, flew right through the screen door! My teacher and I ran next door and burst through the door into the neighbors kitchen.

There sat a 70's+ year old man, Cheerios and milk all over th place, him staring at us while holding an empty, dripping spoon. The smoking rocket sitting on the table...

BOOM! (ejection charge)...

Smoke and debris...

Once everything settled own, the old man looked at us and declared that this was the most exciting thing that had ever happened to him! We cleaned up and he was quickly invited to he cookout. 'twas a good day after all

The video above is composed of clips that were almost all taken at one NEFAR launch. It was a day when everything seemed to go wrong for everyone. I blame the love bugs.

I'd invited a non-rocketry friend to the launch and he seemed to revel in all the clamity. I only added to the spectacle with my Talon 2. The countdown started ... "3 .. 2 .. 1 .." The motor chuffed. It chuffed again. And again. The rocket bounces on the launch pad as the motor produces another puff of smoke then ... a lot of smoke. The rocket's still on the launch pad and the delay is burning. Smoke is pourng out the rocket.

The guy is laughing his ... butt ... off. "Is it going to do that thing?" he asks. "Yes," I croak out shamefully in return. And, about then ... pop ... the nose cone soars into the air. The parachute and shock cord end up laying neatly on the ground beside the rocket.

The guy is almost doubled over laughing now.

The final laugh, however, was mine. When I went to recover the rocket ("nearest to the pad!"), I discovered that the shock cord had come lose from the rocket. If the motor had ignited, the rocket's body would have fallen to earth without a parachute and the nose cone and 'chute would have probably drifted to South America.

I wish the video was better, but one of the most amazing things in the above video is an underpowered rocket that takes off in one direction, seems to hover, then slowly drifts the other way before arcing that way into the ground.

Edit: You can't see it in the video, but ... it just occured to me that the cable from the launch controller may have have stayed connected to the rocket which might help explain the unusual flight.

-- Roger

Pause it in the right place and it looks like a mutant love bug is eating the rocket

My story could be a whole other thread..(Hiding your hobby accident from the wife)

When I was married to Joyce I had the second bedroom office and the screened patio as my twin workshops.
My wife figured I knew what I was doing when I used the West System cans in the house, as I had successfully glassed a 12' rocket on plastic in our apartment in Atlanta.
I was doing the usual between build experimenting..trying to start an excuse for another scratch build...
Anyway I left this nose cone curing and propped up correctly...or so I thought.
This bedroom was at the end of our bedroom hallway and if the door was open you could see what I was building on the desk and table.
I luckily woke up at 3am and went to the hall bathroom so I wouldn't wake her up.(She could sleep through a sonic boom)
I looked into the light spilling into the office and saw the cone cured quite nicely into the white carpet!:y::shock::jaw:

OK!! Panic for 5 minutes...then I got a great idea. I got a box from the laundry room and quietly cut out the bottom with a razor blade and put it over the accident till I could "Shave" the cone away from the carpet after she left for work at 7:30am.
Thank The Lord That I had Friday's off back then!!
About 3 hours of careful shaving with my face on the carpet and many razor blades.

Remember the first camera rockets? The ones with the circle of film? Yeah...we thot it was the bomb! Turns out it was. We kept trying all day to get a picture of us all laying down around the launch pad in a circle to get our picture taken. One thing after another. Shutter didn't work, string broke, wrong delay (even back then) and then-the last flight. 3-2-1 boom! Off it goes and everybody flops on their back and smiles for the camera. Apogee and then a puff of smoke. No chute. You have never seen seven kids levitate out of the way like we did. Ballistic three feet from the pad. I had to mow five more lawns that summer in over 100 degree weather and 97% humidity (Georgia) to get another one. That didn't work so well either. Enjoy your key cams-we've come along way, baby!

We were participating in a high power meet somewhere near Holt, MI. It was an opportunity to launch my Cosmodrome Nike Smoke on an Aerotech G80-7T. After leaving the rod the model careened wildly about the Autumn sky. At least one of the plywood fins snapped off at the airframe joint and the model pancaked onto the field. Post flight inspection revealed that the Copperhead igniter never left the nozzle and acted as a control vane which caused the heartstopping flight.
:y:

While prepping my boiler-plate X-15 with a G80-7 someone came by and asked if it was a glider. I told him that is was not a glider, just a normal rocket. During the prepping, few more people asked the same question. Nope, not a glider. On the way to the range, same question, same answer. Getting ready to launch, LCO asked if it was a glider. Nope just a normal rocket.

Flight was great, for the first 20 feet. At that point is started into a large loop, as if the pilot had pulled up on the stick. At motor burn out it had done exactly 3/4 of a loop. This left it almost perfectly horizontal, with the cockpit up, at about 20 feet up. At this point it starting into a glide. Perfectly straight glide, little down pitch. Continued til it was about 10 feet off the ground. Ejection went off, popped the chute, landed without any damage. Best glide I've ever had.

On the way back told everyone that was exactly what I planned to do. I don't think anyone believed me.

I launched an Estes 36 D Squared that went unstable, and 'boomeranged' back to the launch rod:
[youtube]gzwacoEr7ns[/youtube]

Bob

last summer I was launching some rockets at our local field. I had invited some friends to come see me launch earlier that morning (It was calm at that time). As you have probably guessed, by the time they show up the wind has picked up and is blowing pretty hard, anyway... I think to myself "I will just keep em low and all will be good". So we walk over to the field. The first two launches were great, both times it was a Big Bertha on a B6-4 (which is about as low and slow as you can get) I also brought my beloved Estes Riptide (yah, yah... I know its an rtf model but it was my first ever rocket) and decided to fly her so I prepped it up thinking "It can't go that much higher then the Big Bertha" WRONG...but the best part is before I sent her up: As I was putting the rocket on the pad I told my friends "I have launched this rocket about ten times in this field... and have never come close to losing it" they started saying "oh well knock on wood... now you can bet its going to drift into the trees!!!" well I launched it anyway and up she went...nice and high.
The parachute opened at apogee, and I guess the wind was stronger up there because the rocket drifted much farther then I thought possible and landed high up in a tree. I did end up getting it back two weeks later but by that time it was in pretty bad shape. (I did fix it and it has flown since. But it will never be the same)

So DON'T ever tell anybody you have never come close to losing a rocket... because next time you send it up you will surly lose it!!!!!

I Don't think this story is that funny, but its the best I can do. (unless you count my launch of a warped Mean Machine:wink::dark: )