Childhood interest starts again

[MjekuMati]

Hello everybody!

I’ve loved model rockets since I got into them as a young scout. My brothers and I built many very poorly and launched them as often as we could.

I didn’t do anything with rockets from teenage years until now close to 40. But I remembered how fun they were and wanted to share that with my kids.

I built an Olympus rocket 2 years ago and we’ve loved launching the thing. My 4 year old loves rockets now and he gave me a big daddy for Christmas so now I’m excitedly building that one. And remember just how poor my basic skills are.

Right now I have:
Olympus (painted gold instead of copper)
Mosquito like - can’t remember its name.
Big Daddy partially built. Trying to decide on a good color scheme as I don’t really dig the box colors.

I’m in the Davis county area of Utah and don’t really know the best place to launch here. I think I probably am breaking some city code when I launch at a local field.

Any tips or groups in this geographic area would be appreciated.

Also any general building tips - I’m essentially a child skill level .

 

[DigBaddy]

Welcome! This place is loaded with info. When I first joined I spent months reading old threads.

 

[jsdemar]

https://www.uroc.org/

 

[neil_w]

Welcome!

Also any general building tips - I’m essentially a child skill level .

One thing you typically have more of as an adult is patience. To take your time, do things right, and cleanly.

Strongly recommend reading Chris Michielssen's blog to get acquainted with good build technique (he's @hcmbanjo on this forum): http://modelrocketbuilding.blogspot.com/. He also wrote a good set of articles on the NAR website: https://www.nar.org/educational-resources/model-rocket-building-techniques/.

Most important advice: have fun.

 

[Huxter]

Welcome! +1 on having fun! You could loose interest if you try to make perfect rockets. I build "6 foot" rockets - meaning they look good from 6 feet away! I do not fill spirals or balsa grains very much.

Bus Park in Farmington, used to be one of the best sites in Davis county. They had to go and put Farmington high school there tho. I sometimes go to West Haven park in Weber county, but sometimes they have horses there and the horses do not like the Whooooossshh sound (got yelled at once). So I do not launch very much. I need to attend more UROC launches (I think their new field is toward Vernal?)

Enjoy those little ones - they grow up far to fast and loose interest quickly.

 

[Hobie1dog]

To the forum and if you go to a launch, post up some pictures of your kids launching some rockets.

 

[teepot]

Welcome to the Forum. When I first started scratch building I learned a lot for the from this Forum.

 

[MjekuMati]

https://www.uroc.org/

Thanks!

 

[MjekuMati]

Welcome! +1 on having fun! You could loose interest if you try to make perfect rockets. I build "6 foot" rockets - meaning they look good from 6 feet away! I do not fill spirals or balsa grains very much.

Bus Park in Farmington, used to be one of the best sites in Davis county. They had to go and put Farmington high school there tho. I sometimes go to West Haven park in Weber county, but sometimes they have horses there and the horses do not like the Whooooossshh sound (got yelled at once). So I do not launch very much. I need to attend more UROC launches (I think their new field is toward Vernal?)

Enjoy those little ones - they grow up far to fast and loose interest quickly.

I'll check out the UROC site. I grew up in Vernal, and we used to live about (2-3 miles?) past the end of the runway for the little airport. Planes would come in and out all day long to the point we didn't notice the noise, but visitors would ask why we lived there. We probably did a lot of illegal launches in our backyard since it was just acres of fields between us and the runway, but the planes were eerily close to some of our rockets...