Sorry its late, i've been busy with finals and a bunch of other stuff. Please view the rockets in the other thread and vote based of who you think has the BEST rocket.
I vote for Sheri's Hot Rockets. For the price, the size, and the scale, she has some of the BEST scale kits on the market. I don't fly for fun as rocketry is one of the MOST expensive hobbies when you look at the dollar/(time of enjoyment) ratio. So when I do fly, I want scale rockets because I want to feel as if I am sending up that Saturn just as NASA did in 1967 - 1973. I am weird because scale rockets tend to NOT be as popular as sci-fi or 'fun' rockets.
Rockets with fun or alien looks can be done at anytime so they don't really interest me.
So I am not going to vote for any of the members you listed, but would like to pencil in Sheri's Hot Rockets.
V'Ger
P.s. for the $/time ratio just think:
R/C plane RTF ~$150 for moderate to decent quality; starting price (RC)
Rocket set RTF ~$20 for entry level set (maybe motors?) (RS)
R/C plane in the air in the hands of an experience pilot or a beginner seeking the help of an experienced pilot or club in the air for an hour costs what, a few cents for electric charge, and maybe a few tens of cents for gas fuel is around $0.10/$0.50 per hour of operation.
Rocket: 5 4 3 2 1 ... mainstage (old school
) psssssssssst ... 2 - 7 seconds later report (pop) ... 30 - 90 seconds later ... back on the ground. Total flight time on average, 60 seconds. Costs of entire flight $1 - $2 per flight (conservative minimum estimate). Launch say once ever 5 min, and that is pushing it, => 12 flights per hour at a cost of $12 - $24 dollars per hour; reduce the number of flights per hour the ratio is even greater! So within 5 - 7 hours of RS operation, you have just matched the initial start-up costs of the RC setup!
It is interesting to note that High Power rockets are far far more expensive than 1/4 Scale R/C birds... for me I would rather invest and enjoy the 1/4 Scale R/C Bird as I will get many more flights out of it, and enjoy it's 'air-time', for a much lower operation cost for a longer time in the air compared to a 'M' motor flight.
Could the expense/time ratio be one of the contributing reasons why people leave the hobby of rocketry? I digress...
Yes there is a HIGHER initial cost for the R/C setup, but over time, the cost ratio of operating the RC setup decreases rapidly while the cost ratio of operating the RS setup increases rapidly and soon overtakes the costs of the RC setup.
Bottom line is that rocketry really is one of the most expensive hobbies out there. Another example are Trains. A few hundred dollar initial costs for the train, track, landscape, scale buildings will yield years and/or decades of enjoyment for just the costs of electricity to operate the train and repair/replacement parts...
One could write an R&D paper for NARAM but as many of the NAR BoD members are manufactures and rocketry zealots, I don't think it would be well received or even given points as it casts a bad light on their bottom line.
I don't think it is possible to reduce the costs behind RS operation unless you make your own motors. If you made your own, then the cost ratio decreases and makes rocketry (model) very inexpensive as you can make your own motors for just pennies a motor. But then again, making your own motors isn't endorsed by NAR. So you have to pay the hyper-inflated prices from Estes and Quest (I am only looking at BP motors, AP is an even greater expense) and just live with it.
