TheYoungRocketeer
New Member
- Joined
- Apr 21, 2013
- Messages
- 3
- Reaction score
- 1
First post other than testing.
New to the forum, not new to rocketry, nor to the NAR, not presently a member, expired and didn't renew and had other stuff to do, didn't have the money for what I really wanted.
What I wanted was a heavily instrumented parallel stage Lv 1 high power package based on something like a smartphone, a sufficiently advanced model of which had yet to be invented.
My username is derived from "The Old Rocketeer", aka G Harry Stine.
It sounds boastful and presumptuous but I do believe I may be worthy of it.
I got interested in 1997 and hit the ground running. My peers were doing things wildly in violation of the safety code. I felt like (but expected and thankfully realized I was not) the only one who was doing things right.
It was a second dark age for model rocketeers.
Most motors we were flying were either underpowered junk or were amazingly high performance on par with composite but likely to blow up.
Motor tampering was worryingly common.
I told the safety code to all who would listen.
It often fell on ears of those who didn't want to obey it.
Some just ignored me. Others made fun of me.
The worst came to pass when someone took a sizable model of an ICBM and put several firecrackers in the nose as MIRVs and fired it such that it landed in a local school playground. They started using the NFA destructive device clause to go after teens with fireworks even if they did so responsibly.
I still talked and people took some of what I said seriously. I kept reciting the safety code to everone who might listen, and asked anyone who did to pay it forward.
I flew models of peaceful rockets, of general model rockets, and if I got a kit for a missile or something that looked like one I left off military decals.
I tried to make it clear they weren't weapons and talked on and on about payloads.
A nearby school mine had used my range safety knowledge and brought two large fire extinguishers, a hose with a nice metal nozzle, and (with one important exception) generally being careful and serious to the range.
Around the pad they pulled up the tall dry grass and soaked the dirt to mud with the hose.
They then kept everyone further back than the rocket owner and refused to launch otherwise, and used an electric igniter follwing the instructions to the letter.
The CATO that followed was a sight to behold because.
The foolish kid responsible later confided in me, had put gasoline down the nozzle hoping to make it go higher. He didn't know it would make it explode.
Noone ended up dead or injured and because they took anti fire measures they didn't have to involve the fire dept, which the law always comes along with. So while he got permabanned from the range he was not taken to jail.
People paid real attention.
I conducted demo launches without a club affiliation on school property and did it as safely as could be done given the state of improperly stored motors bought from hobby stores who didn't know what they were doing.
After I moved I continued.
My new community's most obvious problem was not association with weapons and danger.
It was a combination of excessive freudian viewpoints, showmanship causing frustration with high skill level first models, and not taking the risks seriously enough.
The reputation and safety record for small models was good though.
When I arrived children used a great slingshot to hurl cardboard missiles (which they introduced in the physics definition using sports balls as an example) high school students used high pressure water rockets.
My proof and standards of safety was so great that when I was 14 and I launched from a school field (of a school I was transferred out of on unrelated note) during summer camp (which I did not attend that year) They stopped the outdoor gym class to watch me.
There I acted like a perfect little RSO. I stopped the countdowns repeatedly for wind/animals/downrange/aircraft even if obviously, listened to and explained the alarm messages and safety keys and why not a fuse.
I mostly flew a very basic non missile looking plastic model using A3 motors.
I would bring several other models including ones I didn't plan to, explaining their functionality, failures, or that the field was too small.
So people actually believed me when I said rocket science "ain't rocket science", and used the KISS principle.
I got some compliments from soldiers from a nearby airbase saying they could use a kid like me there.
The SAM Captains apparently didn't always take things seriously.
New to the forum, not new to rocketry, nor to the NAR, not presently a member, expired and didn't renew and had other stuff to do, didn't have the money for what I really wanted.
What I wanted was a heavily instrumented parallel stage Lv 1 high power package based on something like a smartphone, a sufficiently advanced model of which had yet to be invented.
My username is derived from "The Old Rocketeer", aka G Harry Stine.
It sounds boastful and presumptuous but I do believe I may be worthy of it.
I got interested in 1997 and hit the ground running. My peers were doing things wildly in violation of the safety code. I felt like (but expected and thankfully realized I was not) the only one who was doing things right.
It was a second dark age for model rocketeers.
Most motors we were flying were either underpowered junk or were amazingly high performance on par with composite but likely to blow up.
Motor tampering was worryingly common.
I told the safety code to all who would listen.
It often fell on ears of those who didn't want to obey it.
Some just ignored me. Others made fun of me.
The worst came to pass when someone took a sizable model of an ICBM and put several firecrackers in the nose as MIRVs and fired it such that it landed in a local school playground. They started using the NFA destructive device clause to go after teens with fireworks even if they did so responsibly.
I still talked and people took some of what I said seriously. I kept reciting the safety code to everone who might listen, and asked anyone who did to pay it forward.
I flew models of peaceful rockets, of general model rockets, and if I got a kit for a missile or something that looked like one I left off military decals.
I tried to make it clear they weren't weapons and talked on and on about payloads.
A nearby school mine had used my range safety knowledge and brought two large fire extinguishers, a hose with a nice metal nozzle, and (with one important exception) generally being careful and serious to the range.
Around the pad they pulled up the tall dry grass and soaked the dirt to mud with the hose.
They then kept everyone further back than the rocket owner and refused to launch otherwise, and used an electric igniter follwing the instructions to the letter.
The CATO that followed was a sight to behold because.
The foolish kid responsible later confided in me, had put gasoline down the nozzle hoping to make it go higher. He didn't know it would make it explode.
Noone ended up dead or injured and because they took anti fire measures they didn't have to involve the fire dept, which the law always comes along with. So while he got permabanned from the range he was not taken to jail.
People paid real attention.
I conducted demo launches without a club affiliation on school property and did it as safely as could be done given the state of improperly stored motors bought from hobby stores who didn't know what they were doing.
After I moved I continued.
My new community's most obvious problem was not association with weapons and danger.
It was a combination of excessive freudian viewpoints, showmanship causing frustration with high skill level first models, and not taking the risks seriously enough.
The reputation and safety record for small models was good though.
When I arrived children used a great slingshot to hurl cardboard missiles (which they introduced in the physics definition using sports balls as an example) high school students used high pressure water rockets.
My proof and standards of safety was so great that when I was 14 and I launched from a school field (of a school I was transferred out of on unrelated note) during summer camp (which I did not attend that year) They stopped the outdoor gym class to watch me.
There I acted like a perfect little RSO. I stopped the countdowns repeatedly for wind/animals/downrange/aircraft even if obviously, listened to and explained the alarm messages and safety keys and why not a fuse.
I mostly flew a very basic non missile looking plastic model using A3 motors.
I would bring several other models including ones I didn't plan to, explaining their functionality, failures, or that the field was too small.
So people actually believed me when I said rocket science "ain't rocket science", and used the KISS principle.
I got some compliments from soldiers from a nearby airbase saying they could use a kid like me there.
The SAM Captains apparently didn't always take things seriously.
