What have you lofted with your rockets?

I had a parasite glider, the Estes Firefly. I recently attempted to make a knock off, which seems to fly ok from a toss, but who knows how it will do on it's first rocket flight.
I've also sent a few parachute men skyward, the most recent one went MIA.

Someone gave me a Justin Beiber doll with a request to "forget" its parachute.

Lol, that would make a great target for a bb gun.

In high school, 1976, I lofted a small white mouse as a science project. I had a wooden maze made in which you could change the walls every time that it is run. I ran the mouse through three different mazes before the launch, sent the little fellow aloft and then ran three more mazes after the launch. I honestly don't recall the results (other than me receiving an "A") but I do remember that the mouse was just as mellow after the launch as he was before. No worse for wear. If you are under 30, please don't judge me. It was a different time and a different political landscape. Launching mice was a fairly common event.

On several occasions I have participated in launching the ashes of deceased friends, people who were very important in rocketry in their geographical areas. Even if you don't believe in heaven, the notion of some of your molecules going "up" after your death is a lot more appealing than getting buried. The most memorable of these events was the "Flying Ed's Ashes" event conducted at either Culpeper, VA or the MDRA field in Maryland. Ed Rowe was a very accomplished maker of homemade propellant, and the event required that all of his friends get together and mix up a big batch of propellant and drink a few "Jack and Seven's" in his honor. I attended the mix party but could not attend the actual launch of the ashes, but I understand that the event was carried off with the solemnity and joy that would have struck Ed Rowe as 'just about right'. Of course, the motor we mixed was used for the flight.
It's been a few years now, but I still miss Ed Rowe. Quiet, unassuming, a sly sense of humor, and prodigiously talented. All of us have lost rockets to absolutely catastrophic failures, and the test of anybody's maturity is how you face a complete disaster. I remember Ed looking at me after such a crash, and very quietly saying, with a little spark in his eye, "Oh well, I guess I'll just have to build another rocket." I always looked up to Ed and admired him greatly. The world needs more Ed Rowes.

Alan Whitmore
Prefect, Tripoli East NC

I have lofted a monkey! After lofting this monkey in the video, I bought a dozen monkeys and promoted a contest at LDRS 37 called the Mass Monkey Loft.

There are those for whom the "m" word is as bad as the "n" word, and chief among those is the Librarian of Unseen University. So, what I lofted was not a m*****y, it was an orangutan.

Some background is in order. First, know that the late Terry Pratchett was keen on orangutans and supported the Orangutan Foundation, a charity whose aim is to help preserve them. Second, there once was a small company called Clarecraft who made resin and pewter models of characters from the Discworld books. Every couple of years this company hosted the Clarecraft Discworld Event on a farm. And third, Terry was interested in model rockets, having done some dubious things with fireworks in his childhood, as I found out when I first met him at a book-signing event and asked him to sign a rocket. So as far as I was concerned, Clarecraft Discworld Event involved two important things, namely Terry Pratchett and a large field. After contacting the organisers to get permission, I took a few models along and even got Terry to launch a rocket-propelled Discworld. The rocket launch became a regular feature at the end of Clarecraft Discworld Event and even attracted the attention of another fan into the hobby, who subsequently joined in the launches.

Then I got the idea of a charity launch. There would be a rocket with a toy animal. There would be donation boxes. One would be for power; more money in that box meant more motors on the rocket. The other would be for recovery, with varying levels of safety for the "passenger".


There was about £30 in each box, so the rocket got a central D12-5 and two C6-5s, and the orangutan got an enclosed capsule.



And the Orangutan Foundation got a cheque for the same amount as was in the boxes combined.

There was one year when Clarecraft announced that they were going to launch their then new model of a Nac Mac Feegle during the event, so I contacted them to ask if they wanted it to be really launched and they said "yes". Unfortunately I don't have any photos of the that flight.

That's a beautiful story, I can almost picture the octarine.

I remember reading about bowling ball lofting contests at launches. Are there any contests like that still?

I loft student payloads.

I give you...

ARLISS.



Burning M's is a lot of fun when someone else is paying for the AP.

So you can't say monkey now?