Hey guys! Another new member here, and I fall right in the middle as well. 34 going on 14 here, from Oshkosh, WI...b'gosh, where we have winter and July for seasons. We're the home of the EAA (Experimental Aircraft Association), and if we have any aviation nuts here, I have a spare bedroom for the fly-in, since you're not getting a hotel room less than 100 miles away. For the rest of you, airplanes are those other things you see in the air that seem to be weathercocking really bad with the really big fins halfway up the BT.
I remember playing with some of the Estes kits when I was a kid, and I think I'm one of 3 people on the planet who ever got a Mosquito back. I hope that having it be in one piece wasn't a requirement, as ony 2 of the 3 fins came back with it. Being kids (read: stoopid) and knowing NOTHING about aerodynamics, we figgered that it'd be no problem to just fire it up on 2 fins. I'd have given anything at that particular moment to have a lake nearby to jump in to hide from this rocket that seemed to have a guidance system that had a bead on me.
So, this last Christmas, I got my 9 year old daughter (who I hope is smarter now than I was then) the starter set with the Goliath and the Spitfire in it. Great starter kit for a kid with no modeling experience! The Goliath is an ARF kit and almost guarantees that your kid will be able to put one together on his/her own that'll both look and fly very well. The Spitfire is a little more work once the kid has some newfound confidence in their construction ability.
Anyway, when we launched a beautiful first flight of the Goliath to about 500 feet, her eyes turned the size of saucers when she realized that SHE made the thing and SHE made it go up that high! This, in turn, made me remember just how much fun I had flying rockets. Got the Initiator starters set for myself, and am now building a Yank 3" Black Brant X for my Level 1 cert (I think I can...I think I can...).
Anyway, that's my story and I'm sticking to it. Thanks for tossing this out there for us, and thanks for the warm welcome I've already gotten from a few members already. Electrode waited for me to be a member for all of an hour before he IM'ed me and has given me a couple of good pieces of advice already.
Peace!