And another hit against our PR battle

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wwattles

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As if the hobby/sport of model rocketry didn't have enough bad press, here's another article.

Apartment fire caused by kids, say Clive officials

Most likely the guy was perfectly legal in what he was doing, but the naysayers out there will point to this kind of thing and may try to use it against us.

If you've got kids, treat those rocket motors like you would a handgun in how you store them!

WW
 
Good thing they didn't use gas heat or it could have been deadly. Can you imagine the destruction if a gas line fed the property? And imagine if the apartment had a garage and a car's gas tank 'enhanced' the fire. Yeah, it could have been worse.
 
I'm glad they don't make a thing about the motors but someone unfortuneatly will. Treat your motors like a loaded gun around children. I keep my motors in a metal toolbox, in ziplocs to prevent any chance of a match setting them off.
 
two kids with a butane lighter...

hmm... thats some good common sense...
 
I wondered how long it would take for someone to pick this up. They don't say what chemicals were there, but the news channels kept talking about the model rocket chemicals as being the cause, that is until last night when they said the cause was kids playing with a butane torch.
The lady, who ever she was left these three kids alone to go buy booze!!!
I'm hoping now that the actual cause was determined that they drop the whole thing. We will see I guess.
:mad:

Larry
 
Come on guys...give the mother a break on this!!

She did have to go out and buy beer didn't she?

When ya run out it's not like she could send the kids to the party store to pick it up for her?

What's a single mother to do?
 
Originally posted by sandman
Come on guys...give the mother a break on this!!

She did have to go out and buy beer didn't she?

When ya run out it's not like she could send the kids to the party store to pick it up for her?

What's a single mother to do?

ductTape....

Just Kidding!.!.!.

Nylon Zip Ties are faster...

:kill:
 
Originally posted by sandman
Come on guys...give the mother a break on this!!

She did have to go out and buy beer didn't she?


Since she could fit kids in a car, it appears she didn't have one. So I would guess her motorcycle didn't have a side car to put the kids in. Now she'll have to move to a place that delivers in the future.
 
The 'rocket fuel' he had was Nitrous Oxide. Had he been a car racing person I don't think there would have been as much bad press.

Edward
 
EXACTLY. or maybe if he had an addiction to redi whipped whip cream. ARG.
 
oh yeah, and technically, nitrous oxide isnt the fuel. its the oxidiser. SPIN!!!!
 
Technically it is a non-flammable gas. When you heat it past about 570 F then it breaks down into oxygen and nitrogen. The extra oxygen would have helped the fire that was already burning.

Edward
 
Had she been a good mother, she'd have sent the kids out to buy the beer......and a pack of smokes.

One to operate the pedals, the others to steer.
 
Originally posted by raw9jr
Had she been a good mother, she'd have sent the kids out to buy the beer......and a pack of smokes.

One to operate the pedals, the others to steer.

I know. What kind of mother is she?;)
 
Well I don't know exactly what he had but frankly if you keep high powered motors or flammable chemicals in an apartment complex you're using some bad judgement. When you choose to live surrounded by a lot of other people, your harmless hobby could becomes everybody's worst nightmare.. :(

Originally posted by wwattles
As if the hobby/sport of model rocketry didn't have enough bad press, here's another article.

Apartment fire caused by kids, say Clive officials

Most likely the guy was perfectly legal in what he was doing, but the naysayers out there will point to this kind of thing and may try to use it against us.

If you've got kids, treat those rocket motors like you would a handgun in how you store them!

WW
 
I can think of several household chemicals you're likely to find in any apartment that are more dangerous than model/hp rocket propellant. I can think of several more not so dangerous ones that become quite nasty when fire is added. My point is that the bad judgement was in leaving children alone in a home, not in having flammable chemicals.
 
Originally posted by wwattles
As if the hobby/sport of model rocketry didn't have enough bad press, here's another article.


You know, the number of "naysayers" in all the "what if" scenarios that rocketry people run through their heads when they read stuff like this is probably several orders of magnitude greater than the number of actual real live 3 dimensional naysayers. If and when actual naysayers say nay, if people who put so much energy into this imagining would put it into direct confrontation with the naysayer, using facts, figures, reason and logic, there'd be far more positive result for everyone.

Why not question the fire officials as to what they meant by "enhanced", and how they can determine the fuel enhanced it more than say, the carpet backing. At which point they're rightfully conclude and state that it wasn't enough to consider illegal, and at which point they should be questioned as to why they then thought it was important enough to mention over and above the dozens of other substances that contributed far more to the fire.

Why not ask the reporter to ask these questions?

In both cases, the chances are you'd find that actually neither care enough to see this through, which really only supports the notion that the number of actual naysayers out there is much smaller than we convince ourselves of through our worrying.
 
The reporter is trying to make his news story (and I *do* mean story!) more interesting. What would be better than claiming that the apartment was full of rocket fuel?

The older I get, the more convinced I am that they are all morons out there.
 
It seems the cops made the right call though. It's nice that the "threshhold" was mentioned though. (As if THAT would make a difference.) :rolleyes: The mother however, is right up there with the lady who locked her kid in the trunk for 3 or 4 hours with a blanket so she could go to the bar with friends and get blasted. I feel bad for the rocketeer, as it was bad enough that those kids were left alone with a butane lighter. Unfortunately rocket motors are brought into the mix. Officailly, I'd be willing to chalk this one up to parental stupidity. Bad job, ma! :mad:
 
Originally posted by powderburner
The reporter is trying to make his news story (and I *do* mean story!) more interesting. What would be better than claiming that the apartment was full of rocket fuel?

The older I get, the more convinced I am that they are all morons out there.

That's what I said, only in a lot fewer words.

A reporter acting like a moron IS a story, especially to their editor and/or publisher.

Sure, it's what the "fire officials" said (I wonder how many of them it took to say it). Why didn't the reporter question it? To sell stories. To sell bad stories instead of good ones?
 
This is another case of the media spewing bunk.........

The fuel as mentioned earlier was nitrous oxide..

The "fuel" never burned, never lit, never contributed to the fire. The loud popping "explosions" reported by neighbors are now believed to have been aerosol cans..
 
Originally posted by firemanup
This is another case of the media spewing bunk.........

The fuel as mentioned earlier was nitrous oxide..

The "fuel" never burned, never lit, never contributed to the fire. The loud popping "explosions" reported by neighbors are now believed to have been aerosol cans..

Did the paper print a correction?
 
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