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4regt4

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Rediscovering the hobby now for the 3rd time.......

In the mid 60s when Gemini was winding down and Apollo was hitting it's stride, I got into model rockets. At the time, I got both the Centuri and Estes catalogs. Something about Centuri's rockets, and probably more that there was something I liked about the variety of their parts supplies tipped the balance in that direction. I carefully built and painted everything to a high standard. At least as high a standard as an 11 year old could. Being young and the pedal to the metal type (which I still am...), I only bought light rockets and usually used C6 motors. Which means I lost every one on the 1st or 2nd flight. Hmmm. Must be a lesson here somewhere. Lost interest when I discovered girls and cars.

Fast forward 25 years. My son was 10 or 11 years old and had an interest in rockets. So I dusted off my old launch equipment, and bought some kits, motors, and supplies at a local hobby shop. I had mellowed a bit, allowing myself to use B6 motors this time around. Took longer to lose the rockets this time. Had an Estes Mean Machine that had a D12 CATO. It's still standing in the corner of my office with a broken fin and a burned out motor mount. I just recently bought some supplies to attempt a repair. My son lost interest when he discovered girls and cars.

Which brings me to now, another 30 years later, and my 9 year old grandson who just got interested in rocketry. He has discovered cars, as he goes to watch my son race at Road Atlanta. But he's still young enough that girls have yet to distract him from rockets. So I have that going for me. He was here (Oregon) for a short visit, so I bought some RTF rockets including an Athena and Firehawk (almost RTF). Also, I decided that we needed a Grandpa rocket, so I bought a Mongoose for myself. As third time's the charm, I learned from previous experience that launching the Athena with an A8-3 would likely make possible another flight, and allow me to assess wind a couple hundred feet up. We had a few days of flying together. On the last day, he had been insisting on using a C6 in the Athena (where does he get those tendencies?) and I reluctantly agreed. It just barely stayed within the 800' square field we were in. Grandpa? Well, for the last flight of the day, I put a B6 in the Mongoose booster, and a C6 on top. Went up a bit crooked, likely from some previous crash damage. When we finally spotted it in the sky, it was floating to a grove of tall pine trees. Where it still rests, some 50 feet up.

This time around, I'll likely stick with it, as fast cars have gotten too expensive and I'm too slow to chase girls.

Hans.
 
Amateur! Real rocketeers bring their girls to the range! 😜

In all seriousness, welcome back to the flying field and welcome to the forum. There’s plenty to learn and have fun with here.😁
 
Welcome Hans! We're going to need pictures of any of your rockets, current or past (a battered Mean Machine counts), and of your son at Road Atlanta! Please!!!
 
To borrow a phrase from Bob Seger, you can come back, Rocketry never forgets!
 
I'm in Roseburg. My golf has deteriorated, so seldom leave town to do that. New coarse here, Bar Run. Haven't tried it yet.

Hans.
One of my friends grew up in Roseburg. Have you played Tokatee? We have been playing a course in northern California near Mt Shasta. It's called Shastina. We have been playing it for the last 28 to 30 years. Great course. Where do you fly? If you get to Las Vegas let me know. Maybe we can fly some rockets. I have just about unlimited space.
 
Used to play Tokatee a couple times a year. The huge forest fires in 2020 completely destroyed nearby towns, but employees of the golf course stayed behind and ran sprinklers and sprayed buildings, saving the course.

For about 15 years did a week long Shastina trip with an annual group of about 20. Mostly cops and judges, which were very handy to have around when we got in trouble, which was frequent.

Hans.
 
3rd times a charm, Hans!

I can relate to your journey...
hooked initially in the mid 60's, spurred on by the space race, when I was grade school age,​
built a rocket with my Nephew in the mid 1980's, he was more interested in baseball and soccer,​
built / rest-mod'd some Muscle Car$ and hot rodded a couple Model T/A Ford'$,​
back to rocketry once I retired from the working class. An affordable hobby as a LPR/MPR builder.​

Welcome back. Post up some photo's of your builds.

John
 
OK, I'm probably a bit dense here, but I see lots of references to "BAR". I kinda think I might know, but before I embarrass myself, what does it mean?

Hans.
 
Hello Hans and welcome!

You'll find some pretty impressive changes since you last flew. A dual-deploy altimeter kit (solder it yourself, need good eyes and steady hands) for $20. Single-use, inexpensive D motors that are Estes-size (18x70 mm). Estes now has blackpowder motors in 24mm and 29mm diameter, up to F impulse. If you go high-power, the J1799 motor that contains the appropriately named "Warp 9" propellant burns for just 0.6 seconds and you'll swear you heard a CATO.

Oh, and did I mention that you can buy composite motors up to O impulse, 6" diameter and three feet long, WITHOUT the stupid Low Explosive Users Permit! It took ten years but BATFE finally learned that they couldn't throw science under the bus when it came to rocketry. To use a popular phrase, they FAFO'ed. "Fooled" around, found out. ;)

And if you want to make your own composite rocket motors, join TRA and get certified Level 2 and you can fly those motors at a launch. There's even a book on how-to-do-it (The author is ugly, smells bad, can't tie his own shoes, and his mommy dresses him funny, but don't let that deter you...;))

Best -- Terry
 
Almost forgot: shout-out to AC Supply and Balsa Machining. AC Supply has the lowest prices on the web for most items. Balsa Machining isn't far behind and they have parts, parts, and more parts to build almost any type of rocket you can think of. Their 3" diameter "School Rocket" is a tremendous buy for a mid-power rocket, though you have to buy/make a few of the parts separately.

And of course there's Open Rocket, a fabulous piece of (free!!) software that allows you to electronically build a rocket and test it for stability, Cp and Cg locations, weight, altitude, etc. You can even apply paint and decals to see what it'll look like when it's done. K'Tesh has a library of a billion or so OR files for kits as well as a bunch of scratchbuilt designs.
 
Thanks all for the thoughts and advice.

As I'm jumping back into the LPR pool, I've studied this forum for some 40 hours to try to catch up. Much is the same - same motors, many kits have the same look and feel. What has changed are some new ideas for finishing the balsa fins, and shock cords. Seems one of the only consensus ideas is to ditch the Estes rubber band, and make the shock cord much, much longer. As to what to use, that's where the consensus is no longer a consensus.......

I'm building a couple of rockets and trying different ideas. Currently on the table is an Estes Multi-Roc. It comes with 3 sheets of balsa, each a different thickness. So I used old fashion dope on one (it's for the glider), paper on the booster fins, and Elmer's wood filler on the main rocket fins. Not sure which I like better at this point.

Hans.
 
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