I miss those days... Estes' descriptions of their rockets.

[K'Tesh]

+1 on including the size of the parachute. That info is so helpful for replacing missing ones from old rockets. I frequently remove them and swap them out (intact vs ventilated) for the various landing conditions/wind factors when I go to launch.

 

[tbzep]

You guys with the twin and quad circulating Vectron engines are so yesterday. It's all ball bearings nowadays.

Now if I can get hold of some 3-in-1 oil, gauze pads, and some Quaker State, I'll be ready to sit down and thumb through that catalog. :wink:

As for the OP, I loved getting that catalog in the mail. When I was younger, I'd lay on the bed at night, thumbing through it, deciding on the one kit and motor pack I might be able to afford by the end of the summer, and I'd daydream about those fancier kits I couldn't afford. I'd fold it and stick it in my pocket to take to school and look at it every chance I got. (I finally got smart and quit folding them.) The descriptions were cool as were the kits themselves. Kit instructions sometimes had background sci-fi stories. Some of the artwork seems cheesy now, but was cool to me in the 70's. And who can forget opening the Red Max kit, seeing the wacky launch diorama, and reading the hilarious (for a kid, and still somewhat amusing today) non-P.C. materials included in the kit for the first time?

 

[JumpJet]

Whatever happened to them... Those descriptions in the catalogs were inspiring.

Please post these types of comments on the Estes Face Book Page. I've tried several times to get the text I've written for the SciFi kits I designed in both the catalogs and on the website. I too remember reading those wonderful fictional descriptions of years gone by.

John Boren
Estes R&D

 

[Daddyisabar]

The cheesy hand drawn/painted illustrations. The letter from Vern with his photo. The pictures of skinny kids with big hair and the little boy catching the rocket. That level of mid 70's dorkieness can never be equaled. Paging through my old '73 through '78 catalogs I carefully re-read all the comments and rankings I wrote down. Sometimes I close my eyes and press the pages to my face, trying to recapture those precious childhood moments. Like the song says "When I was a child I caught a fleeting glimpse," or "I close my eyes, only for a moment then the moment's gone." It is very difficult to become unstuck in time. It requires lots of old catalogs,motors, expensive original kits off Ebay and the smell of sanding sealer or drying Testors paint. Launching a Maxi Brute V2 for the first time on a long burn E12 motor can open up close to a five second window for the average old fart.

 

[Fred Garvin]

I'm all about tech.....have every Estes catalog PDF I could find on my iPad....plus the instructions archives on my server...and a pretty extensive document collection....all in the palm of my hand.

But I will admit....many times when I'm in the Rocket Shop building......Gilligan's Island is on TVLand in the background. Just makes me feel like a kid again, building rockets.....

 

[Pat_B]

That's something that I noticed too. They're selling rockets without much descriptive text and a storyline behind them. They could have a few pages with a grid that provided the hard technical data for all the rockets and that would leave more space for fun and interesting text in the description areas.

As an adult, I don't personally find as much interest in the descriptions as when I was a kid. But I'd think they'd want to be capturing that part of the market too.

 

[K'Tesh]

Please post these types of comments on the Estes Face Book Page. I've tried several times to get the text I've written for the SciFi kits I designed in both the catalogs and on the website. I too remember reading those wonderful fictional descriptions of years gone by.

I posted a link to this thread... Here's their answer:

Fortunately or unfortunately, however you want to view it,
with all the products we now have available, if we were to
write stories/descriptions about each rocket, the catalog would be
HUGE!. Not sure if you are aware, but there are almost 200 rockets
alone in the 2014 catalog.

 

[Daddyisabar]

I posted a link to this thread... Here's their answer:

Why does Estes have so many rockets? Just tons and tons of RTF and low level stuff that is all very similar. Are they just trying to secure naming rights? I would be fine if they just described the Skill Level 3 and up kits, the rest are generally unworthy of description (excluding the classic kits of course - can't offend the Big Bertha fans.).