gnurph69
New Member
- Joined
- Aug 20, 2011
- Messages
- 1
- Reaction score
- 0
Okay, so the last time I broke out the rocketry gear was...1998, according to the price tags on some of the boxes. Now I have a 4-year old who is tired of stomping on the air-filled blob and shooting a "rocket" 20 feet in the air.
I used to do this quite regularly, I'm just out of practice and I've got a dozen old rocket kits I might start building. However, before I kick it into gear, I have some safety questions and a regulatory one.
The igniters still work; I replaced the batteries in the launcher, attached the alligator clips to an igniter that I had sitting on a brick, inserted the launch key (lo! light! I'm shocked it still works) and hit the launch button. Igniter did a quick flare/glow, circuit breaks, and I think we're in business.
Next test: put one in a very small engine, clamp engine to stable surface, put something solid in front of, behind and around engine, and see what happens. That's a back-yard thing.
Which leads me to my first question: What's going to happen to an 11-year old Estes engine? It should be shelf-stable (and they were stored in zip-lock baggies to prevent moisture from entering), I'd think - but I'll ask here, as other bad things might have taken place that one wouldn't usually encounter because of the age.
And then my second question. I used to drive down to the local park, make sure nobody was around, and shoot'em off. Apparently, that's a no-no nowadays. Ignoring my immediate knee-jerk "nanny government" thought, I figured that either somewhere, insurance might have made this cost-prohibitive, or some unthinking being inadvertently caused some damage, pain, injury, death or worse resulting in the county (nay, the state) from banning this. Is this a country-wide phenomenon?
I'd join a club, but frankly, the thought of my younger years fun of hitting the button, watching it go, capping the launch rod, and hauling butt after it - of losing that fun - well, my guess is that clubs probably frown on that, and prefer that you stand 25 feet away and wait until your rocket is stuck in a tree that you get to find, etc....and you get 3 minutes to do that, because the next kid wants to launch *his* rocket, and of course, there are 15 other people doing the same thing. Pretty much blows half a day if not longer, when it used to take an hour for 5 or 6 launches. Watching other folks' rockets brings me no joy - I'm not a rocketry geek, thrust-to-weight ratios don't excite me, and debates about the merit of "scale model" vs fantasy don't do it for me. Let's not mention how my 4-year old will react.
Ergo, club...probably a no go. Yes, I know I shouldn't opine without having been to one of these events, judge a book by it's cover, etc.
Is the event of my youth just banned by the government nowadays? The world will be a less pleasurable place if the answer is yes.
I used to do this quite regularly, I'm just out of practice and I've got a dozen old rocket kits I might start building. However, before I kick it into gear, I have some safety questions and a regulatory one.
The igniters still work; I replaced the batteries in the launcher, attached the alligator clips to an igniter that I had sitting on a brick, inserted the launch key (lo! light! I'm shocked it still works) and hit the launch button. Igniter did a quick flare/glow, circuit breaks, and I think we're in business.
Next test: put one in a very small engine, clamp engine to stable surface, put something solid in front of, behind and around engine, and see what happens. That's a back-yard thing.
Which leads me to my first question: What's going to happen to an 11-year old Estes engine? It should be shelf-stable (and they were stored in zip-lock baggies to prevent moisture from entering), I'd think - but I'll ask here, as other bad things might have taken place that one wouldn't usually encounter because of the age.
And then my second question. I used to drive down to the local park, make sure nobody was around, and shoot'em off. Apparently, that's a no-no nowadays. Ignoring my immediate knee-jerk "nanny government" thought, I figured that either somewhere, insurance might have made this cost-prohibitive, or some unthinking being inadvertently caused some damage, pain, injury, death or worse resulting in the county (nay, the state) from banning this. Is this a country-wide phenomenon?
I'd join a club, but frankly, the thought of my younger years fun of hitting the button, watching it go, capping the launch rod, and hauling butt after it - of losing that fun - well, my guess is that clubs probably frown on that, and prefer that you stand 25 feet away and wait until your rocket is stuck in a tree that you get to find, etc....and you get 3 minutes to do that, because the next kid wants to launch *his* rocket, and of course, there are 15 other people doing the same thing. Pretty much blows half a day if not longer, when it used to take an hour for 5 or 6 launches. Watching other folks' rockets brings me no joy - I'm not a rocketry geek, thrust-to-weight ratios don't excite me, and debates about the merit of "scale model" vs fantasy don't do it for me. Let's not mention how my 4-year old will react.
Ergo, club...probably a no go. Yes, I know I shouldn't opine without having been to one of these events, judge a book by it's cover, etc.
Is the event of my youth just banned by the government nowadays? The world will be a less pleasurable place if the answer is yes.