What got you started in model rocketry?

[vcp]

Cover article in 1957 Mechanix Illustrated. https://www.rocketryplanet.com/content/view/390/95/

 

[nxj]

For me, i just stumbled on it.

My dad was always (still does) making those scale cars. I remember one day i went with him to the local hobby shop and i walked past the wall with rocket kits on them. After begging and begging plus chores, i got enough money to buy a starter kit (alpha) and that was it.

Now, im getting back into it after taking 5 years off.

 

[Quixote]

Four things from back in 1970/71 sparked my interest, first a deep interest in the Apollo Moon Program. The chance viewing of the Estes 1970 Catalog (Orbital Transport Cover). Reading our school library's copy of "The Handbook of Model Rocketry", and the chance purchase of the June 1971 issue of Model Rocketry Magazine (D-Region Tomahawk cover), in our local drugstore.

Reading about Model Rocket competition in "Model Rocketry Magazine" really spurred me on, and I was able to attend my first contest ARRM 3 in May 1972, and as they say the rest is history!

 

[gpoehlein]

For me, it was a similar book, although I don't remember the title (I do remember that the cover was blue). It covered a lot of rocketry experiments, from releasing blown up balloons to adding fins and a nose cone to a blown up balloon, to model rockets. This was back in the early seventies. Then, our high school ran an experimental program that allowed us to take alternative classes for two days (all kinds of stuff like stamp collecting, guitar playing, origami, bowling, etc.) One of the "classes" offered was model rocketry. I signed up for that one and was hooked immediately. After that two day experiment was over, the school went back to normal classes, but those of us in the rocketry class started a rocketry club after school. I built my first rocket for the class - An Alpha.

 

[graylensman]

I was a space race nut- a child of Apollo. My paternal grandparents recognized this, and presented me with an Estes Little John kit. I built it, painted it Automotive Green (closest military color Dad had in his workshop). Parents bought me the GSE - well, Estes SolarBeam controller and a launch rod - no pad! Drilled a hole in a 2x4 and that was the pad we used for five years or so.

Like many BARs, I went to college and fell away from the hobby. Then in 2000 or so, decided I'd like to pick up the hobby again, mostly as a whim. The family bought me a starter set for my birthday, and that was all I needed. Jim Flis introduced me to TRF, contacted a member here who lives in my area, and eventually helped to re-establish the Richmond NAR chapter.

 

[Dennis Fox]

I have to give the credit to my Dad. I remember him bringing home a 1966 Estes catalog a friend gave him at work. I was 12. My first kit was a WAC Corporal. I built many rockets along with other kids in the neighborhood. The last rocket I built was an Estes Saturn V (the big one) in 1976. Fell away from the hobby for about 30 years and just got back into it this past summer. But if it wasn't for my Dad bringing that catalog home (and buying the kits and supplies for me and taking me and other kids in the neighborhood to various ball fields and launching them) I never would have heard of model rocketry. I still remember the thrill of coming home from school and seeing an Estes box on the dining room table. Anybody remember the blue tubes they used to ship the engines in?

Dennis

 

[George Gassaway]

I had a stumbling start. In North Carolina, in 1967 or so, knowing nothing, I found model rockets in a hobby shop. I got a Centuri Lil’ Herc, one pack of A engines, a launch rod, and a pack of fuse. Did not bother to glue the fins on. Set it up in the front yard, and lit the fuse. It went tumbling unstably up the street... and that was it. The end.

A couple of years later, having moved to Alabama, I saw some kids flying model rockets locally, but they got theirs by mail order, and I hated mail order.

The turning point was that my school had a copy of Stine’s Handbook of Model Rocketry. I read it fully and came to understand why fins were important, and all the other things about what makes a model rocket fly and operate properly.

But still I did not go out and seek model rockets at a hobby shop or try to get a catalog. What made the final difference was when in February or March 1970, I found MPC model rockets in K-Mart. That’s when I got hooked, by the timing that I was already primed with the knowledge from Stine’s Handbook, and now had an easy source for the models and engines.

Also, it did not hurt one bit that the MPC kits had plastic fins, and some with one-piece plastic fin units, so that solved my previous “fin problem”!

But even then I had a false start. I used an MPC Moon-Go (one piece fin unit), and tried to launch it, electrically, It misfired. So, I rigged up another ignitor, but used Scotch tape to hold the ignitor in. Well, the ignitor did not light the engine, but it did light the Scotch tape. The flame from the Scotch tape spread to one of the plastic fins, and then when that plastic fin caught fire it caught the rest of the back of the rocket on fire. It did not stop burning until I threw a big rock at it to knock it over.

So, my first successful rocket was not until my third rocket, which I think was a Viper (another MPC kit).

BTW - history of MPC:
https://www.skyhighhobbies.com/history.htm

Two catalog pages showing the Viper and Moon-Go:

https://www.skyhighhobbies.com/MPC Catalog_spread_3_web.jpg

- George Gassaway

 

[Steward]

I too, as a child of the sixties, was blown away with the space program. I vividly remember keeping up with the Gemini and Apollo flights as they were carried on the evening news. I had already built plastic kit models of the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo capsules... Studying every detail as if I were an astronaut or even an engineer myself. The things that eleven or twelve year boys dream of...

One thing, a lot of us has in common, is that "Handbook of Model Rocketry" in the school library. I got in trouble more than once because I didn't really want to give it back... ever.
</O

My first rockets were aluminum foil wrapped around a pencil (for form), and filled with match heads. I flew what seems like hundreds of these off the back porch, each one a completely different experience...

Of course... when I stumbled onto the "Estes" section at the hobby shop, that was it... I can't call myself a "BAR", because in reality, I never stopped.


Then, I met George Gassaway... who's story, by the way, sounds better than mine... so I'll use it instead... LOL!!!

My 1st fleet (circa 1968-69)

One other quick note... during the sixties (and beyond) my parents were PARAGON Electric Kiln dealers. Occasionally, they would recieve a package from the university here, and Mom would "fire" these ceramic tile looking things at various temperatures, and then ship them back... I never paid much attention to it... until years later, she told me they were sample materials being studied for some kind of space plane... who knew???

 

[DexterLB]

When I was young I remember my dad telling me stories of how he and my uncle (which really wasn't my uncle just a family friend) used to build there own rockets and make there own zinc and sulphur and sugar motors back in the early sixties and would spend weekends driving around looking for a place to launch where they wouldn't have the cops called on them.And I also remember sneaking down the copy of the Rocket Manual for Amateurs off his book shelf and reading through it in amazement at the stuff that was in it.Here is a cover shot of that book.I remember buying my first rocket when i was maybe 10 or 11 which was an estes alpha 3 which I don't think I flew more then once becuase it had a parachute and the field I launched in was kinda on the small side and depended on the wind going in the right direction for a good recovery.My most flown rocket when I was young was my scout 2 which had so many flights on it I lost count.Then I got older and got out of it with a short stint not long after high school but I don't count that as being a BAR as it only lasted a couple days.Then last year not 3 months after I tossed out my old fleet did a guy I work with tell me about the local hobby shop he was going to(Which amazed me I thought they were all gone) and I said to him hey if they have it pick me up a comanche 3 which I did as a joke and well he ended up showing up at my door with it the next day and well the rest is history now.So how did the rest of you get into the hobby?

I got started in model rocketry by reading an article about a V-2 scale model in a newspaper. I then built my own one and that's how I started

P. S. I also have that book, but translated in bulgarian

 

[nomad]

My Dad was a mechanic for Eastern Airlines so I was always building model planes. I remember watching all the Apollo missions and being a big fan of Star Trek so when a friend of mine discovered rocketry I was in heaven. This summer my kids came down to visit and I got to revisit my childhood with them. The look on their faces is something I'll never forget, and hopefully they won't either.