Your Story ?
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I grew up in a south Eastern town in Wisconsin and was always pretty close with all my cousins.
My cousin Kenny and I started when I was about age 14 with trips to Gary's Hobby Center on our Bicycles.
We built kits together and flew them at the farm land right down the street from Kenny's house. Even got to learn the hard way about safety, when an Estes Alpha took off from my friend Jims lap. Denim jeans provide little protection from a rocket engine !!
Soon we came home from Garys with Estes "parts" .... and designed our first large models using BT80 and BT70 tubing. I wish I had pictures from those two models because they will always have a special place in my heart.
I just turned 16 years old, Kenny was about 15.
My build was inspired by the TIme Magazine Cover of the Pershing II, Jan 1983
It was a BT80 with a balsa transition to a BT70 I believe we designed them with 24mm engine mounts and flew them on Estes D motors. Kennys was inspired from the AIM 7 Sparrow Air to Air Missile. We enjoyed the hobby for a few years until in 1986 I left home and started a 23 year Military career. I introduced Model Rocketry to my Kids in 1995 in the field behind my house on Base in South Dakota. I have enjoyed the hobby for many years.... Always wish I flew more often than I do ! My love of the hobby took an exciting turn in the late 90's when I saw my first Rocketry Magazine (High Power Rocketry i think) with images and articles about Higher Power Rockets.
The bug had got me again.... I certified High Power Level 1 in 2012 with WOOSH Rocketry in Wisconsin.
Thank you to Paul S. , Chad Rogers, and of course Mark for all the support !!
I have a wonderful wife who makes fun of my vast collection of kits, and is always there to remind me I need another rocket like I need a hole in the head. I love her dearly, she still has always supported me !!
I have also been inspired by many of you on the forum over the years! Thank you all on the Forum !!!
My cousin Kenny and I started when I was about age 14 with trips to Gary's Hobby Center on our Bicycles.
We built kits together and flew them at the farm land right down the street from Kenny's house. Even got to learn the hard way about safety, when an Estes Alpha took off from my friend Jims lap. Denim jeans provide little protection from a rocket engine !!
Soon we came home from Garys with Estes "parts" .... and designed our first large models using BT80 and BT70 tubing. I wish I had pictures from those two models because they will always have a special place in my heart.
I just turned 16 years old, Kenny was about 15.
My build was inspired by the TIme Magazine Cover of the Pershing II, Jan 1983
It was a BT80 with a balsa transition to a BT70 I believe we designed them with 24mm engine mounts and flew them on Estes D motors. Kennys was inspired from the AIM 7 Sparrow Air to Air Missile. We enjoyed the hobby for a few years until in 1986 I left home and started a 23 year Military career. I introduced Model Rocketry to my Kids in 1995 in the field behind my house on Base in South Dakota. I have enjoyed the hobby for many years.... Always wish I flew more often than I do ! My love of the hobby took an exciting turn in the late 90's when I saw my first Rocketry Magazine (High Power Rocketry i think) with images and articles about Higher Power Rockets.
The bug had got me again.... I certified High Power Level 1 in 2012 with WOOSH Rocketry in Wisconsin.
Thank you to Paul S. , Chad Rogers, and of course Mark for all the support !!
I have a wonderful wife who makes fun of my vast collection of kits, and is always there to remind me I need another rocket like I need a hole in the head. I love her dearly, she still has always supported me !!
I have also been inspired by many of you on the forum over the years! Thank you all on the Forum !!!
MaxQ
Tripoli 2747
Not too different from the rest of you guys that grew up during the sixties.
Our family was getting stationed overseas around the time of Sputnik, but my brother and I enjoyed everything we could find in Life and Time during the Mercury program.
Even the Italians were fascinated by the American response to the Russian space program (I recall seeing Schirra launch live on TV via Telstar IIRC).
Back stateside around 1965 a school friend had the Estes catalogue and the fleet - we launched everything he had after school...that's how I got into it.
My father was involved in the Nike program shooting the real thing at Ft. Bliss/White Sands test ranges and he enjoyed our little projects (Honest John/Nike X) and helped us build a launch controller made out of an old wood microscope case and lantern battery. I was a plastic scale model builder growing up, so I really enjoyed putting the detail and finish on the flying scale model rockets.
Dropped out of the hobby in high school (how typical), got re-involved for awhile in college when the mighty D motor came out.
Starting a career after college kind of took precedence after that...until I saw a 1993 HPR magazine while in a hobby shop...cover story was the big Battle Park launches at Culpeper VA and that was a short trip for me - so I went out there and met great folks and vendors - got the Level 1 & 2 and it has been on-going hobby since. Guess I'm a reBAR BAR.
Our family was getting stationed overseas around the time of Sputnik, but my brother and I enjoyed everything we could find in Life and Time during the Mercury program.
Even the Italians were fascinated by the American response to the Russian space program (I recall seeing Schirra launch live on TV via Telstar IIRC).
Back stateside around 1965 a school friend had the Estes catalogue and the fleet - we launched everything he had after school...that's how I got into it.
My father was involved in the Nike program shooting the real thing at Ft. Bliss/White Sands test ranges and he enjoyed our little projects (Honest John/Nike X) and helped us build a launch controller made out of an old wood microscope case and lantern battery. I was a plastic scale model builder growing up, so I really enjoyed putting the detail and finish on the flying scale model rockets.
Dropped out of the hobby in high school (how typical), got re-involved for awhile in college when the mighty D motor came out.
Starting a career after college kind of took precedence after that...until I saw a 1993 HPR magazine while in a hobby shop...cover story was the big Battle Park launches at Culpeper VA and that was a short trip for me - so I went out there and met great folks and vendors - got the Level 1 & 2 and it has been on-going hobby since. Guess I'm a reBAR BAR.
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My son, when he was two. If my kids hadn't been into it, I might not have pursued it beyond the first few times. Even now, though I am level 3 and have my own rocketry agenda, I still have the most fun watching my kids launch and recover their own stuff. And having seen them grow from just barely being able to push the launch button to being able to load, mount, launch and recover their own is priceless. Heck, both of my kids (9 and 7) have pushed the button on big level 3 birds from a remote launch system with a walkie-talkie to the LCO table.is that you or your son? or was it the rocket?
MaxQ
Tripoli 2747
Now I get the avatar name...LOL
milehigh
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Here is my tale - all wrapped up in a blog post from 2017.....
https://castlerocketeer.blogspot.com/2017/03/back-in-day-part-1.html
https://castlerocketeer.blogspot.com/2017/03/back-in-day-part-1.html
Bottle Rockets ....yep, bottle rockets fascinated me as a child.
When I grew to an early teen and around the 4th of July's I and a few other miscreants launched bottle rockets at cars passing overhead on the Brazos river bridge here in Texas. We'd get under the bridge down on the water level and post a lookout to time the "event" ... never hit anything!
Marriage and kids were the next rocketry step back in the late 80's. We progressed through B/C/D and on to the E/F/G of the rocketry world together as a family. When the boys entered middle school and then on in to high school we were flying H/I and J/K and traveling to launches around Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas. I started working on a level 3 which eventually fell by the wayside due to the lads interest in varsity sports, ladies ... well you get the point.
Now I'm a grandad and I have two missions before lights out .... introduce my grandchildren to the A/B/C/D's of rocketry and complete my L3 in the next year or two. Truly, what goes around comes around ... just a new generation.
When I grew to an early teen and around the 4th of July's I and a few other miscreants launched bottle rockets at cars passing overhead on the Brazos river bridge here in Texas. We'd get under the bridge down on the water level and post a lookout to time the "event" ... never hit anything!
Marriage and kids were the next rocketry step back in the late 80's. We progressed through B/C/D and on to the E/F/G of the rocketry world together as a family. When the boys entered middle school and then on in to high school we were flying H/I and J/K and traveling to launches around Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas. I started working on a level 3 which eventually fell by the wayside due to the lads interest in varsity sports, ladies ... well you get the point.
Now I'm a grandad and I have two missions before lights out .... introduce my grandchildren to the A/B/C/D's of rocketry and complete my L3 in the next year or two. Truly, what goes around comes around ... just a new generation.
viciouspeanut
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I can thank Cub Scouts. Like many others, I started with the classic Alpha my dad and I built. At our launch the scout master had a Big Bertha and it was incredible! I fell out of rocketry as most kids seem to do, but in college I learned about high power and dove in, but a few unfortunate circumstances forced me out. About 10 years later my wife and I started getting into astronomy and that brought rockets flooding back. Year and a half later I'm a TRA level 2!
TeslaPenguin1
Director of the renowned Penguin Space Program
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When I was five, my dad took me out to a launch. Many years later, I was browsing the web, looking at videogame pictures, and I found someone who had made a model rocket based off of the videogame. Then, I remembered the launch, and decided that I HAD to get back into model rocketry. The result is 13(more in progress!) model rockets.
vcp
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caveduck
semi old rocketeer
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In summer 1967 I was a not quite 10-year-old Cub Scout. Besides the much better known Pinewood Derby, my pack also did the Rocket Derby, featuring rubber+propeller powered finless "rockets" running horizontally on a wire. It was the coolest thing I'd ever seen, and I still have a Polaroid picture of myself with a winning model.
In spring 1968 as a Webelos Cub Scout (having turned 10 the previous fall), an older Scout brought a grocery bag full of Estes rockets to a den meeting at our local church. When he pulled out a then gigantic Big Bertha it was a done deal for me. We went on to fly a batch of Astron Streak models on 1/4A's. Mine was later lost when I flew it on an A5-4 and we couldn't find it. Some time right around then I got the 1968 Estes and Centuri catalogs and practically memorized them. An Alpha, Mark, Constellation, Space Plane and Avenger followed, along with a couple of Centuri models. My rocketry career almost ended later in 1968 when my Alpha drifted onto a busy street - we were flying out of the parking lot at the Iowa State Fairgrounds - and was run over by "a semi and four cars" as my friend put it. I was about as crushed as the Alpha, but my Dad rebuilt it pretty much from the ground up (thanks Dad!) and rocketry continued. I still have the body of that Alpha.
The next year in 1969 I tailed off and made a failed attempt to exit the hobby, giving away most of my built models. Big oops, really wish I'd kept the Space Plane! But somewhere in the next year or so, I found a copy of Stine's Handbook in the library. Then I went back in with a vengeance, started a rocket club at my junior high school, and went to my first NAR contest - MAR 72 in Davenport IA. I tried to go to NARAM-15 but couldn't get enough money together. In 1975 I made it to NARAM-17 and got my first NARAM trophy from Vern Estes himself. From then through college I started the DART NAR section, drove all over the Midwest every spring to LPR contests, went to NARAMs about half the time and the Internats in 1980, for which I literally skipped my college graduation ceremony. internats, or listen to somebody read 4000 names? Rocketeers will understand.
Then in 1981 I got married, came to San Diego and started working in the SD "telecom valley" world of communications startups. With much less free time, in the 1980s I kept going at a lower pace, mostly attending NARAMs with my Dad. DART had been operating as a pre-Internet "virtual" competition section, but in about 1985-86 we started holding local launches at Fiesta Island in San Diego.
In August 1991, Dad passed away. For those who didn't know him, George Cook (NAR 23105) had been NAR legal counsel in the early 1980s, and a determined competitor despite having only one usable arm due to a major stroke in 1967. Dad was awarded an NAR life membership in 1982 for pro bono legal work on behalf of the association. He built models using a lot of masking tape to hold things down, and employing his teeth as a second hand. We had gone to dozens of regional contests and several NARAMs. His passing almost ended my rocketry career for a second time. I went to NARAM-34 the next year, but after that I went off the grid for about 15 years.
Somewhere in 2006-2007, I got going again, for no apparent reason except lingering rocket virus. There wasn't a particular trigger at first, the reboot was kind of gradual, and I hadn't quite quit altogether. But I do want to give a shout out to Sheryl McLawhorn, who sent me a very kind and encouraging message -- and a bonus kit for a friend -- when when I ordered a batch of stuff from Semroc to get back in the game. That message really put the match to the fuse. I got into HPR at that point, attended Plaster Blasters 9-12, and resumed going to NARAM. Since then I've been going to multiple national events (LDRS, NSL, NARAM) annually, plus flying on the western dry lakes and helping out at DART launches. These days I do lean more to the HPR side where there is lots of interesting tech - composite construction, electronics, simulation, machining, vast motor options, etc.
Fifty years on, it's still the greatest hobby ever.
In spring 1968 as a Webelos Cub Scout (having turned 10 the previous fall), an older Scout brought a grocery bag full of Estes rockets to a den meeting at our local church. When he pulled out a then gigantic Big Bertha it was a done deal for me. We went on to fly a batch of Astron Streak models on 1/4A's. Mine was later lost when I flew it on an A5-4 and we couldn't find it. Some time right around then I got the 1968 Estes and Centuri catalogs and practically memorized them. An Alpha, Mark, Constellation, Space Plane and Avenger followed, along with a couple of Centuri models. My rocketry career almost ended later in 1968 when my Alpha drifted onto a busy street - we were flying out of the parking lot at the Iowa State Fairgrounds - and was run over by "a semi and four cars" as my friend put it. I was about as crushed as the Alpha, but my Dad rebuilt it pretty much from the ground up (thanks Dad!) and rocketry continued. I still have the body of that Alpha.
The next year in 1969 I tailed off and made a failed attempt to exit the hobby, giving away most of my built models. Big oops, really wish I'd kept the Space Plane! But somewhere in the next year or so, I found a copy of Stine's Handbook in the library. Then I went back in with a vengeance, started a rocket club at my junior high school, and went to my first NAR contest - MAR 72 in Davenport IA. I tried to go to NARAM-15 but couldn't get enough money together. In 1975 I made it to NARAM-17 and got my first NARAM trophy from Vern Estes himself. From then through college I started the DART NAR section, drove all over the Midwest every spring to LPR contests, went to NARAMs about half the time and the Internats in 1980, for which I literally skipped my college graduation ceremony. internats, or listen to somebody read 4000 names? Rocketeers will understand.
Then in 1981 I got married, came to San Diego and started working in the SD "telecom valley" world of communications startups. With much less free time, in the 1980s I kept going at a lower pace, mostly attending NARAMs with my Dad. DART had been operating as a pre-Internet "virtual" competition section, but in about 1985-86 we started holding local launches at Fiesta Island in San Diego.
In August 1991, Dad passed away. For those who didn't know him, George Cook (NAR 23105) had been NAR legal counsel in the early 1980s, and a determined competitor despite having only one usable arm due to a major stroke in 1967. Dad was awarded an NAR life membership in 1982 for pro bono legal work on behalf of the association. He built models using a lot of masking tape to hold things down, and employing his teeth as a second hand. We had gone to dozens of regional contests and several NARAMs. His passing almost ended my rocketry career for a second time. I went to NARAM-34 the next year, but after that I went off the grid for about 15 years.
Somewhere in 2006-2007, I got going again, for no apparent reason except lingering rocket virus. There wasn't a particular trigger at first, the reboot was kind of gradual, and I hadn't quite quit altogether. But I do want to give a shout out to Sheryl McLawhorn, who sent me a very kind and encouraging message -- and a bonus kit for a friend -- when when I ordered a batch of stuff from Semroc to get back in the game. That message really put the match to the fuse. I got into HPR at that point, attended Plaster Blasters 9-12, and resumed going to NARAM. Since then I've been going to multiple national events (LDRS, NSL, NARAM) annually, plus flying on the western dry lakes and helping out at DART launches. These days I do lean more to the HPR side where there is lots of interesting tech - composite construction, electronics, simulation, machining, vast motor options, etc.
Fifty years on, it's still the greatest hobby ever.
Born in 61, with a brother born in 57. Brother took me along to the school yard to watch a rocket launch, I'm guessing I was 5 or 6. The only one that I remember is a Saturn V that only had 2 engines light, so became a landshark... I built a Streak (that never flew). Brother built many including an Orbital Transport, Mercury Redstone, and Gemini Titan all beautifully finished. (Being the PITA little brother, I destroyed them before they flew playing with the parachutes and the glider)
I recall buying a RTF Banshee (or maybe a Vampire) I don't think it ever flew. (late 60's?)
Middle school I built a Scissor Wing & Gyroc. Didn't have a launcher, so they never flew. I enjoyed the build.
High School is were I really got going. I got a Wac Corporal and Startship Vega through ROTC. We flew rockets in the school parking lot at least once a month. I got a job and bought a launcher. Was launching at the edge of town one evening when the Chief of Police rolled up & asked me what I was doing. We talked for a few minutes, then he said "not inside the City limits." Carpola......
Held onto my fleet of 3 or 4 models until I was about to go to sea in Uncle Sam's Canoe Club. Gave everything to the boy living next door. No idea what he did with it, never saw the family again.
Fast forward about 20 years, bought a launch set with daughter from Hobby Lobby when she was bored over the summer. She was excited, but it fizzled after a year and a handful of Estes kits.
I saw an add for the QModeling Startship Vega, and the dying ember in me was fanned into a blaze...
Now, in a way, I have come full circle, I haven't flown or built anything in over a year. Seriously thinking that I need to down size at the least, maybe even get out of rocketry completely.
I recall buying a RTF Banshee (or maybe a Vampire) I don't think it ever flew. (late 60's?)
Middle school I built a Scissor Wing & Gyroc. Didn't have a launcher, so they never flew. I enjoyed the build.
High School is were I really got going. I got a Wac Corporal and Startship Vega through ROTC. We flew rockets in the school parking lot at least once a month. I got a job and bought a launcher. Was launching at the edge of town one evening when the Chief of Police rolled up & asked me what I was doing. We talked for a few minutes, then he said "not inside the City limits." Carpola......
Held onto my fleet of 3 or 4 models until I was about to go to sea in Uncle Sam's Canoe Club. Gave everything to the boy living next door. No idea what he did with it, never saw the family again.
Fast forward about 20 years, bought a launch set with daughter from Hobby Lobby when she was bored over the summer. She was excited, but it fizzled after a year and a handful of Estes kits.
I saw an add for the QModeling Startship Vega, and the dying ember in me was fanned into a blaze...
Now, in a way, I have come full circle, I haven't flown or built anything in over a year. Seriously thinking that I need to down size at the least, maybe even get out of rocketry completely.
Tim51
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jlabrasca
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That is a wonderful illo. The manic glee of the boy holding the match, the dismay on the face of the girl, and the uncertain dad-in-command.
What in the world is an "atomic birth certificate"?
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The Mercury/Gemini model kit offered for a nickel in the Sunday color supplement back in the early 1960s, and the various books with stickers from Science Service of Garden City, NY got the ball rolling for me. Later, I received a set pressurized water rockets for Christmas. Got soaked doing those during the holidays. (One of those rockets was a two-stager!)
There was an early edition of The Model Rocketry Handbook at the public library and but one hobby shop in town selling model rockets--Centuri brand. I later built a Micron and flew it once with a grade school classmate. The model pranged, but I kept going with the hobby. My cousins were visiting from CA and showed me an Estes catalog. Another hobby shop opened in town, and they stocked with Estes items. We formed a loose group of model rocketeers.
Later, one of the neighborhood kids and I joined forces and we would launch in vacant lots nearby. Shelved my rocket activities somewhat after high school, only to ramp up again a few years after joining CAP. Then AVI Astroport started up, so began buying supplies from them. Rejoined forces with my friend from the old neighborhood, and we started building and launching again. Also experimenting with scratch-building and PMC. Somewhere in there, I joined NAR, then let my membership lapse in a few years. We also subscribed to an NAR section newsletter that George Gassaway had a hand in.
In the early 1980s, my CAP state chapter, or Wing, set up an annual model rocketry competition. I would organize a team, then drive down and show 'em how it's done--thanks to American Spacemodelling magazine competition plans and stories. Actually wrote a few kit reviews and eventually participated in NSL 2014, NARAM-54 and NARAM-59. Provided model rocketry demos for CAP at Summer Encampment here, since 1995. Organized the week-long model rocketry course running concurrent with the summer encampment beginning in 2003 or so, continuing through 2017. The program was placed on hiatus as of this year, however. I also produced a highlights reel to be shown at general assembly at the week's end.
The Rocket T. Coyote mascot appeared on course materials in 2006. The fursuit mascot followed in '07, then was upgraded to version 2.0 about 5 years ago. The mascot has earned national recognition for promoting model rocketry and the CAP organization, three times from the CAP Public Affairs Officer's Academy. Those are consecutive, btw.
There was an early edition of The Model Rocketry Handbook at the public library and but one hobby shop in town selling model rockets--Centuri brand. I later built a Micron and flew it once with a grade school classmate. The model pranged, but I kept going with the hobby. My cousins were visiting from CA and showed me an Estes catalog. Another hobby shop opened in town, and they stocked with Estes items. We formed a loose group of model rocketeers.
Later, one of the neighborhood kids and I joined forces and we would launch in vacant lots nearby. Shelved my rocket activities somewhat after high school, only to ramp up again a few years after joining CAP. Then AVI Astroport started up, so began buying supplies from them. Rejoined forces with my friend from the old neighborhood, and we started building and launching again. Also experimenting with scratch-building and PMC. Somewhere in there, I joined NAR, then let my membership lapse in a few years. We also subscribed to an NAR section newsletter that George Gassaway had a hand in.
In the early 1980s, my CAP state chapter, or Wing, set up an annual model rocketry competition. I would organize a team, then drive down and show 'em how it's done--thanks to American Spacemodelling magazine competition plans and stories. Actually wrote a few kit reviews and eventually participated in NSL 2014, NARAM-54 and NARAM-59. Provided model rocketry demos for CAP at Summer Encampment here, since 1995. Organized the week-long model rocketry course running concurrent with the summer encampment beginning in 2003 or so, continuing through 2017. The program was placed on hiatus as of this year, however. I also produced a highlights reel to be shown at general assembly at the week's end.
The Rocket T. Coyote mascot appeared on course materials in 2006. The fursuit mascot followed in '07, then was upgraded to version 2.0 about 5 years ago. The mascot has earned national recognition for promoting model rocketry and the CAP organization, three times from the CAP Public Affairs Officer's Academy. Those are consecutive, btw.
Tim51
Well-Known Member
Indeed. Now it's more often a case of the manic glee of the dad holding the switch box, the dismay on the face of the wife seeing the price of a K motor, the boy uncertain what's happening to dad etc etc...
You can read the article here:
https://www.oldrocketplans.com/pubs/Mechanix_Illustrated/10-57/10_57Mech_Ill.pdf
https://www.oldrocketplans.com/publications.htm
My story ? I was born a month before Sputnik and a month before this issue was published. A high school science teacher who worked for my Dad during the summer gifted me with an Estes range box circa 1967. ElectroLaunch, Astron Alpha, accessories. Thanks Mr. Stead !
https://www.oldrocketplans.com/pubs/Mechanix_Illustrated/10-57/10_57Mech_Ill.pdf
https://www.oldrocketplans.com/publications.htm
My story ? I was born a month before Sputnik and a month before this issue was published. A high school science teacher who worked for my Dad during the summer gifted me with an Estes range box circa 1967. ElectroLaunch, Astron Alpha, accessories. Thanks Mr. Stead !
bobby_hamill
Well-Known Member
I had one of those!
bobby_hamill
Well-Known Member
from time to time they show up on ebay
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Similar, if not identical. Plus there was one which almost resembled a Mercury Redstone and even had parachute recovery. Another odd thing which may have pushed me towards Model Rocketry were the screaming balloons which had an image of the Mercury Redstone printed on the side from the early 1960s. My Dad would inflate them and release in the house. I wasn't even in Kindergarten yet. My lungs were too weak to inflate them myself.
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That's the one that I had. Red rocket and a green nose cone. You could even see the astronauts inside! Loved that toy, still in storage somewhere.
I had that exact kit. Until I came up with the idea to use boiling water. The logic was sound for a 13 year old. Real rockets have flames obviously if I used boiling water I would get more performance.
jlabrasca
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Wow, that would be a serious keepsake to have!
BTW, someday every home will have a computer.
Bat-Mite, where'd you find this image?
I did a google image search, trying to figure out the provenance. No luck. Just a lot of blogs posts and pseudo-news articles about computers in the home.
The highest resolution I could find was use as cover art -- displayed on the band Loopus in Fabula's Myspace (!!) page. Even without that clue, the image is pretty clearly something to do with audio recording.
She's got a stack of LPS, that is a big speaker in the lower left, and speakers in the upper corners. The reel-to-reel recorders are not data tapes, and I think the stuff on the cabinet behind her might be a mastering lathe.
Barkley
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Grew up in Canada and had absolutely no idea that amateur rocketry was a thing. Moved to Houston for work in 2014, and found out you could launch home built rockets at Johnson Space Center. My inner child took over, but had no idea that you could go to Hobby Lobby and buy something, so I got an Office Depot mailing tube and cut fins from Home Depot ply. I also home built motors from an internet video, and was told that I couldn't fly at JSC because it was a NAR site and you could only make sugar motors with a Tripoli L2. Tripoli Houston then took me under their wing and showed me how to get up and down safely.
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It was 1963 or 1964 and I was in junior high school. A friend invited me over to his house to see the new toy he had just put together (we were into plastic model airplanes and Big Daddy Rat Fink plastic model cars at the time). As he proudly held this little pips-squeak of model up to show me (I think it was an Astron Scout), I was supremely underwhelmed. No flashy paint job, no lightening bolt decals.
We then went out to his back yard where he stuck a long metal rod into the ground. He threaded the model onto the rod and took out a book of matches (no snide comments, please). As the fuse burned and the rocket shot into the air, I was absolutely hooked. Plastic and Duco Cement quickly went back in the closet. From then on I followed a strict diet of balsa wood and Elmer's White Glue.
--- Steve, NAR #5073
We then went out to his back yard where he stuck a long metal rod into the ground. He threaded the model onto the rod and took out a book of matches (no snide comments, please). As the fuse burned and the rocket shot into the air, I was absolutely hooked. Plastic and Duco Cement quickly went back in the closet. From then on I followed a strict diet of balsa wood and Elmer's White Glue.
--- Steve, NAR #5073
rocketcharlie
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Here is my story ... I was bumming around in the local library during the summer between 7th and 8th grade. I came across G H Stones book and checked it out. I was instantly hooked. This would have been 1966 I believe. I immediately went to the local hobby shop in California where I lived but couldn't find a single model rocket. I wrote to Estes about where to get one and they sent me a letter back saying... Sorry kid, not legal in CA. So I took to making my own out of cardboard tubes. I made the motors out of aluminium cans that film used to come in. I would poke a hole in one end, fill it with match heads and set it off with a fuse that I got at a hobby shop for another type of engine called jet-x. (This is a good example of why the state should have allowed model rocketry). Eventually, while visiting my grandmother in Connecticut I was able to buy a real model rocket, I wish I still had it.
Rocketry was my favorite thing then, as it is now.
Rocketry was my favorite thing then, as it is now.
I don't know exactly when I got started or how. Did Estes advertise in the back of Popular Science magazine? I might have sent them a letter for a catalog. The first photo I have with a model rocket that I built I was between 10 and 12. The only place we could buy Estes stuff was mail order, motors and all. I had 2 good friends that I built and launched rockets with, up until I hit 15 and started working in my father's garage. So I started somewhere around 1965. I still have a few of my rockets from that time period including one I was working on today to get it ready to launch again.
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