What got you here?

[Ed Dawson]

I flew off the cliffs of Palos Verdes. On a breezy day there was so much lift that you could fly power planes with nose weight (instead of an engine) as well as gliders. A wind ribbon would blow upwards at an angle of at least 20 percent.

Now there are too many people around and too many expensive houses I suppose.

[denverdoc]

dale netherton.
j

[MikeSModerator]

My older brother back in the 60s.
Cub Scouts – Boyscouts in the 60s and 70s
30 years later…………………….
Then I started watching the X-Prise stuff on TV, a couple
programs showcased HPR.
I purchased an ESTES egg lofter 3 years ago. To start
from the beginning again.
Thankful for the internet and this forum for a learning curv.
Went to my first NCR North launch 2.5 years ago. My heart
was pounding out of my chest, I hope noe one was looking.
Crashed my first cluster 2 years ago.
Been enjoying ‘G’ heaven since.
Hope to get my level one in may.
Gettining my altimeter any day, and will start buildinga duel deploy.

[Jeffrey Joe HintonModerator]

Short version of a long story. Grew up watching the Space Race. Lost a few of my older brother’s kits. Tried making my own rockets and motors with tinfoil wrapped tubes and curlers packed with powder from 22’s and kitchen matchheads. Managed to not die trying different molotov projectiles and had to go for counseling. Time warp ahead 30 years. Wanting to bond with my son – tried small kits again and went to a PHITS launch. Watched someone’s Initiator on a G and knew I’d been missing out big time. My son Waverly wasn’t interested unless the rockets blew up but I was hooked again. Still dreaming I can find a ride to space, even if I have to build it from scratch. Now in the meantime I’m working on smaller dreams and schemes and thinking L3 eventually.

[Bruce R. Schaefer]

Yet another older guy… 53, started making my own rockets back in ’63, two years after I got my Chemcraft chemistry set at age 8… until I found, like Warren and Ed, an ad in Boys Life about Estes or Centuri (first rocket, Centuri Javelin). Instead of the squirrel monkey offered on the very same page!, I chose model rockets. Odd, my parents wouldn’t let me order a monkey, but didn’t mind if I mixed rocket fuel up in the garage… anyway, ended up at NARAM-11 in ’69, won a Junior National Championship in a Sparrow Boost Glider contest, and instead of me, who earned the FAI record, ol’ G. Harry, NAR #2, made sure his daughter, who flew 30 seconds less than mine, got the International record. Not, that after allllll these years I’m bitter or anything… 😈 🙂 Anyway, never stopped firing rockets, though spent a lot of time in the 80’s working on telemetry packages and Super-8 movie cameras for rockets… and clustering those F-100’s into HPR–though that’s among us, so don’t say anthing… hey, it takes power to boost those old Super-8 cameras! So, it’s been a long time and a lot of learning and fun!

[denverdoc]

one thing that I have noticed is that I have a love of darts, golf, rockets, and markmanship shooting. These are about projecting your will over distance. Anyone else that way?
JS

[Bruce R. Schaefer]

I remember taking an old double-barreled cork shotgun (corks were attached to the barrels with string, you just shot the corks out of the barrel, and the string kept them handy). Well… I took the corks off and made darts out of toothpicks and needles with paper fins, put them in, and lo and behold!, they shot out and hit a bulletin board! It was great… until I shot one through my thumb. Ah, kids… also the Space Race, as Joe mentioned… the only excuse in my family for missing a day of school, unless I was really sick, was watching a launch, first ones in black and white. 🙂

[boarhog]

After watching Apollo 11 at age 3 I knew I wanted nothing more than to fly in space. But back then, test pilots couldn’t wear glasses so I was SOL. Found model rocketry through the Cub Scouts (1st Rocket: Estes Viking). My friend’s dad built an Interceptor and Andromeda and I was awed. Built various small Estes kits, balsa cone V-2, Orbital Transport, Maxi X-Wing (POS). Early rocketry career ended with a Big Bertha with a nosecone full of gunpowder (painstakingly removed from an old box of shotgun shells) that barely made it off the pad, us kids trying to hide behind a boat engine battery, the panes of the second floor sliding glass doors bending in from the explosive force, behind which sat my dad, quietly reading. BTW, the PNC split along a seam, we recovered part of the cone and one fin. My head almost split along a seam too once my dad was finished with me, and that was the end of my rocketry as a youth. (got into plastic modeling and hunting/trapping instead, we used to sell muskrat pelts for beer money as teens)
Fast-FWD from ’79 to ’98, now I have toddlers and we got our first egg-lofter and a Skywinder. Good fun there. But one of my boys built a Mosquito at age 5, put an astonishing amount of work into it (great work on the fins and paint!) and of course we launched it from 9th St. Park in Boulder and it was gone. I felt sooo bad for him! (consequently I made a TP tube upscale for his 13th birthday. He’s building an Executioner for MHM07) Between then and now we’ve had various launch troubles from trying to get an Estes controller to ignite ANYTHING to finding a decent place to launch without trees and/or misunderstanding neighbors.
Found HPR searching the web during late 90s, tried to join NCR last April but got too busy to follow through, so here I am again because I want to build a Mach-buster. And my son saw a national event on Discovery where they launched a “P” size motor. He drools when he talks about it.. Now how am I going to afford that?! Ok, son, I can help you buy a car or we can launch the refridgerator. Your choice.

[Author]

Posts