model rocketry

RenegadeT

RenegadeT

no shirt,no shoes,no dice
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Mar 24, 2005
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Stokesdale-Greensboro
Was out shopping with the family at Target when we saw Estes model rockets on clearance. Decided to impulse buy one, asked the kids (ages 9 & 10) if they wanted to pick one out. They looked 'em over, decided on the one that went the highest (made me smile), 1125 ft. This one was 'easy to assemble', not 'ready to fly', no big deal. Assembly was fairly easy, the kids wanted to watch me build it, so that's how it went down. The glue had to dry...we're at T minus 2 hours to liftoff, time to feed the young space rangers.

Not far from my house is the town park, 2 full sized soccer fields, that sounded big enough for our $15 rocket. Nope...

The excitement was thick as the boys started the countdown, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, LIFTOFF! Knucklehead pushed the safety key in, then hit the ignition button and it fired up. There was a slight delay between the blast and the time it finally lifted off. Then, I t was gone, straight up, or almost strait up. I was worried the virgin glue wouldn't hold and the tail fins would fall off, or worse, the parachute shock cord come unglued. Everything worked great, the engine burned all the fuel, smoke trail started, and the last stage popped the nose cone open unfolding the parachute. That's when the mission started to go wrong.

It was a little gusty, maybe a few hundred feet above the ground there was an air current, but the rocket started drifting away. We started at one end of the soccer field, it drifted the whole length, then across the parking lot. That's when I knew we weren't going to see this thing again. Across the parking lot is a heavily wooded area with lots of underbrush. The boys insisted on chasing it down, I told them go ahead, but it's probably dangling 60 feet above the ground. When I got to the woods, I saw poison ivy everywhere, my hunt was over. The kids weren't having much luck breaking thru the underbrush, so it wasn't terribly hard to convince them to leave.

There were 2 engines left from our 3-pack. Today when I got home from work, the kids were thrilled to show me the new rocket mommy bought. Here we go again!
This was my first experience playing with these. Has anyone else got into them?
 
had a couple when I was a kid, fun, but it gets old either hunting them down or rebuilding them. I never had any that were real big, tallest was about 2ft,

Neighbor had a few, is how I got interested. He had one that was patterned after a missile, stood about 5ft tall. It was pretty impressive on the launch and made a really cool expensive lawn dart when it landed. after the 3rd or fourth lawn dart of my own I found other things to build ( bicycles )

Neighbor was a pretty cool influence though, being the mid-70's RC helo's were a pretty new hobby, fun to watch him crash and rebuild, watched as Dad laid on the ground under a helo holding it to the ground while neighbor tuned rotor trim's. went to a few RC meets, watched a lot of expensive toys get eaten and crashed, one guy lost a finger trying to catch an out of control helo. Neighbor had no kids, could afford expensive toys.
 
I haven't thought about model rockets in a long time. I was pretty big into it when I was a kid. My dad and I made a wooden launch pad and painted some cool stuff on it. I had several rockets. I can't remember, but I probably lost a few too. Good times.

They might enjoy watching the movie October Sky. Look it up.
 
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I got one for Christmas one year. Spent Christmas day building it. My 2 Uncles hovering over me. at the time I didn't notice the little glint in their eyes. One was a Chemists, the other was in the Army and was in charge of Explosives Ordinance Disposal... you see where this is going don't you?

well, we went out to my Granddad's cow pasture and I hooked up the rocket to a car battery and.. nothing. This is when my two uncles stepped in. They took the rocket into the barn where they both hunched over the rocket and me standing behind them moving left and right trying to get a glimpse of what they were doing. after a five or ten minutes they turned around and said "Here, try it now!"

I ran out, set it up, stood back and touched the wires off to the battery and WOOOOSH! away it went, up, up , up..... Never saw that fuckin rocket again.

I turned around to my uncles and they smiled, then turned around and went inside leaving me there holding two wires over a battery.
 
True story! Saw a buddy aim real good and launch one way up into the wind and it came right back down near us and he ran and caught it. Dude was truly a classic and accomplished many crazy / stupid feats.
 
ahhhh grasshopper, all is not lost. change the chute to a simple 4' crinkled up streamer and she'll come back down 'close' to where she took off from. they hit a tad harder, but you get them back 95% of the time. also, switch to A rockets on windy days. whats the sense in losing track of it in flight anyway?
I used to have a swing-wing glider that was the shiz-nit. it glided down in loops instead of free falling. used to LOVE those things.
 
also - Tecnu for poison ivy !!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I mow, saw, cut, bushhog, roll around etc back in the nastiest of the nasty on my farm and get liquid poison ivy resin on my skin. I immediately go home, wash all over with tecnu and never have to worry about it. the idea is that only certain chemicals can wash the oils away and bar soap aint one of them. learned that from foresty service folks in CA that fight the wildfires in the funky stuff. WD-40 actually works in a pinch but costs more, is harder to wash off and stinks. tecnu brother, tecnu :huggy:
 
WD-40 smells good to me!

I bath in Dawn to cut the oil after PI exposure.

Back on topic, I used to love model rockets back in the day. I got to where I built mine from scratch. I even made fins and a nose cones for just the engine.

Streamers are where its at. It may suffer from a violent landing but that is far less often than watching them drift away into the sunset.

I always wanted to do the multi stage rockets, but never did. I'm looking forward to the day when I get to experience it with my kids, I've still got a few more years.
 
What age do you all think is appropriate to introduce model rockets to children? I was probably 7-10 yrs old when my father introduced me.
 
I think it was two years ago, my son was 8, when we first did one. Similar situation, we went out to a local park w/ lots of baseball/soccer fields. Fired off the rocket, he though it was awesome, after the 2nd run, a fin broke, we called it quits.
I'd say 7-10 or so.
 
These days, I think age for something like this all depends on the kids. The responsibility and matureness gap seems to be getting much wider these days. The kind of relationship with the father (or sometimes mother) is a huge factor as well.

But as of anything, wonder if the Chinese kids that packed the powder even put an age recommendation on the box...
 
Successfully launched and retrieved our second rocket, twice this morning. Used the other 2 B engines from the 3-pack. On this one, I cut a 3" hole in the chute.

drkelly said:
What age do you all think is appropriate to introduce model rockets to children? I was probably 7-10 yrs old when my father introduced me.
Click to expand...
FWIW, the box says 10 and older.
 
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