LUNAR’clips 2003                        Volume 10, Number 6

Copyright © 2003 by LUNAR, All rights reserved.

A Bunch Of Old Rockets For An Old Rocketeer

I've been flying model rockets since 1973 and never lost my enthusiasm for the hobby. I've built dozens of models and made hundreds of flights over the years, although, I'm just now pursuing my level 1 certification for high power rockets. It was always neat to go to the hobby shop and look at all the rocket stuff there or browse through the model rocket catalogs.

Well, a few years ago I kind of got my own hobby shop of model rockets. A friend of my wife's family passed away and unknown to many he had been hoarding anything to do with flying. He had tons of model airplane kits and Star Wars things and model rockets and more. The only one they knew that flew rockets was myself so I inherited all the rocket stuff he had collected over many years.

There were over 50 model kits and a couple of starter kits and many packs of engines and some launch equipment. I had my own hobby shop! Most of the stuff was Estes brand but there was a couple of Centuri kits and a couple of MRC kits. As I looked through it all I was amazed at what I had. I had the Scout, Goblin, Trident II, Orbital Transport, Scissor Wing Transport, Jupiter-C, and many more old and new kits. I felt like I hit the Mother Lode.

How many of you can say you have a hobby store in your house. I knew a lot of these kits were old, 20+ years old, but what to do with them. I thought about selling some of them and I might yet but haven't so far. Instead I've been enjoying them. I've built many so far and been flying them and I've also given some away to family and friends. If I lose a rocket or one gets damaged I don't let that bother me, I just get another kit out and build it. These kits have been stored for long periods of time and handled a bit.

What I've found while building them is that they are generally still in good condition. There might be a broken fin of a plastic fin unit or the self adhesive decals might not stick anymore and I've had several crushed body tubes but that's not a problem cause I can easily replace a body tube. So when ever it's a rainy day or I get bored I can just pull a kit out and start building it.

I also got a bunch of engines with the models and some of these packs of engines are old, too. I had mini engines and others up to Cs. One pack was very old cause it came with the nichrome igniters that come together and you have to cut them apart from each other and shape them into the nozzle. The price tag on some of these Estes engine packs were under $3. My experience flying with these old engines has been interesting. This has been a good test of model rocket engines. I don't know how they were stored for all those years before I got them or how they've been handled. Overall my experience with these old motors has been good. I've used several packs and only had one mini engine blow and I had a C engine just sit on the pad and burn up in a big flame. It didn't leave much of the rocket left. Maybe some of you saw that incident at the October 2003 launch at LUNAR. By the way, it was on pad #13. So these engines can apparently withstand the test of time. I still have over 30 kits left now. It's going to be years before I get bored. So if you see this old rocketeer out there at the flying field who knows what I'll be flying.

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