hey guys,hope everyone is doing good. anyone else like this hobby? ive always been into shooting rockets up in my backyard with C engines. But recently im getting into bigger engines! just got a back of G engines. Nothing like building your own rocket...seeing it shoot into the sky...and never see it again

 

I used to mess around with them. Haven't in several years. Everyonce in a while I get the urge to reinstate the "Hampster in Space" program, but the other half doesn't like that idea very much.

 

ive fiddled around with that idea for a while!

 

Check out this web site, especially if you live in So Cal.

http://www.rocstock.org/index.html

These guys are serious about model rockets. Some are the size of some early SAMs.

I am planning to drag my boys off to one of their meets this summer. May be a mistake, if they turn out to like this hobby.

Jim Henderson

 

My buddy got me into it a bit a couple years back. But I'm always the guy who likes to do things wrong and build his own stuff. I bought one of those f-g whatever engines. Their about 3 inches long or so. And more powerful than the D's, but the same size.. The big black buggers. Anyways, their illegal here now. I took a piece of PVC, cut it to about a foot in length, took a chunk of 2X2 pine, and carved it to fit inside. I drilled it out, to hold the motor. I put a 3/4 inch hole for the ejection charge, and glued it into place with Goop. Then, I glued on some fins with Goop, and put a nose cap on it. That stuff was off of his rocket that, er, um, didn't survive. I used some thick yarn for the parachutte cord, and a piece of a black, plastic garbage bag for the chute. I painted it all purdy like, and launched it with a standard D engine, just to see how she flew. We used to launch in a field about 700 yards, square. On the south end was a grocery store, and to the east, a road. We never had a problem launching there, and we used to have people come watch. Anyways, on her trial flight, it took off perfect, and went up a couple hundred feet. Pretty good for such a heavy bugger. It landed intact, so I stuck in the powerful motor. A light breeze started to blow from the south, so i pointed it into the wind a bit. We llaunched, and it took off with a huge column of smoke, that looked really cool. I started to get affraid that I aimed it too far south. She just climbed, and soon it was well over the grocery store, and still climbing. We started to panic, but the engine stopped, and the ejection charge wen't off. It started back down, but it was way higher than we thought it would go. It was now blowing from the southwest, and started carrying over towards the road. We figured it was still o.k, because it was high enough that it would touch down in the field accross the road. About that time, we saw smoke start coming from the top, and the odd flame. Right then, the chute seperated from the rocket, and she came screaming down. We figure it was still about 200 feet up. It came down with a bang, and right onto the road! A truck slammed on the brakes, and we hit the dirt. We thought it hit the truck! Whoops! After, we wen't looking for it, but couldn't find it. The next day, driving by that field I saw it on the shoulder of the road. I got out to get it, and to my amazment, two of the three fins were still on it! But the tube was burning as it hit the ground. The plastic was so soft, that when it hit, it didn't crack, instead the first four or five inches rolled back, kind of like a nail head. I never did find the nose cone, parachutte or engine mount, but I learned a lesson that day. Always use the bigger motors, that was sweet!

 

Another time, we stuck a bear banger in one of his rockets. The only thing that survived was the nose cone. Don't try that at home!

 

Oh yeah! Started when I was a kid. Was out of it for several years, until about 7 years ago until my son was old enough to try it. Now we have a barn full of them. The 100 acres behind our house is just now being gone over with a plow and disk. It will be left fallow this year, so I suspect we will be doing lots of launches in the coming weeks. We have a few large rockets that use a variety of the big, (larger than the D size engines). Engines have become so darn expensive now!

A neighbor sued to go to the desert with liquid fueled rockets that they tracked electronically to recover. Does not do it any more, unfortunately.

 

I did it when I was a kid. I think my first rocket was called the Alpha 1, by Century, (Is that right, was there a company of that name in the early 70's?)
I know it wasn't an Estes kit. The Alpha 1 came with a neat little plastic tripod stand and launch rod, a 6 inch metal blast deflector, and the stand had a built-in safety key so that voltage couldn't reach the engine ignitor. Do they still use nichrome wire engine ignitors? The rocket was simple, 12 inch tube, plastic nose cone, three balsa fins and a basic engine tube, it came with a packet of those stickers you needed to soak in water then quickly apply, the Alpha 1 worked well and I had some fun.
My friend built the Saturn V rocket,the thing was like 4 feet tall, and used 3 C's or D's and it ended up high in a tree..it didn't matter, we were like monkey's then, always climbing to get rockets, kites, and other stupid stuff out of trees.
My favorite rocket was the Honest John Nike missile, it was about two foot long and flew real nice.
The best flight I ever had though was a combo rocket with glider attached, It was a very crude representation of how a space shuttle was supposed to operate. The rocket was simple a small 8 inch tube with a plastic nose cone and a stiff backbone of balsa, which was notched out to accept a Dihedral-winged glider that would hang on while on the way up, and as soon as the ejection charge blew it would separate the rocket and glider. The rocket came down with a streamer, but the glider would fly in big circles as we waited for 5 minutes sometimes for it to land. I would say that is a lot of fun for a Parent and child to do. To launch that glider and watch it fly around is much better than chasing a drifting rocket coming down on a chute!

 

I use to when I was in the cub scouts but never had to much luck with them so I started putting engines in model cars to me that was fun but they always had a melt down when all was seid and done ,still have a few engines left and want to put them in another car with ballbearing wheels and aluminum motor mount

 

took a couple of model rockets out onto the lake Sunday to occupy the kids while we were icefishing

First one went out in the middle of the lake.. perfect!!...took the kids about 15 minutes to retrieve it
Second shot went straight up...parachute didnt open.....plunk! landed right on the roof of the truck.

 

I built about 40 of them as a kid, and launched them up until a few years ago. I live too close to the airport now.

I used the ESTES kits... they were a lot of fun.

 

back in high school me an my buddy played around with these dealy missles. he would go out after the 4th of july and pick all the fins and nose cones he could find. the rockets were all engine. the fins held the motor and the nose cone was gloed to the top. the motors were always too big for the fins so we would strip down some of the outer casing. I got a nice tri fin base but no nose cone. ssssoooo. i decided to make my own body and nose cone. the material used was packing cardboard. i scored the piece used for the body and rolled it up nice and tight. the cone was also cardboard rolled up and the center pused out to form a point. once everything was glued tightly into place we stripped down a c-6 motor and crammed it in there. WOW this thing whet off like nothing. it was great. we were sitting no the ground after the launch propped up with our arms watching this missle. now remember nothing was said about a chute.... we could track it (overcast day and a white rocket) once the engine dies she turns back towards earth. point first. it hit the ground right between me and my buddy. stuck into the ground about 3 inches. that was the last death missle i launched. have thought about it since my son will be 11 in may. but next time there will be a chute........

 

haha that's awesome, and hilarious.

I've had a few land in a construction yard, nobody was allowed in there cuz've the construction. But the Fellers in there were nice and always drove them back out to us. I guess they used it as an excuse for a break cuz it always took 6 guys to bring us a rocket.

 

I used to do this. When I was doing this about the biggest engine you could find was a C65. Also at that time I could buy fuse. Didn't need an electric launcher.
If you haven't seen it yet, the April issue of Popular Mechanics has an article on the BIG model rockets. The class M engines where you have to have a license from BATF. I believe their record right now is 70+ miles.

 

I built 1 rocket about 4 feet long and 4 inches and diameter and launched it with E motors. It went up about 500 feet but i wanted more so i redesigned it and lightened it. I named it the general lee and painted it orange and it had a rebel flag parachute. Unfortunately i did not glue the fins straight the second time and when I launched it, it went up and slowly arched horizontal and went for several hundred yards at about a few hundred feet in the air. It had a huge trail of white smoke behind it as i was watching it through binoculars. The motor ran out and it began to silently streak right toward my neighbors house, which was 300-400 yards away from the launch site. Luckily it just hit a tree but the ejection charge caught the tree on fire.