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Basil

Basil

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I had several Estes rockets as a kid. Stumbled upon this video about the history of Estes rockets.

 
As a kid growing up in the 60's (eek!) I would always save my money to buy body tubes, nose cones, balsa and rocket engines from Estes. Fill out an order form, mail it in and wait for the package to arrive. How did we get by with no tracking? :wink:
Somewhere in my boxes of things that I kept as a kid I have an original Estes ~typewritten~ catalog.
I'm currently working on rocket #2 for my granddaughter.... what fun!
 
I sent orders to Edmunds Scientific in Barrington NJ for stuff back in the 50/60s. Still use them for teaching a course about living on lighthouses. Fresnel lens and other items. Course id sold out to seniors every time I teach it.
 
Edmond had "penny viewers" on short keychains I would get by the box full, along with a die-cutter, to punch out 35mm 'chrome frames. Would go to a local 60-lane bowling alley on 'league night' and take photos of all the bowlers. Then I would run home, process film and organize the viewers with bowlers' pix. Return to the alley to sell those to the various guys for $1.00 each as they sat around after bowling, drinking and BS-ing. I was makin' money at age 14~15 to get more photo gear.
 
Here's the Estes #2 that I just completed.

IMG_4994.jpg
 
Sweet, Elliot! Do you have a launch date yet?Have the kids been watching Spacex progress?
 
The closest I can get to a launch date is “warm weather”.
My grandkids live in Boston so hopefully we can all get together in the spring. I don’t know if they are aware of Spacex but I’ll search for a website that they can have a look at.
 
Son Paul and I built one similar to the above - maybe smaller - when he was 13. This was in '94 I took plenty of time painting, and it came out quite nicely, if I do say so. Living in Nashville at the time. We took it to Percy Warner Park, big natural area on the west side to launch it. Launch went perfectly... but never recovered it! :cry:
 
Mickey Richaud said:
Son Paul and I built one similar to the above - maybe smaller - when he was 13. This was in '94 I took plenty of time painting, and it came out quite nicely, if I do say so. Living in Nashville at the time. We took it to Percy Warner Park, big natural area on the west side to launch it. Launch went perfectly... but never recovered it! :cry:
Click to expand...
Well I did find mine in my backyard many years ago :devilgrin:
 
I know a few are littering a wooded patch of western Pennsylvania.
 
OK, it's time for me to come clean....
When I was 11 my friend Charlie and I would meet after school in a large empty field to launch our rockets. We always looked up to make sure the airspace was clear. Well, one day in our excitement to launch our first "two-stage" we had a breakdown in safety protocol :smile:.
Immediately after launch two eleven year olds stood there and watched a big NY Airways helicopter begin to circle the field with landing lights turned on. How cool is that we thought! It circled a few times UNTIL the local police arrived and took two 11 year olds to the police station. The helicopter pilot must have though we were shooting at him (we weren't). My mom called my dad and he came over to the police station to retrieve us. Of course my mom never let me forget the time "dad had to pick you up at the police station". To this day it's a family tale.
Here's a photo of the now defunct NY Airways helicopter.

New_York_Airways_helicopter_at_JFK_airport_after_flying_from_the_top_of_the_Pan-Am_building_in_d.jpg
 
:thumbsup:

Coulda used the excuse: "Robert Goddard never had this kind of problem!"
 
DrEntropy said:
:thumbsup:

Coulda used the excuse: "Robert Goddard never had this kind of problem!"
Click to expand...
I was more like "Werner Von Elliot" :glee:
 
I found it! Here's an Estes catalog from 1962 that I had stored in a box. It's typewritten and has spot color. Prices seem awful cheap by todays standards :glee:

IMG_5008.jpgIMG_5010.jpg
 
Amazing! I remember the catalogs, pals were into them. I was only an observer. I was butt-deep into photography, electronics & amateur radio. Edmond Scientific was the catalog I'd peruse with interest.
 
DrEntropy said:
Amazing! I remember the catalogs, pals were into them. I was only an observer. I was butt-deep into photography, electronics & amateur radio. Edmond Scientific was the catalog I'd peruse with interest.
Click to expand...
I can certainly understand... I was always convincing my mom to drive me to Lafayette Electronics so I could buy components for something I saw in Popular Electronics. I also had a CB hooked up in my room and started to collect QSL cards. Fun times!
 
Gliderman8 said:
I can certainly understand... I was always convincing my mom to drive me to Lafayette Electronics so I could buy components for something I saw in Popular Electronics. I also had a CB hooked up in my room and started to collect QSL cards. Fun times!
Click to expand...

heh. Got QSL cards from th' Beeb and Moscow Radio. Built a CB transmitter from a Pop Electronics article, called a "Roof Hopper." 100MW! Put it on the 30' antenna mast on the garage. Used the Hallicrafters SX-99 as the receiver. Once the "locals" realized I was on a flea-power'd home-brew with no license they ignored me. Bastages.

Fun times indeed.
 
I just had a look at the "Roof Hopper".... I must have missed that one in PE. I remember building an AM crude homing device to fit in a rocket I built. It would emit a "beep" that you could pickup on your AM transistor radio. The problem was that you had to be right on top of it to get the beep and by that time you already located the lost rocket :joyous:
 
Speaking of "beeps" I remember sitting with dad, hunting for and listening to Sputnik as it passed overhead in late 1957. We timed it so we'd be sure we were hearing the right beeper, tuned to 40 MhZ on that old Hallicrafters.

Exciting, yet frightening times to a seven year old.
 
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