Bought A Rocket - and a bunch of memories .

[mojjax]

The guy said that everything in the shed was for sale too - I spotted the estes rocket - grabbed it and asked How Much - he said $2.00 , I gave him the money and he said " Don't forget to take box that was next to it . "

When I was a little kid back in the early 70's , my older brother and I shot them into the sky all the time . It was a blast !

 

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[silverdollarbill]

Cool find. We used to shoot them in the 80s too. I remember on that had a "payload" compartment that you could put a mouse into. Do kids still use these?

 

[bigcaddy64]

Cool find. We used to shoot them in the 80s too. I remember on that had a "payload" compartment that you could put a mouse into. Do kids still use these?

I shot them out in the dry lakes when I was about 10 or so (1990s) and later found that it was more fun with a buddy to load the engines into a 6'-0"copper pipe "bazooka" and shoot them at whatever moved in my multi acre, wooded backyard.

 

[mojjax]

Cool find. We used to shoot them in the 80s too. I remember on that had a "payload" compartment that you could put a mouse into. Do kids still use these?

my brother had the Big Bertha and the X-Ray . The X-ray had a clear payload compartment - we would send up frogs & toads - they didn't seem to like it too much .

 

[CladSpends2]

my brother had the Big Bertha and the X-Ray . The X-ray had a clear payload compartment - we would send up frogs & toads - they didn't seem to like it too much .

PETA is going to hunt you down! LOL

Which reminds me, do you know what PETA is an acronym for? People Eating Tasty Animals. Well, that is what it stands for at my house anyway. ;-)

 

[mojjax]

PETA is going to hunt you down! LOL

Which reminds me, do you know what PETA is an acronym for? People Eating Tasty Animals. Well, that is what it stands for at my house anyway. ;-)

Yes , PETA , comes to the Rockland Lobster Festival every year . This year the protester was was semi - nude lady - dressed like a lobster - topless . Maine passed a law a few years ago where women are are allowed to go topless in public .
Seems like profitable business opportunity . TOPLESS LANDSCAPING - WEED WACKING - WEED PULLING - HEDGE TRIMMING .
just a thought .
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct...0sLKJ1I8QAqG-O6Eg&sig2=LXmQpyFCgzoyfzFAm61RUg

 

[tamrock]

Cool find. We used to shoot them in the 80s too. I remember on that had a "payload" compartment that you could put a mouse into. Do kids still use these?

I sent a mouse up in a plastic sandwich bag tied to a kit for an hour flight. The mouse survived and got away after after the bag was opened.

 

[toolmanbutch]

Here I come to save the Day, Mighty Mouse is on the way!

I sent a mouse up in a plastic sandwich bag tied to a kit for an hour flight. The mouse survived and got away after after the bag was opened.

 

[mojjax]

Another thing I did as a kid was catch dragon flies , I would tie a thread to them , fly them on a leash , like a kite .

 

[mojjax]

Funny , kids now a days , just stare at their Iphones , us old dudes built forts , rode bikes , smoked pine needles , climbed trees , burnt plastic army men , me and my cousin would tie a fish string to a wallet & put it in the road and we would hide in the bushes . It was fun back then .

 

[Drmad7]

Another thing I did as a kid was catch dragon flies , I would tie a thread to them , fly them on a leash , like a kite .

Pleas tell me how you caught them! I'm over 40 years old and never could catch one! PM me if you have to! I must know! I caught birds by using the stick and string trick. Learned that from cartoons!

 

[gdzag]

Memories...
I'm in my early 50's remember shooting the Estes rockets often, living in the city, we often had to climb trees and hop backyard fences to get them back. I remember the different size engines too, A engines being the smallest and D engines being the largest.
Gerry

 

[releventchair]

And too large an engine resulted in a pssshhhooof before the rocket disappeared into the sky to who knows where.
Once in a while some one would lite a naked engine in a school hallway.
A Skyhook might have been my last rocket. Fun,fun,fun.

Good find/price mojjax!

 

[captain flintlock]

Funny , kids now a days , just stare at their Iphones , us old dudes built forts , rode bikes , smoked pine needles , climbed trees , burnt plastic army men , me and my cousin would tie a fish string to a wallet & put it in the road and we would hide in the bushes . It was fun back then .

Oh the good ole days! I even drank from a garden hose and lit steel wool on fire and swung it around on a stretched out coat hanger! I know what you're all thinking........that's dangerous!! But if you're really careful, garden hoses aren't that big of a deal!! [emoji12].

 

[Keith Jackson]

Did anyone else ever rip the glowing backs off of lightning bugs and stick them on their fingers to make "rings"? Also, while never having tied dragonflies, we did tie junebugs together.

And garden hoses could be dangerous if you drank the first bit of hot water that came out of them after the hose had been laying in the sun all day.

 

[mojjax]

Pleas tell me how you caught them! I'm over 40 years old and never could catch one! PM me if you have to! I must know! I caught birds by using the stick and string trick. Learned that from cartoons!

butterfly net with an extra long handle .

Back in in 1968 , my brother climbed a tall pine tree , he came down with a baby crow .
Our parents weren't too happy at first - but they saw us digging worms all day long to feed him . We all taught him how to fly .

When he got bigger we switched his food to mixture of cat food and mashed up worms when he got older , it was in a peanut butter jar & we fed him with a flat Head screwdriver . My brother would ride his bike with Sleek on his shoulder an go into stores .

We would let him loose during day when we went to school . When we got home we would get the jar and tap the screwdriver on it , Sleek would soar in from the woods , land on my brothers shoulder waiting to be fed . We even took him on family vacations .

 

[silverdollarbill]

Here I come to save the Day, Mighty Mouse is on the way!

Haha....we would do this June Bugs aka Japanese beetles.

 

[cyberdan]

Do kids still use these?

Here is a story from last April:

An 18-year-old high school student killed in the explosion of a "homemade model rocket" at a Thousand Oaks school that also left a 17-year-old boy injured was identified Tuesday, when the teens' campus community was mourning. Bernard Moon is the teen who died after an explosion occurred at Madrona Elementary School about 7:40 p.m. Monday. Emergency crews responded to the blast and found the two injured teens on the school's campus. The pair had created what the Ventura County Sheriff's Department described in a news release as a "homemade model rocket" that was attached to a skateboard. When the device didn't go off, Moon went to check on it, and the explosion occurred then, authorities said on scene.

 

[bmacd88]

Both my kids, son(12) and daughter(10) still build and launch the Estes model rockets and have been doing it for the last few years. They are as excited about the launch as I was when I was a child.

My wife is a teacher at the school mentioned above and was at the school when Moon lost his life. She assisted with CPR but his injuries were too severe. He was an extremely smart kid and The rocket he was working on was for a project. Very sad.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[billjustbill]

Here is a story from last April:

An 18-year-old high school student killed in the explosion of a "homemade model rocket" at a Thousand Oaks school that also left a 17-year-old boy injured was identified Tuesday, when the teens' campus community was mourning. Bernard Moon is the teen who died after an explosion occurred at Madrona Elementary School about 7:40 p.m. Monday. Emergency crews responded to the blast and found the two injured teens on the school's campus. The pair had created what the Ventura County Sheriff's Department described in a news release as a "homemade model rocket" that was attached to a skateboard. When the device didn't go off, Moon went to check on it, and the explosion occurred then, authorities said on scene.

Dan,

Dan, A truly sad story, indeed.

To lighten the atmosphere, let me share a story that could have ended in injury...twice...

An older retired Marine got his alternative teaching certification by taking a few college courses and using his job and Corp experience to qualify. He was hired at a Texas high school to teach Science with two classes of Physics. As a hobby he flew radio controlled R/C model planes and thought that the much more simple model rockets would be good to use in his Physics' classroom teaching.

At one of the monthly model airplane club's meeting, he told of an experience in his Physics classes just in the past week. Teaching Newton's Laws, he set up a bare model rocket engine to measure forward thrust against a set of scales. On a large piece of plywood, with some nails along both sides the rather large Estes engine for a longer burn, he held it down with crisscrossing heavy rubber-bands. The Science/Physics lab had the old multi-pane and large wood sash windows to which he'd opened to let out the minor rocket engine's exhaust.

Now, as I remember, the Estes Rocket motors have a propulsion stage, then a stage that has the excessive white trailing and visual tracking smoke. But, it has the last burn stage that has a powder charge that explodes forward through the hollow rocket body to eject the nosecone and return parachute. The smoke stage and ejection charge never entered his mind as to what was to come...

With several of the model club's members standing around him, he said,

" I teach Physics and we used an Estes Rocket motor for an experiment, yesterday. Man, I still don't know what happened. After I made sure everybody was wearing the lab's safety glasses and well away from the setup, I set off the rocket motor. I never new it would cause so much smoke! Smoke filled the classroom, but with an incoming breeze the smoke stayed in the classroom and even went out into the main hallway. Then, at the very last, it came out of the holder and smoking engine carcass violently bounced from wall to floor to ceiling all about the classroom."

There were lots of comments along with the groaning laughter.

Then, he continued. "You know, even though I put on more hold-down rubber-bands, I still don't understand it. In the afternoon Physics class, it did the same thing, AGAIN."