Model Rocketry

At various times over the years, I have been involved in model rocketry projects.  From the common solid fuel kits made by Estes to a few more involved types that could fly rather far……or in some cases, NOT.

During the weeks leading up to Christmas break I was digging around in some boxes to photograph some 1940’s vintage model airplane engines for a friend.  In one of the boxes was a pair of model rocket related books.  One was an old Estes catalog from long ago….likely from when I was a kid.  I sent this one down to a friend who had similar interests and with whom I had shared a rocketry related misadventure when we were maybe 10 or 12 years old.  The other book, is equally old but one I had found in a used book store a few years ago when visiting Elizabeth, who was living in Alabama at the time.  It is fitting that this bookstore was in Huntsville, Alabama.  Huntsville is where Von Braun and many other true “rocket scientists” ended up after the war and worked on the projects at Redstone Arsenal that later lead to the development of the rockets that took us to the moon.  You may hear many negative stereotypes about Alabama, especially with some of the recent political stories….but  Huntsville is one of those great places that history has caused to develop into a pocket of brilliance in the region with all manner of high tech endeavors and a knowledgeable populace…I can’t help but think that they must hate some of their surrounding neighbors.  So it is perfectly natural that a good book on rocketry should be found in the place commonly nicknamed “Rocket City.”

This book is very detailed in many aspects of rocketry.  From simple to complex.  There are details on design and construction of a variety of engines, some of which are liquid fueled.  Telemetry and control concepts and design, detailed mathematical formulae and engineering concepts for engines, aerodynamics, etc, etc.  Even a section dedicated to constructing a pad and safe blockhouse for testing and launching of large models designed to fly for many miles.  Far more information than is commonly found in most sources today.

One of the appendices, however, should serve as an ominous warning…it is entitled, “First Aid Advice for Rocket Groups”   This section, of which many pages are dedicated, covers first aid for a variety of potential injuries that the fledgling rocketeer may be subjected to.  Sure, the typical minor cuts, bumps, scrapes, and burns……but also exposure to the variety of chemicals used as propellants, shrapnel from launch pad explosions……..and, perhaps most frightening–injuries due to impalement.  Impalement that one must presumably assume to be caused by a rocket that failed to go where it was intended.   And so thus we arrive at a childhood story.

Somewhere along the way a garage sale had yielded a large box full of model rocket parts and supplies.  Garage sales, like Army-Navy stores, used to offer cool stuff, not a bunch of clothes, dishes, and smelly shoes like most of them do today.  The haul was the usual kits and pieces….nose cones, fins, tubes, and engines.  Bunches of the little solid fuel ones.  Enough to do all sorts of things.  Naturally we did.  After building and flying a few in the usual way we began to experiment.  How much could you stuff in one of these and still make it fly?   …how many engines could you strap on one and successfully get them to fire simultaneously?  (cluster firing)   …..and….well, what other “non approved” payloads could be carried?    ….one such “non approved” payload came in the form of another find:  old fireworks.   Yep.  Ten year old boys (and some girls too) love to blow stuff up.  And if the blowing up can be combined with a high speed flying object so much the better.  It is a genetic thing.  And no amount of sensitivity training will ever change this.   Give a ten year old kid a box of rocket engines and a box of old fireworks and there will be an explosion.  If the kid is smart enough it will most likely be a planned and intentional explosion.

So there we were.  Outside on a nice summer day, launching little rockets that promptly blew up with a nice bang once they reached a hundred feet in the air.  It is somewhat surprising now, after all these years, that no one ever called the cops or fire department.  But it was a different time.  What is now viewed as dangerous and terroristic was once viewed as little more than children doing homebrewed science experiments.  It was the tail end of an era.  At that time it was the “sharp kids” who played this way…the ones who might go on to be inventors and scientists or leaders.  Today the likes of Tesla, Edison, Nobel, the Wright Brothers, or even a Teddy Roosevelt would not be encouraged but instead just be locked away as a menace to society.  Sad.

After a while, we had expended most of the motors and parts….and -luckily- most of the fireworks as well.  But we had some left.  Mostly a bunch of the little “jumping jacks” as I recall.  These were a thin tube filled with a propellant that would make them bounce and spin around whilst emitting a shrieking sound and sparkles of color.  We also had one or two rocket motors left.  And one remaining tube and nose cone.  We were, however, lacking any more tail fin materials.  Making this last one fly would be out of the question as we knew there was no way it could be made to go where we wanted it to.  We were “sharp kids,” remember?  We knew better than to try that.  Fair enough.  But we still had this remaining stuff to burn and/or blow up.  Can’t let it go to waste!   Along about this time we had the wiz bang plan to load that tube up with the jumping jacks and a couple of engines, set it on the ground, and restrain it with some bricks so it would just shriek and burn up right there on the ground while we watched.  Simple.  YES.  This was a good plan.  Or at least we thought so at the time.

So that’s what we did.  And all went according to the plan.  Because it was a good plan, remember?…..or at least we thought so at the time.  So all went as planned….Well, sort of….there was one minor exception.  All was fine until the fuse was lit.  Well, even that was ok……it was when we began to withdraw after lighting the fuse that things began to, shall we say, deviate from the plan.  Someone, I suspect my brother but I really do not remember who (there were three of us in the immediate area-my brother, Scott, my friend, Steven, and me)…someone bumped one of the bricks out of place as they were backing away from this light blue finless tube.

This tube was about and inch and a half diameter by about 2 feet long.  It had a balsa wood nose cone on it.  Plus two or three Estes engines in the back.  The remainder of the volume was filled with the aforementioned jumping jacks.

So the fuse was lit.  And a brick was now misplaced.  And…

“Whoooshhh!!!”  The motors fired.  ….and it promptly did what any self respecting insufficiently restrained rocket would do and it escaped.  A two foot long blue shrieking pipe began to bounce around the yard….chasing (and catching) three little screaming kids.  As it bounced off and ricocheted about, it left its mark as it went by.  For Steven and myself, the marks came in the form of a red burn mark on the calf where the hot rocket exhaust melted our nylon gym socks as it went by.  It still amuses me that it was shaped like a jet of flame from the nozzle of the motor.  My brother, whom I always thought had bumped the brick loose,  was the only one not hit but in his case this is a good thing as it had gained a little altitude by then and being hit with it by then would have been most painful and definitely would have left a mark that could not be explained away in a manner that would appease an angry mother.  Next of course, the charges used to eject the model rocket’s parachute fired.  But instead of recovery chutes this tube was carefully packed with jumping jacks….  Jumping jacks which then burst forth in all directions shrieking and emitting little colored sparkles and showering us as we scrambled about.

It took a while to compose that passage.  And likely took you a few minutes to read and (hopefully) chuckle through it.  The actual event probably only lasted about 5 to 7 seconds from the first “oh shit!” to the last, “damn!, I hope mom didn’t see that.”  Rockets are fast.  Almost as fast as three kids trying to concoct stories to cover up some thing they did that they did not want their mom to know about.

The immediate aftermath was for the most part quiet.  Stories concocted to explain the burned socks…concocted as only misbehaving kids can, which is to say that in no way were the explanations expected to be believed, only that the explanations were intended to limit the amount of real trouble we would be in for whatever wrongdoing we had committed this time….it’s what kids do…..my friend quietly rode his bike home…..likely thankful that no parents called to compare notes.  And it was done.   No, not my first nor my last foray into rocket propulsion, and definitely not one of the successes, but it is certainly one of the more memorable ones.