Dr_Flash-Boom
February 2nd, 2007, 02:56 AM
Dear Group;
My name is Earl and I am new to the group. If you look at my profile, you will see that I am an ex-hippie, baby-boomer with lots of hobbies and toys. I started flying homemade model rockets in the summer of 1959 just a few months before my twelfth birthday. Miraculously, I still have all my fingers and eyes. I can not say the same for several of my early rocketeering [SIC] buddies.
I was born and grew up in a small southern college town 38 miles east of Baton Rouge, Louisiana and 56 miles northwest of New Orleans. Times were a lot slower in the South in 1959 and flying model rockets was really high tech; sort of like in the movie “October Sky”.
The leader of our aviation group, R., was the son of two college professors and lived across the street from the university. R. was two years older than me and I was a year older than the other two members of our inner circle. I do not remember what got us interested in flying rockets, but it sure was a lot of fun and full of adventures.
For the body of our rockets, we would scrounge around construction sites in the evenings and on weekends when no workers were there and pick up small pieces of thin wall conduit between 10” and 24” long and between 3/4” and 1-1/2” in diameter. Our rockets did not have a cone shaped nose or wings of any kind. We would go to a welding and machine shop and bend the nose of the rocket over in their big vice and then crimp it to make it air tight. That was the extent of our body construction.
For our rocket fuel, we would go to the drug store and buy a two pound jar of Salt Peter (Potassium Nitrate) for 50 cents and then to the grocery store for a 5# bag of sugar. We then would ride our bikes to the youngest member’s house on the southeastern side of town and blend and melt our composition into a mud brown solid rocket fuel. We once set the “candy rocket fuel” on fire while melting the composition on the inside stove, so our friend’s father bought a used stove and plumbed it in under his carport so we would not burn his house down making rocket fuel. Looking back on it now, it is mind boggling that a grown man would let a bunch of 9 year to 13 year old boys make explosives unsupervised and then put it into a potential pipe bomb and set a match to the explosives; all unsupervised by an adult.
Our ignition system was forcing the heads of 4 strike anywhere “kitchen” matches into the rocket fuel and igniting them with the open flame of another kitchen match. As you can see, our safety procedures were lacking and this eventually caused R. to lose three fingers and the bulk of his right hand; one of two brothers lost an eye; and the other brother had a rocket hit him in the gut after it peeled off the angle iron launch pad and curved back to where he was standing. He suffered major burns and internal damage including the loss of his spleen. I am very thankful that I was not present when any of the accidents occurred.
Within 8 years of my initial exposure to flying model rockets, R., the brother who had lost an eye when a rocket exploded on the launch pad, and another member of our aviation group were all killed in separate automobile accidents. The older brother who had gotten hit in the stomach by a rocket was killed in Viet Nam. Another occasional member of our group was killed when his motorcycle went off the road at 120 M.P.H. and hit a tree. And another occasional member of our rocket flying group, Raymond Michael Clausen, went to Viet Nam and received the “Congressional” Metal of Honor for carrying and leading 12 wounded Marines through a mine field to an awaiting helicopter while being fired at by Vietcong soldiers. Mike died two years ago from liver failure and today, 1/27/2007, a group of Viet Nam veterans will dedicate a headstone and monument at his grave site.
From a group of boys that eventually numbered 43; I am the only one who still flies rockets. A few years ago one of our group who became my roommate in college and a medical doctor asked me, “When are you going to grow up and stop playing with toy rockets?”
My reply to this was, “NEVER “
My name is Earl and I am new to the group. If you look at my profile, you will see that I am an ex-hippie, baby-boomer with lots of hobbies and toys. I started flying homemade model rockets in the summer of 1959 just a few months before my twelfth birthday. Miraculously, I still have all my fingers and eyes. I can not say the same for several of my early rocketeering [SIC] buddies.
I was born and grew up in a small southern college town 38 miles east of Baton Rouge, Louisiana and 56 miles northwest of New Orleans. Times were a lot slower in the South in 1959 and flying model rockets was really high tech; sort of like in the movie “October Sky”.
The leader of our aviation group, R., was the son of two college professors and lived across the street from the university. R. was two years older than me and I was a year older than the other two members of our inner circle. I do not remember what got us interested in flying rockets, but it sure was a lot of fun and full of adventures.
For the body of our rockets, we would scrounge around construction sites in the evenings and on weekends when no workers were there and pick up small pieces of thin wall conduit between 10” and 24” long and between 3/4” and 1-1/2” in diameter. Our rockets did not have a cone shaped nose or wings of any kind. We would go to a welding and machine shop and bend the nose of the rocket over in their big vice and then crimp it to make it air tight. That was the extent of our body construction.
For our rocket fuel, we would go to the drug store and buy a two pound jar of Salt Peter (Potassium Nitrate) for 50 cents and then to the grocery store for a 5# bag of sugar. We then would ride our bikes to the youngest member’s house on the southeastern side of town and blend and melt our composition into a mud brown solid rocket fuel. We once set the “candy rocket fuel” on fire while melting the composition on the inside stove, so our friend’s father bought a used stove and plumbed it in under his carport so we would not burn his house down making rocket fuel. Looking back on it now, it is mind boggling that a grown man would let a bunch of 9 year to 13 year old boys make explosives unsupervised and then put it into a potential pipe bomb and set a match to the explosives; all unsupervised by an adult.
Our ignition system was forcing the heads of 4 strike anywhere “kitchen” matches into the rocket fuel and igniting them with the open flame of another kitchen match. As you can see, our safety procedures were lacking and this eventually caused R. to lose three fingers and the bulk of his right hand; one of two brothers lost an eye; and the other brother had a rocket hit him in the gut after it peeled off the angle iron launch pad and curved back to where he was standing. He suffered major burns and internal damage including the loss of his spleen. I am very thankful that I was not present when any of the accidents occurred.
Within 8 years of my initial exposure to flying model rockets, R., the brother who had lost an eye when a rocket exploded on the launch pad, and another member of our aviation group were all killed in separate automobile accidents. The older brother who had gotten hit in the stomach by a rocket was killed in Viet Nam. Another occasional member of our group was killed when his motorcycle went off the road at 120 M.P.H. and hit a tree. And another occasional member of our rocket flying group, Raymond Michael Clausen, went to Viet Nam and received the “Congressional” Metal of Honor for carrying and leading 12 wounded Marines through a mine field to an awaiting helicopter while being fired at by Vietcong soldiers. Mike died two years ago from liver failure and today, 1/27/2007, a group of Viet Nam veterans will dedicate a headstone and monument at his grave site.
From a group of boys that eventually numbered 43; I am the only one who still flies rockets. A few years ago one of our group who became my roommate in college and a medical doctor asked me, “When are you going to grow up and stop playing with toy rockets?”
My reply to this was, “NEVER “