My First Launch with Grandkids
 

I took my two grand daughters to the neighborhood schoolyard today, to fly some small rockets on A motors. The picture below kind of says it all. How much fun it is to expose a kid to model rocketry.

Their mother came with us. She and our other daughter went to this school in the 90s, and we flew rockets there numerous times. I ran a model rocketry program for both of their 4th grade classes, along with the other two 4th grade classes, so we had close to 100 kids every year in the program. I kept track, and we built and launched over 500 rockets, and had over 1000 flights total, during those years. I had not flown there since we flew some Estes Mosquitos (maybe 5 flights max before we lost them!) several years after their class launches. It was pretty nostalgic to return there with my daughter, it didn't seem like it had been over 20 years.

Excellent!

I missed out on the local low-power launch last weekend. It is Oregon Rocktry's "outreach" launch that gets lots of families.

It is always fun to see people who have never flown before see the action. The look on your grandkid's faces is familiar.

:cool: They dress better than 101% of the NAR. :D

My reaction this morning ... "You guys are wearing dresses?!"
They do like to dress up.
Me? I'd blend right in at any NAR event ... :eek:

UPDATE:I just checked -- the A8-3 motors I used were "Z" date code, which is 1995. I also used a Quest A6-4 that had no apparent date code marking, but is from the same time frame, as I recall. One of the Estes motors did need a drill bit to break up some "crud". I wasted a few igniters before cleaning it out. I'm not sure if it was clay from the nozzle, but it worked flawlessly after the cleaning.

A bit like miniature war gamers huh?

You can recognize them by the backpack and look like they haven't had a shower in a week or so...
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That's fantastic Lee! I am glad the girls had a great time!

Thanks. They did have a lot of fun. I recently placed an order with Estes, and bought a couple Sizzlers for $3.99 each for them (BT-60 sized RTF). I'm looking forward to flying larger diameter basic rockets with them. So much easier to pack chutes.

We will take them to an upcoming CRASH launch in Denver, not far from where they live. We are down to see them quite often.

The RTF Sizzler is a fun little model - I got a couple when they first came out. It has that quarter-turn whole-fin-unit motor retainer that's also currently used on the crayon rockets. The plastic will stand up to using an Aerotech D10 once :) (then it gets misshapen in the heat from the soak-back after the boost).

:eek: Oof!

I was actually able, with the aid of my RC airplane covering heat gun, to reshape the motor holder and the tabs that lock the fin unit on well enough that that model is still flyable. But I don't think I'll be putting another D10 or D21 in it, even though it was really fun (at a big site).