09-27-2010, 02:51 AM
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SPEV/Orion wrangler
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Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Atlanta, GA
Posts: 2,645
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by blackshire
Hello All,
When I watched Mutual of Omaha's "Wild Kingdom" television program (hosted by Marlin Perkins and featuring Jim Fowler) in the early 1970s, there were two installments of the show in which rockets were used.
One involved a rocket-lofted net that was used to capture monkeys by suddenly pulling the net over their tree. The rockets were rather short, squat cylinders fitted with short sticks, and they appeared to be made of metal tubing. They used paper-cased rocket motors (they looked like Estes "D" motors but didn't look like they were labeled), and the bottom ends of their sticks were attached to the edge of the net. Messrs. Perkins and Fowler set up perhaps 12 - 15 or more of the rockets around the tree, and they had small angled metal frames for launchers. When fired, the rockets sounded like model rocket motors and left smoke trails that looked like black powder motor exhaust. If they were model rocket motors, they were plugged in front, as they had no ejection charges. The monkeys were, of course, very surprised by the sudden turn of events!
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The movie "Hatari" (1962), starring John Wayne and Red Buttons, featured a scene of monkeys being driven into a net by rockets.
I remember seeing this movie on TV when I was 12 when I was staying the weekend with another of my rocketry buddies. We stayed up until the end credits and *I* remembered there being a credit for Coaster Rockets. A few years ago, I rented the movie and saw no such credit, so I don't know where I came up with that. The only thing I knew about Coaster in '68-'69 was what was in The Handbook of Model Rocketry (1st edition) that was in the regional library.
Later, Jerry Irvine stated on rec.models.rockets that FSI made them, but I don't think FSI existed then. FSI did eventually do movie sfx rockets; I once saw a set of badly processed black and white prints from them showing a bunch of congreve rockets they had made for some movie of about 20 years or so ago.
I suspect the rockets you saw (and I saw used in 'Hatari') were just regular old skyrockets without display shells.
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Roy
nar12605
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