52+ year old model flies again
 

The attached horrible quality scan shows a junior high school friend (David Ridgley, on the left) and I setting up a rocket launch under the auspices of the Shiprock Jr. High Science Club. This picture appeared in the October 29th, 1968 issue of the Farmington (NM) Daily Times. While the scan is lousy, this version was clear enough for me to recognize both the model and the launch pad. And as it turns out, I still have this model....a BT-20-based streamer-recovery model that was probably my first original design. After I was able to recognize it in this picture, I had to go get it out of one of my model boxes. Interestingly, it has a length of 1/8 inch Sig contest rubber (for rubber powered model airplanes) installed in it as the shock cord, using the two-slits-and-a-knot shock cord attachment method that predates the tri-fold.

Finish is in red/white dope...and I appear to have taken quite a bit of care with sanding sealer and maybe even balsa filler coat, as both he nose cone (BNC-20B) and the 1/16 balsa fins are well filled and smooth—a better job than I typically do when I build a model these days. The number "5" inked on one fin indicates this was my fifth rocket. I don't have any that came before (which were likely a Streak, a Sprite, and I don't know what else. I think my first Alpha came later).

After getting it out and giving that shock cord a tug, and after also recognizing that the pad in the picture is my original Tilt-a-Pad (which I also still have) instead of the Electro-Launch I thought I'd been using (from an even worse scan of that article), I decided to set the model and the pad up at Sixty Acres and fly it again.

So after more than 52 years Nameless One I took flight again on March 30th of this year on an A8-5 and turned in a very nice flight. And that half-century old piece of rubber shock cord did not break. Instead I got a new snapback dent in the nose cone and damage to one fin :eek:.

[John Boren isn't the only one who thinks naming a rocket is one of the hardest parts....and my 7th grade self was just as bad at it as I am now, if not worse.]

Wow, it is great you were able to hang on to the rocket and pad for so long and even greater to get the model back in the air again! That had to bring back many great memories of days that, for many of us, are long gone.

Thanks for sharing!

Earl

I'm not that surprised that the shock cord was still OK. I'm betting it was a brown one. I believe those were natural rubber. The later white ones that Estes put in their kits were probably a synthetic rubber, and those didn't stand the test of time nearly as well. I have several of each type, and the brown ones are still in great shape, the white ones not so much.


Joe

Joe,

Yes, the shock cord in this scratch build was/is 1/8 inch Sig contest rubber, which I believe Estes used in their kits "back in the day" as well. I still have a little of it in the round paper boxes it was sold in all those years ago.

The white stuff, if it dries out, fails readily. But I also have some relatively recent models with dozens of flights on them and no failures of the white rubber from the kit.

I recently bought some FAI Tan rubber which I intend to use as shock cord material in future scratch builds, and to replace any failed white rubber Estes shock cords.

You could always go the Orville Carlisle route and use a shoelace shock cord. :chuckle:

Not a fan of shock cords with no elasticity, whether they are shoelaces or Kevlar line.... :D

The braided elastic used by Centuri and later Semroc is far more durable.

except that the Centuri elastic was cotton covered, while that is very hard to find nowadays, and the default is synthetic, which melts quickly.

Hence using a Kevlar leader with the elastic OVER the wadding.

I need to look thru our old photo albums for old rocket pictures I took in the 60s, but here are a couple old pictures from a tour of Estes industries in March 1966. I lost many of the slides I took, but managed somehow to find a few. The first is a shot of my friends posing in front of the rocket at Estes. (Note the high water pants and white socks — quite fashionable at the time. :chuckle: )

The second picture is in Order Processing. These wonderful ladies were filling our orders for kits and parts.