AVI Astroport Encyclog
 

I noticed where one of the AVI Astroport Encyclogs sold recently on ebay: http://www.ebay.com/itm/GIANT-AVI-m...g-/301192102875

It would be a wonderful tribute to model rocket enthusiasts everywhere to have a copy of this document scanned as a pdf document and available for viewing.

If anyone has a copy and is able to provide scans, that would be great.

Faithwalker,
Jeff Jenkins

Okay, I've been patient. Is "quickly" time up yet? :rolleyes: :D

I would politely suggest a bit more patience, having been in similar "life-keeps-getting-in-the-way-distractions" situations when I wanted to search for packed-away books, or write articles that I'd pledged to write, instead. Plus, did you "twist his arm?" That was part of his "quickly" clause... :-) (I'd never even *heard* of the AVI Astroport Encyclog until just now, but based on the description on the eBay auction page, it sounds like quite a large publication [I'm picturing something like an unabridged dictionary, that might rate its own reading lectern, like the ones in libraries...]).

I shook his hand a few years ago, so close. :D

I did quickly locate the Encyclog, and after leafing through the pages made certain that it is stored well.

The Enclyclog is a large-format document. Each page is ANSI C (17x22 inches) size. The Encyclog was actually printed on ANSI D size paper and folded in half to yield a 17X22 inch dimension page. I do not have access to a large format scanner. I've been on the lookout for one that I can access, but have not been successful. There's one in another department at work, but going to this place with the AVI Encyclog and scanning it while being scrutinized by neutral-to-hostile parties of another department within my organization is not a good option for me.

Not having access to a large-format scanner is the obstacle that I have not been able to surmount.

Maybe it's just as well... :-)

This definitely sounds like a work that deserves to be preserved and disseminated (online, if that's practical, given its size) so that everyone can benefit from it. Is it devoted entirely to that company, or to model rocketry in general, or does it cover rocketry and space flight history (up to its date of publication) as well? I'm afraid I can't help you with the large-format scanner, but maybe a local printer, public library, or university library has one that you could use? Alternatively, maybe some arrangement could be worked out where you work (doing it at a quiet time), or... Depending on your organization, maybe they would give it their official blessing if the online scans "advertised" them ("The preservation of this rare document was made possible by the kind assistance of...")?

DOH!! I had one of these back in the day - the AVI Astroport Encylog, not a large-bed scanner - and in a foolish burst of de-cluttering, disposed of it! What was I thinking? I suspect it was the last catalog to come out of AVI because shortly thereafter they went out of business. Had to have been back in the summer of 1978, or at the very latest '79.

I basically just wrote letters to every manufacturer listed in the appendix of the current (4th, I think) edition of the Handbook of Model Rocketry requesting a copy of their current catalog. Although I got a few "Return to Sender," it worked surprisingly well. That's how I "discovered" FSI.

Now I realize AVI was on its last legs,* and in fact one of the reasons I didn't care much for the catalog is that they were reselling Estes and (maybe) Centuri products I already had access to. One somewhat interesting point, to me, was that they were based in Mineral Point, Wisconsin, which was not that far from the Chicago suburbs where I lived, and we had actually stopped there on a family vacation a few years before to visit a museum.

As a very occasional poster and general keyboard jockey, I will refrain from giving any advice about scanning the Encyclog.

________
* Being, of course, the final incarnation of the company that had started as MRI, which had become MPC, which had become AVI when the guy who'd started MRI and sold it to General Mills to become the core of MPC then bought up the remaining MPC inventory when General Mills bailed, which seems to have kept AVI stocked with product for a good part of the mid-1970s. But the vein was mostly played out by the time I got the Encyclog....which I disposed of.

Funny, I did the same thing with the manufacturers in the Handbook. Not sure which edition I used, but it was a library copy. I know FSI was one that definitely replied, but I also remember several RTS envelopes that pissed my Dad off. (Not sure why. I used my own stamps from a roll I found laying soaked on the street. I took them home and dried them out, then just glued them on when needed. I even offered them to Mom and Dad, but I think Dad was afraid the PO would send them back because they were a little grungy looking.)

If your father grew up during the Depression, or even during World War II with its rationing, any waste--even of free, found items--was frowned upon; my parents would have reacted the same way, given the same circumstances and events. Also:

I first--and last--saw AVI Astroport listed (until I found Ninfinger Productions' website decades later) in a NASA publication that covered all of their current and planned activities (I believe it was called "This is NASA"). This was a 1978 or 1979 issue, which had an aerial view photograph of the Orbiter Enterprise descending toward the Edwards lake bed below as its cover illustration. The section on space-related educational activities of course covered model rocketry, and it also contained a list of manufacturers, which included AVI Astroport (which I'd never heard of and didn't know it had been MPC Model Rockets), Centuri, Estes, and--if memory serves--FSI. I wrote to AVI Astroport and got a "Returned To Sender," too... :-(