Earl:
Attached is what John Rahkonen sent me about 10 to 15 years ago.
I spoke to him on phone a few times prior to this.
He was a big-time amateur Rocketeer, and then he met G. Harry Stine.
At one point in around 1960 John had an Amateur Rocketry event going on the same field AT THE SAME TIME ,while G.Harry Stine was having a model rocket meet .
John is credited as the father of APCP as he developed it in the early 60's while working at Thiokol in Utah.
Paavo John Rahkonen started Rocket Technology Corporation in the early 1960s.
The company's plans to produce model rocket motors, in competition with Estes, never reached fruition and Rocket Technology folded after producing just one kit, a flying scale model of the German V-2 missile.
Rahkonen was born in Brooklyn, New York, on January 16, 1930. He studied at the USAF Institute of Technology and worked for the Air Force for six years then at Republic Aviation, Curtiss-Wright, and Martin.
At Morton-Thiokol in Utah, Rahkonen invented Ammonium Perchlorate Composite Propellant.
In the early 1990s, Rahkonen's Propulsion Dynamics (Prodyne) introduced a line of hobby rocket motors under the "Cyclone" label as well as a K700 composite motor.
There's an article here about mixing APCP:
http://www.gorgerocketclub.com/wp-c...-Part-2of-3.pdf
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Lot-of-15-...te/203120227928
I have a 1964 Pyrodyne catalog....it's exactly the same as the 1963 one.
EDIT:
From: Space (Incorporating Speed Age) April 1960.
Rocket Fever article picture caption "In Denver Col., members of
Nat'l Ass'n of Rocketry fire small rockets, propelled by tiny commercial
motors, at group's Hog Back range."
(from text) "Rocketry flourishes in the area of Denver Colorado, for instance, where G. Harry Stine has
organized the National Association of Rocketry and channels the interest
of many teenagers into the pursuit of scientific knowledge through rocket
experimentation. This association operates what they call the Hogback
Firing Range, where hundreds of small rockets are fired every month.
A colleague of Stine's, John Rakhonen, supervises a very active group that
gets into some pretty advanced phases of the art. Rakhonen himself, who
has been conducting a long range research project for the past six years
in an attempt tp develop a high-performance amateur propellant, lays claim
to what may be the all-time amateur record for altitude. A small, but very
highly refined three-stage design he perfected was credited with an
altitude of 83,500 feet about a year-and-a-half ago. Unfortunately,
however, he has no definitive proof of the record flight."
https://youtu.be/uLn_x-vwRU0
Terry Dean