I got in modeling as fun way to learn about the world around me as a child. I was real heavy into plastic models I was reading and learning everything about aircraft. Then one day I realized I didn't know much about the space program in our history and several aircraft like the X-15, x-7 and x-1. So with the x-planes came experimental rockets and then the space program.
My first rocket was an x-15 sport scale Estes 13mm #0889 but I lost the nose cone during a launch. The one complete rocket I have from my childhood is the Estes Nova Pay loader, Delta Clipper, Hornet, Scamp. I got board quickly with Estes and started making my own engines.
I started making sugar, bp (black powder), rockets motors when I was 10 and made them in my dad’s wood shop. I had a few failures but 1000's of successes. I remember buying potassium nitrate tech grade in a 50 pound bag for 20.00 plus 10.00 for shipping and those were the days. Pre-ATF BS. I would spend my days making 13, 24, 18mm sugar rockets. I would drag my friends over and lunch them until were told to stop burning the grass or detonated an engine (the ones with ammonium nitrate).
Fast forward about 20 years a friend of mine whose kids were bored said they had nothing to do and I though back to my day’s young days and of course rockets. Now I have been re-dreaming those space cadet exotic rockets of my youth and you can find pictures here.
I was asked why I still play with rockets. My answer was this “I still have gut feeling that the science of rocketry has not reached its limits and I feel that there is a more powerful rocket engine waiting to be designed. So rocketry is mostly for me is a form of intellectual entertainment. I am working on a rocket that I hope will hit high end of mach 2 maybe mach 2.7 but I am still learning. I plan to go L3 in the next year 2012.
