Bill Eichelberger's PageAKA: Wallyum, Fishhead, Fire Marshall Bill Location: Ft. Thomas, KY Certification Level: NAR - Bronze Club Memberships: Wright Stuff Rocketeers,Dayton,OH,QUARK,Cincinnati,OH Favorite Rockets: Estes Condor, Estes Satellite Interceptor, any Goony, Semroc Lil Hustler, Centuri Raven, Centuri USS America, Centuri Mach 10, FSI Viking Biography: First started flying in the summer of 1977. Lost interest in college, made the classic mistake of giving almost all of my rockets away, then started over in the early 90's after my son was born. Sam and I flew an occasional mix of semi-RTF stuff until my brother in law took me to a launch in Cleveland in 2001, after which the bug bit hard once again. Since then I've gone with the occasional ebbs and flows of the hobby, seen a lot of changes, made a lot of friends, and lost a great field.
Favorite Quote: "No one respects the flame quite like the fool who's badly burned" - Pete Townshend
RocketReviews.com Pages:
2025-05-10Estes - Vagabond (#1423)  Flight It happens every launch. In this case I had a family stop to watch a flight, my second of the day. I thought I hit the record button on my phone and I tracked the flight faithfully. Once I went to hit stop I realized that I got nothing. Great crotch shot as I walked to recover the rocket in center ... [More]
Semroc - Baby Orion  Flight Flew this on a 1/2A here and was disappointed, so I stepped up to the A10. I was disappointed. Didn't crack 200'. Recovered in deep center. - A10-3 - Fabulous B6-4 Field, Ft. Thomas, Kentucky [More]
Estes - Tornado  Flight Original kit. Original decals crumbled and flaked off so I had Sandman make me a new set. Fairly lethargic off the pad and flight was low level. Two pieces landed just to my left and not only did they break apart, the fins also came off. I don't get it. - A8-3 - Fabulous B6-4 Field, Ft. Thomas, ... [More]
Quest - The Flash  Flight Right off the pad over the infield. Excellent altitude as expected for a minimum diameter bird. Landed in the hole behind second base. - A8-3 - Fabulous B6-4 Field, Ft. Thomas, Kentucky [More]
Quest - Courier  Flight Arced to the right off the pad to 264'. Perfect chute and recovery behind second base. - B6-4 - Fabulous B6-4 Field, Ft. Thomas, Kentucky [More]
More Rockets - Battlestar Galactica Viper  Flight Leadoff flight and the first since 2012. Arced back toward US 27, then drifted back to the field on recovery. Chute took a while to unravel, but performed flawlessly and brought it down in short right center field. - A8-3 - Fabulous B6-4 Field, Ft. Thomas, Kentucky [More]
Estes - Echo  Flight Boosted straight overhead and ejected almost in the sun. I had to wait until it came out before I could pick it up and track it as it landed just to my left in home run territory. - 1/2A3-4 - Fabulous B6-4 Field, Ft. Thomas, Kentucky [More]
Custom Rockets - Serval  Flight Excellent flight on the namesake motor. The Serval is one of my favorite tube-finned rockets and the perfect size for a B flight here. Dead straight boost to 253' and a perfect recovery just in front of the pad. - B6-4+ - Fabulous B6-4 Field, Ft. Thomas, Kentucky [More]
PD Rocketry - Space Station Aquarius  Flight First flight in a long time and started out great, arcing out toward the outfield straight out from the pad. At ejection the elderly elastic shock cord snapped and the two parts landed in center field within 20 feet of each other. The tube assembly broke off from the lower section on impact, but ... [More]
Estes - Rogue  Flight Mostly straight off the pad, then chased its tail to the ground directly in front of me. - 1/2A3-4 - Fabulous B6-4 Field, Ft. Thomas, Kentucky [More]
2024-02-02Rockets Gone Bad Photograph 
Fishhead Rocketry SLS Wizard E12 flight
2022-02-01The Launch Pad Anubis (Clone)  Review
Brief
With The launch Pad possibly in permanent hiatus, I had no way of satisfying my craving for cool scale-like kits. Bummer, but since the website and all the face cards from the kits were still online, I decided to try building something using just the ... [More]
2021-11-26Estes - Beta Build Back in 1977, a friend who lived two doors up from me launched what I think was an Estes Scout from his backyard. A group of us were there to watch and expected the typical big explosion as the finale, but we were told that despite what looked like an M80 being loaded into the back end, the ... [More]
2021-10-28Rocket Development Corporation V-Max Clone (Clone)  Review
Brief
I spent many years working third shift, which occasionally allowed me to cash in on some really cool late night "Buy It Now" deals on eBay. In this case it was a used nose cone lot, the star of which was an RDC-625 nose cone, or a reasonable facsimile ... [More]
2021-09-30MRC Firefighter (Kit)  Review
Back in the early days of my BAR-dom, I discovered the wonders of Ebay, which allowed me to pick up two MRC kits, the Firefighter and XR-20, on the cheap one night. I was pretty pumped at getting two OOP kits for the price, but when they arrived, the bulk of my enthusiasm ... [More]
2021-09-23Logix Explorer (Kit)  Review
Back in 1977, one of the Christmas gifts that I most looked forward to opening was the Science Fair SFX-4000 Aeronautical Lab Kit from Radio Shack. I'd been flying for all of six months at the time and the idea of digging deeper into the science of aeronautics was oddly appealing to a ... [More]
2021-09-20Semroc Saki (Kit)  Review
At first glance the Semroc Saki appears to be an Estes Goonybird Cloud Hopper with different paint and decals, but comparing the two side by side tells a different story. They share the same basic shape, but little else, as the Saki is not only larger than the BT-60 Estes bird, ... [More]
2021-09-17Estes Mega Mini Max (Modification)  Review
Just your basic plain Jane Estes Mini Max with some added nose weight and 24mm power.
Components
Estes Mini Max kit
Many BBs
Kevlar
Sewing elastic
Hot pink streamer
/h2
Back in the days of the Hobby Lobby 40% coupon days I got in the habit ... [More]
2021-07-09Pitsco Synergy (Kit)  Review
Everyone has seen this kit at one time or another, and maybe even considered buying one. I actually pulled the trigger. Pitsco is an educational supplier that produces two different solid fuel rocket kits, this one, and another that is a more complicated build ... [More]
2020-12-16Canaroc FK-3 (Plan)  Review
In my quest to have as many new or old rocket companies as possible represented in my fleet, it was inevitable that I'd eventually find the road to Canaroc. I'd chased several kits on Ebay over the years, seldom coming within sniffing distance, but forever intrigued. ... [More]
2020-11-25Quest Courier (Kit)  Review
Picked up at Hobby Lobby during the Quest clearance "just because." The Courier would become my first competition egglofter by default. (It was the only one I had that met the single engine criteria.) Despite a lack of enthusiasm for the project at first that ... [More]
2020-11-23Scratch Estes Raven Clone (Clone)  Review
This is a story of reclamation. At some point in the past decade I became enamored with the Estes National Aerospace Plane and decided that I needed to clone one. To that end I began scouring Ebay for one of the kits that shared the unique nose cone with the NASP, namely the ... [More]
2020-11-16U.S. Rockets Sniper (Kit)  Review
Slick and sleek looking US Rockets product with great lines and a killer name. Another cool feature is that the power possibilities go from 18mm to 29mm, and it is entirely imaginable to see it built to handle any of the three motor sizes. (Although it may never be seen ... [More]
2020-11-12Estes Ventris (Kit)  Review
The Ventris is one of the first four rockets released by Estes as part of their new Pro Series II mid-power collection. While all are great looking birds, the Enerjet-esque lines of the Ventris were the clincher when it came time to make the choice of which bird would be my 50th ... [More]
2020-08-04The Launch Pad Perseus (Kit)  Review
Apparently I'm not alone in this. I initially bought the TLP Perseus thinking that it was a scale kit, only to find out that it was a TLP original. There were two problems with that: 1) it eliminated any chance of using the rocket in a scale competition, and 2) it freed me from ... [More]
2020-08-03Scratch Rocket Development Corporation Starflite (Clone)  Review
Another of my late night cruises through old catalogs, the RDC Starflite actually gave me the choice of two different designs to pick from, the Starflite and Starflite II. The difference was the fin pattern, and I chose to go with the early version. What caught my eye was the ... [More]
2020-08-02Bo-Mar Spartan (Clone)  Review
The inspiration for this project was born out of desperation and boredom. Nothing at any of the plan sites seemed to interest me and one night at work I started looking through all the catalogs at Ninfinger and YORP. I realized that there were a lot of different builds from a lot ... [More]
2020-07-31Modification Estes Vampire from Estes Jynx (Modification)  Review
My first Estes catalog was the 1977 version, which I got in mid-July and read to tatters by the time school started back. Much of my cloning has centered around this catalog and the rockets therein, mostly those I never saw or couldn't afford. I never saw an Estes Vampire, and if ... [More]
2020-07-29Modification Estes Quasar from Estes Metalizer (Modification)  Review
I created an upscale Estes Quasar from the currently available Estes Metalizer kit.
Components
Estes Metalizer kit (Hobby Lobby)
BT-56 body tube (Red Arrow)
Mylar tape
QUASAR decal (HP Inkjet)
/h2
The Metalizer is an E2X kit that I normally wouldn't ... [More]
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Bill Eichelberger |
