Did this ever happen to you?

[steve B]

Originally Posted by Jantz

After reading your post Steve, I guess there is no reason for me to ask if you ever had a Red Rider BB gun.

Nope.

Later on though I did go to a science summer camp and built a small rocket. They were rather lax on things like supervision and safety. So it got built with rubber cement since they had stopped rockets a couple years before and didn't have stronger glue.

I picked a two stage one, and when we launched it they didn't have lower stage engines. So I had to chose between engines that were A-8- X with choices for X being I think 3, 5 or 7 figuring bigger was better I went with 7 (Approved by the "responsible adult" of course) The last number was the delay between the engine stopping and it firing the charge to send out the parachute or in this case light stage 2. Seven seconds of delay is enough for the rocket to turn almost 180 degrees from vertical up to vertical down.

It was exciting. Everyone ran except me. When the adult in charge asked why I told him the since I could see the side of the rocket I knew I was safe.

We launched the remains as smaller rockets with a few other failures mostly because of the rubber cement. By the time we were done there wasn't much left.

Got more into that in Jr High, with better results which were somehow less fun.

Steve B