Rockets!!

When I was a kid,some friends started building model rockets.  THE place to buy these, were, of course, from Estes, based out of Colorado.

The only problem was, in Canada, at that time, it was almost forbidden to fly them.  You had to apply for a special licence, and your application form had to include a detailed map of where you would be flying them, keeping sure that you were not too close to any buildings.

I still ordered some to build...even though I couldn't fly them.

Well, those days are over, of course. You can easily launch them.  One of my joys was doing this with some of our kids through the years.

It's kinda cool to collect some of the old catalogs I used to get when I was a kid.  One of them had an ad to join the "Estes Aerospace Club".  Club membership came with a bunch of goodies...and I, of course, was a member when I was about 15.  I still remember collecting the parcel notification and riding my bike downtown to the post office to pick up my parcel...my first rocket kit!

Here is a scan of one of the old ads from days gone by.

It's neat that Estes still operates today!

Some day if I ever have any spare time I think I'd like to try to build some again.