Ahhh, the Big Bertha. One of my favorites as a kid, lost to a rocket-eating tree. (I actually have a new version sitting on my workbench right now that I need to finish someday. Man, laser-cut fins have really changed the game). In the other direction size-wise, I must have built four or five Estes Mosquitos. At 99 cents a pop they were basically just a fin-equipped sleeve for the motor, but they were great bang for the buck on my allowance. Also had a number of Centuri rockets – the Alien Scoutship Flying Saucer was a helluva lot of fun, but I got the most flights out of my Excalibur/Screaming Eagle two-pack.
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I had the exact same first rocket!
Happy memories launching in the farmer’s field north of (mumble dissemble, pretty sure we didn’t have permission)… we were so busy setting everything up that we didn’t notice we had been surrounded by a herd of cattle that had sauntered up to watch the proceedings. I suppose it was the most interesting thing they’d seen that day…
I never did confirm the local urban myth that another hobbyist (this was late 70’s) had the bright idea of using tinfoil as recovery streamers. 10 minutes after launching the field was being buzzed by CF-101 Voodoo’s out of Ottawa (oops, not Trenton?), looking for the blip… 
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Happy to be in company with a crew that knows their 1/2A6-2s from their A8-3s and B6-4s. I built dozens of estes and centauri kits before moving on to a rocketry club that flew duration and altitude competition. At that point the glossy paint went out the window and we built feather lite “hotrods” with fins of 1/64" ply and super light chutes cut from dry cleaner bags – no more launch lugs, instead custom made tri-dowel launch pads that had less drag.
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Caution always. One time, my best friend’s Estes rocket launched unexpectedly while he and I hovered over it. THE FAIL-SAFE KEY DID NOT DO ITS JOB. The rocket stabbed into my tee shirt left sleeve and burned away until another friend swatted it off before the chute could deploy. My burnt arm healed up nicely, though… like it never happened.
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Oh… here’s an idea: an Estes Soviet N1 Moon Rocket and make it for 30 A3 engines so that we can all enjoy the problems the Russians had getting that many engines to work together.
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Thanks for all the fun, Mr. Estes.
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I have to admit… the N1 is an attractive looking launch system.
I think that might have been my ES telescope too. The hours I spent. 
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I still have my first rocket as well, and is an old Alpha too. That poor thing was beat to hell, but no matter how many times I glued the fins on, it would just keep going.
I always wanted to build the Mars Lander, but it was rather out of my price range.
Somewhere in my basement I still have an unbuilt Maxi Pershing 1-A kit.
I miss those days.
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My older brother and his crew once ‘borrowed’ mine to scope out nearby apartment inhabitants. Cops were called and so on. My brother was already on my s-list, so.
I still have the edscorp zoom eyepiece I purchased for it not long afterwards. For giggles, I’ve tried it with my Celestron C5. Vintage zooms don’t have the best optics.
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Estes rocketeer here - pre 1970. I never bought the electric ignitor. Just stuck in a length of fuse, lit, and ran for cover. Worked fine.
Except for the time I launched the 3-stager on a windless day only to discover a high wind at third-stage altitude…
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it is really too bad that the nanny state of California has all but killed flying model rockets. between the NiBMYs, unfindable local laws, insurance and permit requirements that may lead to a fine for flying because you did it wrong, it is hard to imagine why stores even sell or ship rockets and parts to CA. all the local Bay Area rocket “zones” have I knew of have closed or given up. never mind that restricting motors to tiny “A” would fix all the problems of “scary missiles” to “height limits” and the dreaded, “itsa fire hazard.”
make it for 30 A3 engines
Oooooooh. That would have been the best idea ever for kid-sized me. Actually, that’s a great idea even now. The chaos that could be!
yes, had several though the grade school/jr high years. the rocket glider combo on the lead image was built but never launched.
one of the payload models did lead to the demise of a number of grasshoppers due to a faulty parachute. May we have a moment of silence for these brave involuntary arthropod aeronauts…
Two rocket stories:
Dad built the Klingon D7 back in the day. Didn’t have quite the right motor, we used what we had. The chute deployed two seconds AFTER the ship augered in.
Grew up in the DC suburbs. Family had a Smithsonian membership. They had a model rocketry class. Got to launch Alphas on the National Mall. (I’m old)
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Hey Vern! Happy Birthday.
I learned a lot building model rockets. Including setting a neighbors field on fire.
And lessons about acceleration and g forces. For example, if you use a very small frog as a passenger in a ‘Big Bertha’…well…it’s messy.
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ESTES rockets use black powder engines. There’s a charge that burns to the top that explodes to eject the parachute. There are some flames involved in this.
Ideally this happens at apex of the trajectory. Not after it loses a fin then spirals away over a tree line and belly’s into a neighbors dry corn field, as I learn as a child.
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I never bought from any of those three, I didn’t have the money.
Wait, I did order from Edmund Scientific. There was an article, I think in National Geographic, about about “printing” snowflakes. The kit was from Edmund Scientific. This was about 1970. I made a rare order, and 6-8 weeks later, when I’d given up, it arrived.
I don’t remember using it, I can’t remember why. Something years later made me think it was mostly Crazy Glue, the snowflake leaving a pattern before melting.
But all those catalogs, and others, provided long hours of reading.
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I discovered Estes rockets late in life when my youngest was about 12 and graduated to Public Missiles.
I posted this elsewhere but will use any opportunity to post again.
That’s the Teen prone on the ground slightly to the right and behind Orange Base Alpha.
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