NAR 60 Year Reunion, Part 3 - The OddRoc Master Himself

While making another circuit of the meeting room floor early in the event, I came across one of the display tables on which some new items had appeared....

 

And I knew exactly who had put them there.

I approached the man standing near the table with his back toward me.

"Ahem", I said, "These strange rockets look like they just might be the work of Randall Redd!"

Randall turned and saw me.

A happy reunion ensued.

Randall had been one of the Utah rocketeers from the old WARP section that drove out to Colorado every August from 1980-1983 to participate in the HOTROC (Heart of the Rockies) regional meets hosted by ROMAR of Colorado Springs.

Randall and I kept up letter correspondence well up into the late 1980s, even though I had exited model rocketry by that time.  He and his wife, Cathy, stopped by my home to visit on any occasion they were passing through Colorado Springs while traveling on vacations.

I lost touch with Randall until I became a BAR in 2016.  I looked him up and got into contact with him again, and was delighted to learn that he was still flying model rockets out on the Salt Flats with the current NAR section in Salt Lake City, UROC.

When I learned about this reunion, I shot an email to Randall to see if he was coming out here to NARAM 60.  He replied that he was, and a short while later, I was again delighted to note that he and Cathy were registered for the re-union!  

This is a picture of Randall and Cathy at the reunion.  Randall is holding the front page of a Colorado Springs newspaper feature on HOTROC-2, published in August, 1981.  The full page cover photo shows Randall hooking up his Class C Egglofter for flight!  I had brought this along to present to him, knowing he would be tickled by it.

Here's a shot of Randall and me...

Randall has cited me as the inspiration for his getting interested in building and flying Oddrocs.

How did I earn that dubious distinction?

Being the CD of some of the HOTROC regionals, I had introduced and scheduled Oddroc as an unofficial contest event. It quickly became one of the more popular and anticipated features of the meets. Randall took hold of it and never looked back. We always looked forward to seeing what kind of new contraption Randall would bring along to fly every year at HOTROC!

He never disappointed!

NAR 60 Year Reunion, Part 2 - An Old Rocket Buddy

I'm going to start this reunion series on a more personal note.

This is a picture of myself and one of my best friends who happened to travel out here from Virginia to attend the reunion - Mr. Marc Kramer.

 

(Special thanks to George Gassaway for taking the time out to shoot the above photo.)

Marc and I go back to 1968 in Colorado Springs, Colorado.  He is actually the guy that got me into model rocketry.  In August of 1969 Marc invited me to go along with he and his dad to a model rocket event happening at the United States Air Force Academy. Marc was celebrating his 11th birthday, and a trip to this meet was one of his birthday gifts from his folks.

Turned out the event was NARAM - 11 !

We spent the entire afternoon there watching competition models and sport birds being launched into the blue Colorado Sky. 
Needless to say, I was hooked.

I didn't really get started into the hobby until 1973, so in the intervening four years, I was content with watching Marc fly his models.

Marc lived in the house right across the street from mine, so we pretty much hung out on a daily basis throughout our junior high and high school years.

I remember many evenings and weekends spent in Marc's basement workshop building model rockets and plotting about how we would soon become Masters of the Universe in parachute duration competition.

OK, we were both total nerds.....

Marc and I were both charter members of the Rocky Mountain Association of Rocketry in Colorado Springs (NAR section 331) in 1973, and spent many a Sunday morning over the following years flying rockets in the club's sport and contest meets.

Incidentally, Marc is the guy who introduced me to the first rocket of my fleet, an Estes Mini-Brute Hornet that was already built and on display at 'Custom Hobbies' hobby store in Colorado Springs. He suggested I buy the model to get my feet wet with rocket flying before I built one.
This Hornet is the very same model that I recently restored and is now my BAR-era fleet flagship. All of you who have been following this blog are quite familiar with this bird by now.

In the late 1970s, Marc and I went our own ways to pursue our various education and career endeavors.  We were out of touch for all of the intervening decades until Marc found this blog last year and established contact.  

Our meeting up here in Pueblo at the NAR reunion was first time we've seen each other in nearly 40 years!

And we're both still nerds!  But these days, of course, nerds are cool (at least according to the Internet).

So, here is an interesting aside that Marc brought to my attention...

This is the photo from the front cover of the October 1969 issue of Model Rocketry Magazine which carried coverage of NARAM-11.  The photo shows Mr. Doug Malewicki launching his R/C glider.

I would like to direct your attention to the two young lads in the near background observing the launch.

After much study and discussion, Marc and I are convinced that those two young men in the photo are us.  I was 13 and he was 11.  Our relative sizes, hair color and clothing 'styles' are dead on as well.

Nice to think that us two old buddies might be immortalized on the cover of MRm !

Cheers!










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NAR 60 Year Reunion, Part 1 - Like A Kid In A Candy Store

Saturday, August 4th, 2018, I made the 80 mile trip from Castle Rock to Pueblo to attend a much anticipated event - the NAR 60 year anniversary Rocketeer Reunion.  Despite traffic delays on I-25 just south of Castle Rock because of the big Renaissance Festival at Larkspur, I made it to the Pueblo Convention Center by 4:30 p.m.

(A little aside - I was actually born in Pueblo in 1956, but was there for only a very brief period before being moved to Colorado Springs.  I have absolutely no memories of living in Pueblo, so I really claim to be a Springs native.)

After checking in at the door, I proceeded into the big room and found Pat Fitzpatrick, who showed me to the table where I could set up my small NARAM 11 ephemera display. By the time I had everything arranged, a lot of reunion attendees had arrived.

Another little bit of background about me. During the time I was involved in model rocketry back in the 70s and early 80s, I never got out to attend a single NARAM, or even any other large model rocketry event outside of Colorado.  The only NAR rocketeers I knew were those who were part of local NAR sections in Colorado and the rest of the mountain states, plus a handful of people who were employed at Estes Industries, or through a bit of letter correspondence with other NAR rocketeers outside of Colorado.

As a result, I had never before met any of the old-timer model rocketeers that would be here at the reunion this night.

The thing is, I knew ALL of their names! 

Because I had a nearly complete sets of Model Rocketry Magazine and The Model Rocketeer in my possession that I knew well cover to cover by virtue of reading them so many hundreds of times.

In effect, it blew my mind when I began circulating about the room and talking with all of these model rocketry hobby stalwarts that I knew only through the pages of magazines. 

Like a kid in a candy store.....

Anyway, this man's blog is going to be populated over the next couple of weeks with my personal observations of this wonderful event, complete with as many photos as I can cram in.

As I write this post this morning, I am still overwhelmed and euphoric over the event, so it's going to be a lot of fun sharing with the rest of you.

Please enjoy.....

An addendum - For those of you who were also in attendance at the re-union, please don't hesitate to post replies about your experiences here.  It would be fun to make this whole blog series into  a comprehensive archive of sorts about the event!

It's Off To The NAR 60th Anniversary Re-Union

Ready to head down to Pueblo, Colorado (roughly an 80 mile drive from where I live in Castle Rock), to spend an evening hanging out with roughly 189 other past and present NAR rocketeers, young and old.
You can be sure that I'll post a lot of stories and pictures right here on the BlastFromTheBast blog!

BAR Fleet #116 - Satellite Interceptor

Estes Industries Design

Kit #:  1296
Produced 1978 -1982
Designer: 
Wayne Kellner
Type:  Futuristic / SciFi

 Stages: 1

Engine Type:  18mm
Recovery:  Parachute

Length:  58cm

Diameter:  24.8mm
Weight Empty:  47.0 g
Nose Cone:  Conical
Fin Type:  Various
Number of Fins:  Multiple

Color Scheme:  White and black

with black & red markings

 Date Completed: 

22 July 2018

 An Estes Classic

 Back in 2017, I picked up an Estes Industries PNC-50 nose kit which contains one of the PNC-50BB units.  After doing a quick search on the Wonderful World Wide Web to find out what Estes kits used that cone,  I came up with either a Black Brant III scale model or the Satellite Interceptor.   I chose the latter, and began my scratch build / kit bash.  The plans, templates, and decal page were downloaded from the Jimz website.

The build of the SI was very straight-forward, albeit with lots of fins to cut out, fill, and sand.
The only real deviation from the kit paint/décor scheme was the nose.  I opted to go with black.
The long red stripe decals that are meant to extend onto the nose didn’t show up against the black paint, so they were cut off at the body tube / nose joint.  Those same decals were also swapped left and right so that the number ‘2’ appears under the cockpit.

The entire model was given a coat of Krylon matte clear, after which a bit of ‘Future was brushed onto the cockpit decal to make it shiny. 
I look forward to many nice flights out of this bird.

BAR Fleet #113 - Lunar Patrol 3

Yup, Folks, Here it is....
21 blog posts and nearly a year and a half in the making....

Model Info and Specs

Lunar Patrol 3
Based on the Model Products Corp. Lunar Patrol, Kit # R-215
Original Kit Produced:  1969- 1978
Designed by:  Fred Nardei

Completion Date:  12 July, 2018

Booster Rocket

Length:  42cm
Diameter:  19mm
Weight:  20.1g
Single Stage
Motor Type:  18mm
Parachute Recovery
Color Scheme:  White, Silver, Red, with multi-color markings.

Gliders

Type:  Delta Wing
Lengths:  18.5cm
Diameters:  19mm
Weight:  (Avg.):  10.75g
Color Scheme:  White, Red, Black

Overall Vehicle

Length:  58.3cm
Weight Empty:  41.6g

About The Lunar Patrol 3...

Back in the ‘old fleet’ days, my all-time favorite model rocket to fly was an original MPC Lunar Patrol, followed by a custom designed re-build version of the booster rocket.  The sight of the model streaking straight upward, then separating into three sections at ejection, was fun to watch.  The booster would descend under its parachute while the gliders wheeled about on their own separate flight paths.  The bird was always a crowd-pleaser at club demonstration launches.

As a Born Again Rocketeer, a clone build of the Lunar Patrol was an absolute necessity!  Scanned plans of the original MPC kit instructions and templates were download from the Ye Olde Rocket Plans website.
This build cannot be considered as a true clone of the original kit because I went with Estes BT-20 tubing for the main airframe and glider fuselages.  The original kit had slightly larger diameter body tubes.

Also a currently available Estes PNC-20-something nose was used.                                              

Another deviation from the original Lunar Patrol revolves around the motor clip.   The MPC kit utilized a standard clip that was attached to the outside of the main body tube and held in place with a larger diameter tube that slid over it.  My re-build uses an internal motor hook made from .020 music wire.

 
In addition, since the published plans did not have really clear illustrations or dimensions for the glider noses, I estimated the sizes and turned them on the wood lathe.

I am quite happy to have another Lunar Patrol in my current fleet, and look forward to many flights  with this interesting bird.

MPC Lunar Patrol, Part 20 - Glide Trimming

The final process of the Lunar Patrol build is to trim the gliders for flight.
The noses have been left unglued to the body tubes to facilitate this.
For trim weight, I am going with a #6 x 1/2" sheet metal screw and the required number of stacked #6 washers to be attached to the base of the balsa noses.

A quick trip to a local grass-field park, and I'm ready to try it out.
The noses have been inserted so that the attachment pin is oriented to the top of the glider.  I expect several hard landings during trim testing, and I don't want to break them off.

Small delta-wing gliders are notorious for being somewhat difficult to trim out.  I found that giving the birds a good heave in a near vertical trajectory gave them enough altitude to do whatever looping and turning was necessary before they would settle out into a glide pattern.
With five washers installed per bird, I was pleased to observe that they would properly flatten out into a good glide with a very minimal stall pattern.

I did note that they were highly susceptible to even the slightest wind disturbance, but would recover quickly.
Satisfied that the trim of both gliders was well within the desired window, it's off to the work bench to permanently glue the nose cones in place (remembering, of course, to put the attachment pins in the correct orientation!).
Hear are the completed gliders, all ready for their maiden powered flight. 

Any further tweaking of the glide trim will have to be done while observing a real flight, with  judicious placement of additional trim clay.
Also, the hand launch trim testing did not reveal much information about the extent to which the gliders turn, since they did not level out into glide until they were a few feet above the ground.
From my initial observations, they seemed to fly fairly straight.  Again, a powered test flight will reveal if I need to trim for a slight turn.  I don't want to be chasing two gliders into another county (or two different counties 180 degrees apart!).
Anyway, I do believe the Lunar Patrol is officially finished!