Anyway, 2013 is winding down and I for one couldn't be happier. Any year when you discover the definitions of both "slab leak" and "psoriasis", well hanging is too good for it!
That's not to say nothing good happened. The newsletter was handed off to the very capable hands of Gary Briggs (who is doing a great job with it!) and this blog was born!
Still, I would rather look a little further back on this New Years Eve.
In my collection, I have an NAR 50th anniversary release of one of the first mass produced model rockets. Bill Stein of Quest put these out a few years ago, and several club members bought one (or two). For those who may not know, Bill is the son of G. Harry Stein, the man that designed and marketed this model.
The re-released kit is full of retro- tastiness. The parts are simple and the instructions seem to be patterned after model airplane instructions. This makes sense, since the kit was marketed in model airplane magazines of the day. (As an aside, I recently picked up about 400 model airplane magazines from the 50's and 60's. I know there is at least one ad in them for rockets, but I need to dig through and find them all. Future post, maybe?)
Anyway, I guess my point is that in this day of GPS tracking, altimeters, and high power craziness, maybe its good to remember where it all started. A couple of balsa scraps, a cardboard tube, and some good old imagination can do miracles.
So, to all of my DARS friends, Happy New Year and fly 'em fast and high!
Very cool, but I would guess that the originals didn't come with laser cut fins...
ReplyDeleteSure they did! But the lasers were the size of a warehouse with vacuum tubes, huge dials, jacobs ladders spittin sparks..... and they were run by little green men from Mars!
ReplyDeleteI sold one of these kits years ago to a buddy for $2500. They are terribly rare.
ReplyDeleteI think you can still pick up the rerelease fairly resonable, but Ive never even seen an original. 2500 was probably very fair!
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