I am sure that means everyone is out flying a few!

I helped out a local cub scout pack with their rocket launch last Saturday, Estes Up Aerospace and Gnomes about 50 flights in all. I used my two 30 year old tripod mounted launch pads and 6 volt controllers which still worked perfectly considering their age. It is hard for me to believe my "Tripod Mount" and "Ablative Blast Deflectors" articles were published that long ago in Sport Rocketry.

I do not recommend these models for cub scouts as many were partly destroyed when they they were prepared for flight. The younger children crimped and/or bent the body tubes easily. I encouraged the pack to build Firestreak SST rocket's a few years back and got a lot of criticism from the parents who said that these weren't like the Estes rockets they remember. Which is probably why they didn't invite me back last year, although all those rockets where flight worthy and all were recovered in-tact.

The build session was terrible this year, I did my 30 minute model rocketry demo then helped with the build session. I was told there were plenty of supplies to go around; however, no pencils, no rulers, no hobby knives and only 3 tubes of plastic cement for about 40 builds! I guess that is what to expect from parents with full time jobs raising a couple of young children these days. I also didn't like exposing the children to the tube type plastic cement that was used.

Someone also flew and Estes Vagabond on a D12-3 nice flight but it separated at the tube coupler (not enough glue).

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Bruce S. Levison, NAR #69055