Interesting compilation.

The numbers that I have scratched my head about over the years is the big jump from the '73-'74 numbers you listed of 40-50 million, to the 100 million 'celebration' that Estes mentioned in their '76 catalog. Specifically, the 76-1 catalog (in my mind because it was my first Estes catalog, though I had Centuri catalogs going back to late 1970).

In that Estes 76-1 catalog, Vern's 'message' on page 3 mentions something like "...and sometime early this summer a rocketeer will push the button on the 100,000,000 launching of an Estes model rocket". I think they even had some kind of a sweepstakes drawing that year in honor of the event.

It seems -- by popular impression at least -- that during that '74-'76 timeframe, rocketry was slowing down somewhat sales-wise (Apollo was basically over), yet rocketry flight numbers (and hence motor usage) DOUBLED from '74 to '76?

That always seemed a bit strange to me. But then again, maybe the retail distribution sales of model rockets had increased a great deal during that time frame (compared to maybe primarily mail order sales in earlier years) to account for that dramatic jump. Not sure.


Earl

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Earl L. Cagle, Jr.
NAR# 29523
TRA# 962
SAM# 73
Owner/Producer
Point 39 Productions

Rocket-Brained Since 1970