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  #1  
Old 01-17-2020, 10:20 AM
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Earl Earl is offline
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Default Enerjet Brochure and Shock Cord Fastener

Attached are scans of a four page Enerjet brochure covering the then new Enerjet line. I picked this up last summer and it is a brochure that I personally had never seen before. Thought that the Enerjet fans here would like to see it.

It is an 11 x 17 sheet folded in half providing for four pages.

On the cover page is Larry Brown holding a Pteradactyl glider. The other person at the launch rack I do not know.

On page two (inside left page as it is opened) shows a fairly young Grant Boyd with an Aerodart on an LIA-77 launcher. I understand that Grant passed away in May, 2018 from Parkinson's Disease in Arizona. I never met Grant, but it seems he was one of the key personnel that kept Centuri going through the mid-to latter 70s. He was R&D Director at Centuri from what I recall. I always enjoyed his material in the Rocket Times newsletters that Centuri published back in those days. The other pages show some interesting photos of Enerjet product.

The final item is a scan of an Enerjet shock cord fastener. For those who were accustomed to the standard Centuri fastener from the very early 70s, it is interesting to see how much larger the Enerjet version is. Strangely, Enerjet kits also used 1/8" elastic shock cord like their smaller Centuri siblings. One would think with a fastener this big, they would have jumped up to 3/16", if not 1/4" material. From the Enerjet kits I have, not so.


Earl
Attached Thumbnails
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Name:  Centuri Standard and Enerjet SCF.jpg
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Attached Files
File Type: pdf Early Enerjet Flyer-1.pdf (525.5 KB, 124 views)
File Type: pdf Early Enerjet Flyer-2.pdf (552.1 KB, 111 views)
File Type: pdf Early Enerjet Flyer-3.pdf (543.0 KB, 101 views)
File Type: pdf Early Enerjet Flyer-4.pdf (652.5 KB, 104 views)
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  #2  
Old 01-17-2020, 10:32 AM
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Thank-you, Earl. I have never seen this brochure before either. Back in those days I very much preferred the flat-lying, streamlined Centuri shock cord fastener to the Estes tri-fold. These days I prefer variations of the LOC-style mount, but I would again use the Centuri shock cord mount in my model rockets if it was available.
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Old 01-17-2020, 10:52 AM
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I have not seen that brochure either and I thought I had previously seen all the Enerjet docs.
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Old 01-17-2020, 11:26 AM
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Earl,

Thanks for sharing. Fun to look at old marketing material and pictures — especially seeing something like this for the first time.
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Old 01-17-2020, 12:59 PM
SCooke123 SCooke123 is offline
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Thanks for sharing the downloads!
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Old 01-17-2020, 01:46 PM
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I wonder how it slipped by us all these YORF years?

Thanks, Earl!
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Old 01-17-2020, 02:28 PM
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Wonder what year it was from ?
Enerjet engines were first available in 1971.
The first and only catalog of Enerjet kits was 1972 although the products were available through at least 1976 and possibly early 1977 through Centuri.
A local hobby shop in my area had a huge stock of boxed Enerjet engines available through the 80's but they were always expensive for the time.
8 bucks for an F engine in 1987 was considered very costly.
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Old 01-17-2020, 03:35 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ghrocketman
Wonder what year it was from ?
Enerjet engines were first available in 1971.
The first and only catalog of Enerjet kits was 1972 although the products were available through at least 1976 and possibly early 1977 through Centuri.
A local hobby shop in my area had a huge stock of boxed Enerjet engines available through the 80's but they were always expensive for the time.
8 bucks for an F engine in 1987 was considered very costly.


Best I can tell, this must be from around the late summer or early fall of '72.

At the top of page two of the brochure, the text makes reference to "At this year's internationals....". Though the word 'internationals' is a bit of a misnomer in this context, I think they are referring to NARAM (14, I believe), which that year had been held in Seattle. There, Enerjets were given a fairly big run of demonstration flights, several of which were record attempts (see Enerjet News #3 from Sept 1972 here: http://www.spacemodeling.org/jimz/ejn03.htm).

Pretty sure that is the event being referenced in this particular Enerjet brochure. So yeah, I think late summer or so of 1972 would be a pretty good guess.

Anyone here have any first hand (or even second hand) information about working with or around Grant Boyd? I've heard a number of anecdotal information or stories about other Centuri staffers over the years, but I don't think I've ever heard any about Grant really, save for a quick story from a former Centuri motor plant staffer who went out once with Grant to test fire an Enerjet cluster rocket outside Phoenix. That's about it. Any other stories from or about Grant would be appreciated.

Earl
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Old 01-17-2020, 04:27 PM
stefanj stefanj is offline
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Very interesting!

This seems to be a "dealer" brochure; it really plays up the marketing and packaging of the line.

FWIW:

The one Enerjet product I bought was a Nike Ram. I bought it direct; it was probably the most expensive model I'd bought at the time. I had the cost of the model, but luckily found a dollar bill which helped with the shipping!

It came in a plastic bag, not that magnificent box. Perhaps the direct sales used cheaper packaging?


I only got one copy, likely the first, of the "monthly" newsletter.
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Old 01-17-2020, 09:33 PM
ManofSteele ManofSteele is offline
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Unfortunately, Grant Boyd passed away in May 2018. I didn't get a chance to work with him, but he left behind a rich treasure of "Life at Centuri" in the Estes files that I went through when I worked there.

Matt
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