Originally Posted by Earl

I finally was able to get to probably my oldest photo album that had the only other truly vintage photos of my rocketry endeavors. These images would be from the early summer of 1978 as I approached my second anniversary of launching my first rocket (June 6, 1976 was the first launch as shown in the image in my first post early in this thread).

These black and white images are from an Instamatic camera that us kids used for a while in the mid-to latter 70s. I really only remember having it for a couple years and the photos below are the only ones I took of my rockets with that camera. Not sure why I did not take more, but probably the cost of film and developing would be my guess. The images I have below are not very ‘exciting’, as I have only one liftoff shot, and most are kind of grainy. But, they are my history and are of very few shots I have of those days.

The first and main batch of images from that summer of 1978 are those from the morning of that second anniversary launch on June 6, 1978. Just before that launch though I took a group photo of my rocket fleet as it existed then out in the side yard. The first image below is that group shot. My fleet consisted primarily of Centuri kits, along with my first Estes kit at the time, an Alpha (first from left). There are about five own designs in the group. The biggest and most obvious of these is the large scrounged together rocket on the right which was simply called my “Walkie-Talkie Rocket”. It was budget rocketry at its finest, but worked great. It flew that summer of 1978 several times and I’ll talk about it a bit more below.

I still have just about all these rockets save for the Payloader II (on far right); it drifted over the swamp across the road from my then current flying field never to be seen again. It was one of my favorite flyers on B6-4 motors. The other I don’t have these days from this lineup is a minimum diameter home design laying on the ground (black nose cone) near the center of the photo, just to the right of the Centuri Hummingbird boost glider and white Twister. Lost it in the late 80s on a C6-7 flight at the grass farm launch site in south Georgia. Streamer recovery, but never saw it again after ejection.

The next image below is at the launch site the morning of my second anniversary of launching rockets on June 6, 1978. It shows my trusty 10-speed bike that I rode for years and years, clocking probably over 10,000 miles on it (the speedometer I had for it had something in the 8700 mile range when it was removed, and I had ridden the bike many miles before the speedometer was installed and many miles afterwards). I include this shot as this was the way I traveled to most of my launches in the latter 70s. The launch site was about 2.5-3.0 miles from the house. All my rockets and range box (and whatever else I might bring) were loaded into the cardboard box and the box was tied down to the handlebars. I had to ride kind of easy because every bump and jostle caused the box to bounce and shake. I still have launch gear stored in that same box, but it is a little worse for wear looking these days.

One can also see in that photo that it was a foggy and overcast morning that morning.

The next photos are a series of shots of some of the rockets I flew that day. A Centuri Nike-Smoke on the pad ready to fly, probably on a C6-5. Next, is my Centuri two-stage Stiletto after its first flight on a B6-0 to A8-5. That was just after recovering it from my very first two stage flight. It punched right through the low cloud cover that morning and I am really surprised I was able to recover the upper stage. One can see that if you look closely that one of the fins has been torn off. Luckily, I found it too and would fly that rocket a number of more times over the years. After flying it later that summer on a clear day where I could really see how high it went on the engine combination, I’m surprised in hindsight that I EVER recovered the upper stage. I cannot imagine that thing on a C6-0 to C6-7.

Next is a photo of the Alpha on the pad, probably also on a B6-4. Flew a great many B6-4 motors at this field back in those days.

Finally from that morning is my very first rocket, a Centuri Screaming Eagle, after recovery and laying on top of my cardboard carrying box atop the bicycle handlebars.

Lastly (and as mentioned briefly above) are two shots of what I called my Walkie-Talkie rocket. I checked my early flight log notebook and see this flight was made the morning of June 21, 1978, about two weeks after the ‘anniversary’ flight session described above. I finished the roll of film I started in the Instamatic during the anniversary launch with this launch.

This was a totally improvised rocket (my first D powered rocket!!), which I made to carry one of my walkie-talkies, which I stripped down to just the circuit board, on/off/volume switch, and the approximately 1.5” diameter speaker. I had a set of walkie-talkies, like many boys, for a number of years that I did not really use, and I got the idea sometime late that spring of 1978 that I might could strip down one of the two and fashion a rocket payload to launch it. It was a poor-man’s Estes Rocketronics transmitter, which would transmit the sound of flight back to the ground. After stripping the plastic case off the walkie-talkie, I started to fashion a ‘payload’ section for it (oh boy). The payload section was made from a Long John Silver’s seafood paper drink cup I found on the side of the road. To that, I added a hand-made paper reducer and shroud to adapt it to the totally home-made booster, which was fashioned from a wrapping paper cardboard tube and mat-board fins (with gauze re-enforcing on the fins). The ‘nose cone’ (yeah, that’s the thing on the very top) was fashioned out of a piece of paper grocery bag. The hole in the side of the nosecone was where the walkie-talkie microphone was mounted.

If you think the whole affair looks very similar to something out of a Far Side cartoon, you’d be right on track because it did, as the photos show. But…it worked great!

The very last image below is the liftoff of the Walkie-Talkie rocket on its very first flight, as mentioned above June 21, 1978. This is the first rocket liftoff photo I ever made. While the transmitter was strapped down and keyed to the ‘transmit’ mode inside the payload section, the ‘receiving’ walkie-talkie was back near me at the launch controller, covered inside that same cardboard carrying box seen in the other photos. I had it turned on and laying next to a tape recorder. I had some old towels and such all over the top of the recorder and receiving walkie-talkie to keep outside sounds away so that the only sound recorded was that actually being transmitted by the Walkie-Talkie rocket.

The flight worked great and I was tickled pink at the resulting recording. On the tape, one could faintly hear me calling out the countdown and at zero there is a sudden and very loud ‘whooshing’ sound as the rocket lifted off. As the “Mighty Estes D” motor burned out, one could hear the rocket beginning to coast and slow down. Suddenly, there was a “poof” sound followed by the sound of an unfurling and inflating parachute (I had hand-made a large plastic garbage bag chute for the payload section) and a ‘pop’ when it fully inflated. As the rocket descended, one could hear the signal come and go as the wire antenna swayed under the parachute. Finally, as the payload section hits the ground one can hear a thud. A handful of seconds later one can hear my approaching footsteps through the grass and weeds as I reached the downed payload section. I picked it up, and reported into the microphone that the “rocket was down”.

After getting back to the launch area, I pulled the recorder out of the cardboard box, rewound the tape, and played back the flight. As mentioned above, I was quite thrilled at the outcome and happy that my “super-duper-budget-rocket-project” had worked out ok and that I had entered the ranks of “D-powered” rocketry!!

I would fly at that same field through the early 80s when I could get away to fly while in college, which was not as often I would have liked. My last flights there were with my oldest nephew in the early 90s when he was a kid and I got him a rocketry set.

The city jail now occupies that former farm field and has since the mid-90s or so. It takes up every bit of that field. But, it was a good launch site for me as a teen.

Earl

Originally Posted by Earl

Thanks for suggesting this thread, Bill. I have not looked at some of these photos in probably 30 years. Brought back some good memories of my early rocketry days and the things we probably all went through (and persevered through) just so we could eagerly test out our ideas and get out and fly! It was a simpler time then, too.

Earl

Originally Posted by A Fish Named Wallyum

Great pics! My jealously knows no bounds.
Strange the lack of love for those little cameras. I think I got one for Christmas my senior year of high school. Photography must have failed to capture my interest because I used it sparingly and only have a couple of pics left from it. Then two years into college I got "upgraded" to a top of the line 110 camera, and wore the poor thing out. It was a veteran of multiple beach trips, parties, and just general nights out. I kept the 110, (it was literally falling apart and held together with epoxy,) but I have no idea what happened to the 126 rig.