Rocket Vision Mach Buster

In the late 1970s, we were deeply captivated by the possibility of building - with the limited means then available to a rocket builder in Switzerland - model rockets capable of attaining transonic speeds. It was not least the purchase of Flight Systems' remarkable Dart rocket kit (intended to fly with the separately available RX-1 Thruster System booster) that inspired our imagination and ambitions.

There were some other concepts we considered at the time, some of them rather adventurous. Various changes and occurrences in our private lives at the time prevented us from realizing them, however.

Of three minimum-diameter, G motor-powered transonic rockets I eventually built in the late 1990s, one was a kit: the Rocket Vision Mach Buster. I acquired it out of sheer inquisitiveness. It consisted of a fibre phenolic tube, G10 glass epoxy laminate fins, and a heavy-duty polystyrene nose cone; and it featured a kevlar shock cord/nylon parachute recovery system. The Mach Buster was designed to fly with motors in the D12 to G55 range.

I didn't use the kit-supplied launch lug and instead built the rocket to utilize my own tower launcher which could be fitted to my Impulse Aerospace/Rocket Vision Quad-Pod launch pad.

The photos were taken in Zurich, Switzerland, on May 14, 2016.