Flight Systems Motors

A selection of 1970s vintage Flight Systems Inc. black powder motors. The discovery of Flight Systems' more powerful motor range in the late 1970s enabled us, finally, to fulfil a burning desire to construct rockets capable of a noticeably superior performance.

As young teenagers in 1975 and 1976, we initially built self-made and utterly flawed aluminium tube rockets filled with any highly flammable material we could obtain. These efforts resulted in far more explosions than legitimate flights, and it is solely due to sheer luck that we came out of this period without any serious injuries. In late summer of 1976, we finally discovered professional 18 mm and 24 mm black powder motors of the A through D range, first those manufactured by Estes, and soon after those by Centuri. At this time, they were still somewhat difficult to acquire in Switzerland. Frequently driven by ambition and youthful enthusiasm, however, we were often dissatisfied by the speeds and altitudes attainable with these motors.

Through our subsequent NAR membership and the associated subscription to the Model Rocketeer magazine, we soon learned that there existed further companies that manufactured different motors. But it was only when German distributor ESE Electronics and Scientific Equipment started carrying the Flight Systems Inc. product line that we finally were able to actually purchase that company's E and F motors. They were a revelation to us at the time, and they enabled us to accomplish a brief revolution in our rocketry activities before certain harsh realities in our lives temporarily forced us to divert our attention to other issues.

Shown in the image above are Flight Systems Inc. 21 mm E5-6 motors produced in May 1978 (top left, yellow header), 21 mm D20-7 motors produced in June 1979 (top right, blue header), a 27 mm F7-4 motor produced in June 1979 (second from bottom, green print) and a 27 mm F100-8 motor produced in July 1979 (bottom, purple print). The small plastic bag at bottom right holds the electric ignitors. The photo was taken in Zurich, Switzerland, on May 18, 2016.

Estes Firing Line Vampire

The unique Estes Firing Line Ready To Fly Vampire injection-moulded, pre-assembled, and pre-decorated plastic model rocket, in design and looks a distant cousin of Estes' Astron Goblin model rocket.

The sublime look of the Vampire made it one of our favourite model rockets during the 1970s, in spite of the fact that we never actually managed to obtain one in Switzerland. It had first been featured on pages 4 and 8/9 of the 1973 Estes catalogue, but we became aware of it through a photo in the model rocketry chapter of Guy R. Williams' book The World Of Model Aircraft as well as by means of the first Estes catalogue we ever saw, the 1976 edition.

The rather tiny Vampire was designed to fly on mini motors (something we considered entirely unexciting, however), and it was also available as part of a starter kit, including the realistic Firing Line launch pad. The Vampire featured attractive paper stick-on decals. These decals do not age all too well, however; they are prone to becoming brittle and unglued, as was the case with the collector's example shown in the top photo, taken in Thalwil, Switzerland, in May of 1999.

I subsequently removed the damaged decals and carefully sanded the entire rocket, before converting it to fly with low-power 18 mm motors and restoring it to a semi-original look (bottom image, taken in Zurich, Switzerland, in June 2016).