Vehicle 9

First flight of Vehicle 9 on a conservative Estes D12-5 black powder motor, launched from an Aerotech Mantis launch pad, northeast Switzerland, May 28, 1999. This was a perfect flight to a Rocksim-computed altitude of approximately 380 meters. Due to wind drift, the rocket was initially lost after parachute deployment. Fortunately, we found it later that day, by chance.

The unashamedly Estes Astron Goblin inspired Vehicle 9 has a length of 414 mm and a diameter of 42 mm, with 2.5 mm balsa wood fins. It was built from Estes parts and is intended for 24 mm D and E motors.

Top photo taken by Erol Ünala; lower photo shows Vehicle 9 in Zurich, Switzerland, on June 7, 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).

Two Prototypes Of Vehicle 30

I built the first incarnation of Vehicle 30 (8230 A) in July of 1982, using CMR and Estes components. This rocket was designed to be a simple, reliably stable sport model, vaguely resembling Estes' iconic Astron Goblin. Vehicle 30 measured 325 mm in length and 29.5 mm in diameter, and it featured plywood fins and a plastic nose cone.

The top photo, taken in northeast Switzerland on April 16, 1986, shows Vehicle 30 shortly before launch on an Estes D11-9 black powder motor. Unfortunately, the motor disintegrated upon launch, ripping both nose cone and recovery system from the rocket. Unlike the Centuri Nike Smoke sport scale model that was completely destroyed by a similar Estes D12-5 malfunction on the same date, Vehicle 30 remained repairable.

Only ten days later, on April 26, 1986, the rebuilt rocket was lost during a launch held next to the Swiss model rocket competition at Allmend Frauenfeld, Switzerland. Vehicle 30 flew high on an Estes D motor and then experienced so much wind drift that it could no longer be found.

I had built a second, identical prototype of the design, however, and repeatedly flew and recovered this rocket (8230 B) successfully that same day, with the same motor type. Center photo shows the second Vehicle 30 during one such launch, likely powered by an Estes D12-5 or D12-7 motor. Due to its superb flight characteristics, this design thus became one of my most frequently flown rockets.

Lower photo was taken in Zurich, Switzerland, on June 7, 2016, and shows the surviving second version of Vehicle 30 as it looks today.

Top photo by Marco Schenker; centre photo by Martin Kyburz, lower photo by the author of this blog.

Estes Astron Goblin

Estes Astron Goblin D-motor powered sport model with streamer recovery, photographed in front of my childhood home in Nürensdorf, Switzerland, approximately in 1978. This particular Goblin was likely ordered from the 1978 Estes catalogue, at a cost of $ 5.25.

At that time, one had to send a letter containing the list of rockets one desired to order to Estes in Penrose/CO, whereupon Estes calculated the overseas surface shipping charges for the order and then returned a letter containing the total cost of the order. One then had to go to the bank and obtain a registered cheque (itself quite a procedure) and then send this in a registered letter back to Estes. Each one of these letters commonly took around seven days to cross the Atlantic. All one could then do was to wait for the "4 to 6 weeks for delivery".

Needless to say, it rather took determination to be a rocket modeller in Switzerland.