Handbook Of Model Rocketry

Another quest that proved a slightly more challenging than anticipated was my aspiration to find those editions of G. Harry Stine's Handbook Of Model Rocketry that my enthusiastically completist mind perceived as still dreadfully missing.

I first purchased the Handbook in its fourth edition in 1976 or 1977, and the latest, seventh edition is still readily available at the time I am writing this. We were utterly excited - rightly so! - about the Handbook when we first received it, and I thus also purchased any subsequent editions throughout the years. But obtaining the earlier and therefore historically rather fascinating editions was near impossible from Switzerland before the advent of the internet. And, as I found out, it can at times be somewhat difficult even today.

While I eventually found a copy of the second edition in decent condition, it was due to the extremely generous efforts by American collector Steve Kristal that I was able to complete the long-coveted line-up of books by adding the first and third editions. Needless to say, I am deeply grateful for such kindness.

For somebody who has been fascinated by model rocketry for most of my life, this means a lot. G. Harry Stine's Handbooks are not mere collector's items to me; it is still quite fascinating to read them, and the information therein has aged quite well. These books are like a time machine to an era when model rocketry lived through a golden age.

The photo above thus shows all the editions in chronological order. Top row, from left: Handbook Of Model Rocketry, original edition, Follett Publishing Company, Chicago, 1965; second edition, Follett Publishing Company, Chicago, 1967; third edition, Follett Publishing Company, Chicago, 1970; my original copy of the fourth edition as purchased when I was a teenager, Follett Publishing Company, Chicago, 1976.

Bottom row, from left: fifth edition, Prentice Hall Press, New York, 1987; sixth edition, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York, 1994; seventh edition (with Bill Stine), John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New Jersey, 2004.

Vehicle 39

The very first rocket ever featured in this blog, Vehicle 39 A Enigma, photographed on the occasion of a return to the location of its first flight in northeast Switzerland, on June 17, 1999, 13 years after the event.

Vehicle 39 was launched on an Aerotech E15-7W composite motor, from an Aerotech Mantis launch pad. The Mantis had originally been developed by Enertek, a company established in the late 1980s by Centuri's Lee Piester, together with Gary Rosenfield, Bill Stine, and Paul Hans. Unfortunately, Enertek failed to get off the ground, so to speak, and this truly versatile launch pad design (along with other items) later resurfaced a an Aerotech product. As with all of my launch pads, I added a slanted umbilical mast to my Mantis, in order to attach the ignition wires and thus reduce the weight which often threatens to pull the ignitor out of the motor.

Vehicle 39's flight was perfect, as was the deployment of the booster and payload section parachutes. The rocket carried two Estes Transroc II sonic beacons.

Photography by Erol Ünala.