Flight Systems RX-1 Thruster System

The components of the Flight Systems Inc. RX-1 Thruster System booster, intended to be used with the same company's Dart model rocket. Flight Systems' 1979 catalogue featured the combination of Dart rocket and Thruster System booster under the title "The Mach 1 System" and noted that this model rocket system had "the ability to break the sound barrier". Moreover, the Dart's instructions boldly announced "supersonic potential". Whether attaining transonic or even supersonic speeds was actually possible with the design and motors in question is debatable. At any rate, such claims certainly captured our attention at the time.

The Thruster System consisted of a slightly modified Flight Systems F100-0 motor (far right in the photo) to power the booster, and a Flight Systems D20-12 motor (second from right) for the Dart upper stage. It also contained launch lugs and plywood fins which were to be permanently attached to the F100-0 motor with epoxy, making the booster a single-use item. An electric match igniter (contained in the folded instructions, top centre) completed the package.

In 1979, Flight Systems sold the Dart upper stage for $ 3.25 and RX-1 Thruster System for $ 7.95.

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.