1972 Enerjet Catalogue

Sample pages from the unique and intriguing 1972 Enerjet advanced rocketry model products catalogue (no. 721).

As deeply curious and utterly determined teenagers building model rockets in remote (from a consumer point of view) Switzerland in the mid to late 1970s, we were continuously driven towards increasingly advanced rocket concepts and the quest for rocket motors more powerful than the commonly available A, B, C, and D-class motors. Mind you, it was far from granted to find even such "regular" motors in Switzerland at the time. Our ambitions were satisfied to some extent when a German distributor brought the product line of Flight Systems Inc. to our hemisphere and we were finally able to obtain their range of D, E, and F black powder motors.

In our minds, however, Enerjet represented the holy grail of advanced model rocketry, and it therefore served as the underlying inspiration for many of our own projects. This was of course long before readily available information by means of the internet, and even though Enerjet was no longer trading as an active company by that time, the company, for us, was thus an entity equally shrouded in mystery and emitting a limitless fascination. The few things we knew about Enerjet had been glanced from pictures in books (the Handbook Of Model Rocketry) and Centuri brochures, or from the remnants of Enerjet's existence as evident in Centuri's catalogues.

I would have given anything to own the 1972 Enerjet catalogue at the time (or to even be granted to have a brief look at it), but any such publications remained unobtainably elusive for us two rocket obsessed adolescents in Switzerland. Only much later in my life was I finally able to obtain a pristine original edition. The infinite waiting period mattered little; Enerjet's very existence and iconic designs still represent the same captivating inspiration to me to this very day.

The above excerpts from the 24-page catalogue show, for example, Enerjet's revolutionary "port burning" composite motors with glass fibre casing, or the fantastic (and operable) Nike Smoke semi scale rocket (vaguely similar to the Centuri kit) and Nike Ram high altitude payload rocket.

1972 Enerjet catalogue sample pages © by Enerjet Inc., Phoenix/AZ, USA, 1972, scanned from my personal copy of the catalogue.

[Entry amended October 31, 2016; with thanks to Chris Michielssen.]

Estes Bandit Motor Failure

These are the last photos to show the only Estes Bandit I ever owned while it was still in pristine condition. They were taken in northeast Switzerland on April 16, 1986, during the same launch that saw an Estes D12-5 motor failure destroy my Centuri Nike Smoke.

When building the Bandit, I had converted it to fly on 24 mm motors, and this would turn out to be its ruin. The top photo shows pre-launch preparations; this flight was also going to use an Estes D12-5 motor, which can be seen already installed, with the Estes Solar Ignitor in place. Also of note are the Flight Systems Inc. E and F black powder motors in the range box.

The lower photo shows the Bandit on my converted theodolite metal tripod launcher, shortly before the launch button was pressed. Upon ignition, the motor disintegrated before the rocket lifted off. A single, burning motor fragment was ejected from the resulting fireball. The rocket suffered significant internal damage, but the main airframe was surprisingly still somewhat intact.

This was the second Estes D12-5 motor failure that day, and another one (a D11-9) was still to come. The damage to the Bandit was rather disappointing; its beautifully nostalgic design was among Estes' most attractive at the time, and its internal baffle system made it an intricate and unusual model.

Photography by Marco Schenker.

[Entry amended October 17, 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.

1970s Model Rocketry, Part 2

These photos were taken at Allmend Brunau in Zurich, Switzerland, on a freezing winter day in 1977, during an attempt to get my cousin interested in model rocketry. Even though I had been building crude self-made rockets and then proper model rockets for over a year by 1977, this was, to my best knowledge, the first time a launch of mine was photographically documented.

At the time, I still couldn't afford a proper launch pad (a situation remedied a few months later with the acquisition of a Centuri Power Tower), and we thus simply stuck the launch rod into the frozen soil. The rocket shown is Centuri's terrific Nike Smoke, admittedly built to what was still an amateurishly appalling standard. Sections of an equally unsightly version of a Centuri Laser-X can be seen in the background in both photos.

Original colour slides taken by Klaus Fischer.

Centuri Nike Smoke Motor Failure

These photos document the destruction of a rare Centuri Nike Smoke semi scale model due to motor failure at launch. They were taken in northeast Switzerland, on April 16, 1986. The rocket was my second Centuri Nike Smoke, converted to fly with Estes 24 mm D-motors. This was to be the maiden flight. The motor used was an Estes D12-5; it disintegrated upon ignition.

The second photo beautifully captures the launch rod bending due to the force of the detonation. Smoke is still emanating from the body tube in the bottom image. The "United States" decal has yellowed from the heat.

We experienced three motor failures in one day during the launch in question, two with Estes D12-5s and one with an Estes D11-9, resulting in three destroyed rockets. Photography by Marco Schenker.