1970s Model Rocketry, Part 3

Launching the remarkable Centuri Phoenix Bird from what was likely (and with an unashamed nostalgic tinge) my favourite launch pad ever, the Centuri Power Tower, northeast Switzerland, July 1978.

Frequently preferring Centuri over Estes, I ordered the Phoenix Bird and Centuri's Screaming Eagle at the same time. I had seen them side-by-side in Centuri's deeply absorbing 1978 catalogue (which, unlike some of their beautiful earlier catalogues, was incomprehensibly printed on cheap and flimsy paper). Both rockets were labelled as Kwik Kits, distinguished by one-part plastic fin units, white body tubes which did not need to be painted, plastic nose cones, and stick-on decals. The catalogue thus praised them as "ready to fly in one hour", although the actual construction still required glue and took a bit longer.

First launched on a cloudy and windy day, the Screaming Eagle flew fantastically. It was lost, however, in the forest visible in the background of the photo above, on that very flight. But the Phoenix Bird served my fleet as an equally stable and beautifully and cleanly designed display rocket for quite some time. I am unable to recall after all of this time why I refrained from using the kit's stunning decals, or if I applied them after this photo was taken.

Photography by Hans Hofer.

1970s Model Rocketry, Part 3

Regrettably, the 38 years that have passed since these photos were taken have caused me to fail to recall the designation of this vaguely Scout-inspired rocket. It had been designed by my best friend, Dave Sharma, a tremendously skilled rocket builder. The rocket was built from Centuri parts; it measured in excess of 1000 mm in length and approximately 35 mm in diameter, and it contained an extended payload compartment.

I either acquired or traded the rocket from Dave and flew it successfully a number of times, launched from a Centuri Power Tower launch pad. It was damaged, however, on the day these photos were taken in northeast Switzerland, in July of 1978. The pleasing aesthetics of the design and its fantastic flight performance left their mark with me, and I subsequently designed and built an upscaled version of it, named Vehicle 39 Enigma. Vehicle 39 became one my main rockets and is still a part of my collection to this day.

Photography by Hans Hofer.

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.

1970s Model Rocketry

An old-style Estes Astron Alpha with balsa wood fins and nose cone on one of the excellent Centuri Power Tower launch pads, pictured at what was then our regular launch place in the farmland of northeast Switzerland, in July 1978. This rocket was possibly a self-made clone.

Photography by Hans Hofer.