Vaughn Brothers Rocketry EX-18

Vaughn Brothers EX-18 two-stage minimum-diameter model rocket (intended for 18 mm motors), photographed on an Aerotech Mantis launch pad in Thalwil, Switzerland, in May of 1999.

The EX-18's high-performance design was vaguely reminiscent of Centuri's equally striking two-stage Stiletto model rocket, but the Vaughn Brothers kit was rather more basic in its contents (evident already by the plain face card), in spite of containing advanced materials in the shape of glass fibre fins and Kevlar shock cord. The result was a beautifully immaculate, robust rocket, however.

Vaughn Brothers RK-019 EX-18 face card © by Vaughn Brothers Rocketry , scanned from my actual kit.

Centuri Javelin

Centuri's unpretentious but graceful Javelin model rocket appeared in the company's range of kits as early as 1965. A little more than a decade later, two young teenagers in rural Switzerland first discovered professionally manufactured model rockets and motors. I was one of them, and the beautifully detailed and richly illustrated pages of the Estes and Centuri catalogues of the 1970s captivated me deeply. Next to the Starfire and the two-stage Stiletto, the Javelin was among the earliest Centuri rockets I purchased, approximately in 1978. At that time, I built it youthfully deficiently, but it still performed impressively.

Another twenty-odd years later, with Centuri long since having ceased to exist as an active manufacturer, I was able to locate a pristine Javelin kit. It was exactly as I remembered it, with all its highlights and flaws (e.g. the plastic nose cone being slightly too wide for the body tube). This time, I built it to a higher standard, and it resulted in a beautiful, clean model rocket, reminiscent of the exciting good old days of this hobby. This Javelin is shown above, photographed yet again almost twenty years after its completion, in Zurich, Switzerland, in May of 2016.