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> Rockets
What's in my pockets?
I built four rockets in '97-'98, six more in 2005 including two with boosted gliders, and have acquired another 6 or 7 rocket kits since then including two helicopter recovery and a glider.
> My rockets

Rocketry Links
> UKRA (National)
> Mars (London-based)
> EARS (East Anglia)

Rockets in my Pockets I was first introduced to model rocketry by the hatter, who threw me in the at the metaphorical deep end by taking me to the International Rocketry Weekend in Largs, way back in '97. I gleefully built myself a rocket from scavenged bits and pieces, and ended up with a somewhat elliptical pink and black spirally painted rocket made of plastic sheets. It flew sucessfully before finally blowing a hole in the side on its third flight, and now rests in state on a bookshelf in my parents' house. Did I but know it, I was smitten.

My Silver Comet, flying 
at BigEARS '05 I returned again the following year, with rocket kits and paint and glue and an Estes Rocket Designer's box, and stacks of balsa wood. I finished an Estes Silver Comet, which flew beautifully and returned in one piece, and an Estes Quark, the diametric opposite in being less than 8 inches long (instead of a good couple of feet). The Quark flew like a bird, straight and true, straight up... whereupon it became true to form and proved the rocketry adage that anything you spend time and effort making smooth, seamless and painted to perfection will disappear forever. Undeterred, I built another tiny rocket, an Estes Mosquito, which I didn't have time to fly in Largs.

Fast forward 7 years of my rockets gathering dust, while I drifted from not being able to make the IRW, through apathy and forgetfulness, until the present day. One small but excitable lad and his equally excitable father undid in a day the peace that time had brought. Water bottle rockets and baking soda & vinegar just wasn't enough - the time had come again for black powder and the distinctive Whooosh! of model rocket motors.

The cheap Ready To Fly rocket that we found was such a hit, that I've since spent a weekend at Big EARS (where, amongst others, I flew and finally lost the Mosquito!), became a fully paid up member of UKRA, and will be making plans to go to the other major UK events this year. Sadly, other plans mean an IRW comeback will have to wait until 2006.