16 Apr
2004
16 Apr
'04
3:53 p.m.
Quothe Dwight K. Elvey, from writings of Fri, Apr 16, 2004 at 07:40:00PM -0700:
Hi
I used to make saltpeter and sugar rockets when I was a kid.
To bad one can't get saltpeter anymore without signing your life away.
Hay, why not just make your own, using easily obtainable materials
(e.g., horse manure, etc.)? :-)
I used to have about a 75% successful launch rate. The
others
would tend to clog the nozzle and blow up on the pad. I even
made a two stage that the second stage went out of sight. A
couple minutes later, I saw the smoke trail and recovered the
top stage. All great fun.
Years ago, as a teenager, I played with model rockets as well. Back
then, however, one could just walk into any reasonably well stocked
hobby shop and purchase the necessary supplies.
When talking with someone this past summer, while purchasing some
fireworks, I learned that one now has to go through a lot of
bureaucratic foolishness to obtain (or legally use?) the model rocket
engines. Seems to me that one should be able to launch whatever one
wants to in the air over one's own property... if it knocks down a
noisy trespassing airplaine, helicopter, etc., well, oops... the
airline, government agency, etc., being a noisy nuisance anyway,
should have asked permission to fly over one's property first. If the
overpaid dorks who live in the White House, in the District of
Cluelessness, USA, can have control over what flies over where they
live, so should the citizens!
--
Copyright (C) 2003 R. D. Davis The difference between humans & other animals:
All Rights Reserved | My VAX | an unnatural belief that we're above Nature &
www.rddavis.org | runs VMS & | her other creatures, using dogma to justify such
410-744-4900 | doesn't crash!| beliefs and to justify much human cruelty.