A big F-You to the ATF: Keep your regs off my hobby!

[tsarren]

http://nar.org/NARfrompres.html

The ATF woke up grumpy in the late 90's and wanted to classify model rocket engines as explosives. This after the hobby has been alive and rather safe since at least the childhood of my parent's generation. But two hobbyist orgs fought back, and won.

Comments

[araquan]

Neat. I never did launch the Kluge IIIa, now that I think about it. nor did I build the K-IIIb. Probably just as well. };>

[tsarren]

I've boxed all my rocket stuff, some of which I bought, some of which is handed down from my dad when he was a kid. It will soon go to my nephew. One of my weirder unfinished projects was an attempt at a dual-body two-stage in which the second stages separated from the combined first stage and from each other.

[araquan]

Hmmm. The IIIa was just a typical modern (1999-2000ish) pre-assembled rocket with a C-class engine... The IIIb was going to be the same, but with a pair of A-class boosters on either side. These were to be in aerodynamic shrouds made from a couple smaller Estes preassembled rockets, modified to lack fins. The external fairings would not be ejected, but I was still split as to whether or not to use those glider engines without charges at the top, or to somehow create a system whereby the booster engines would eject themselves from their shrouds when they were spent. Either way the A-class engines would be selected to have a shorter burn than the main C-class engine.

Of course, another reason my associate at OU and I didn't finish this is that we weren't sure how easy it would be to find it again after launch. Especially since we were doing night launches. };> We had already coated the rocket with red and white reflective tape stripes, and we had planned to fit the nose cone with a flashing LED strobe so we could track it