MPC History
 

The discussion about MPC rocketry products in the thread about the collection at the Museum of Flight has caused me to dig up an old article I wrote for my NAR Section newsletter in 1990.

Additional information has come to light since then concerning MPC rocketry but I thought I would run this old article as a brief history of the company.

I welcome additional discussion/information concerning MPC rocketry history and products.

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(Note: This article was originally printed in the NAR Section 317 DART newsletter Warp 9, Vol. 3, #2, March/April 1990. It is dated but provides a basic introduction to MPC rocket products )

The last year has seen a tremendous growth in the number of new companies producing products for model rocketry enthusiasts. It was also a year when past model rocket companies made news. One of these was Model Products Corporation (MPC). Unexpectedly, beginning in the Spring of 1989, nearly two decade old MPC kits began to appear on shelves of many hobby shops. There has been much speculation about the reappearance of these old kits and a new interest in the history of MPC model rockets.

MPC, part of the General Mills Food Group, entered the hobby market in the late 1960’s. General Mills bought a fledgling model rocket company known as Model Rocket Industries (MRI) in 1968 and established their own model rocket company, MPC. MPC retained MRI’s founder, Mike Bergenske, to design and develop products for MPC. Additional model rocket brain-power was provided by G. Harry Stine who was hired on as a consultant.

MPC tested the acceptance of its new model rocket line at the 1969 Hobby Industry of America (HIA) trade show. At this show MPC took an order from the K-Mart chain for over a half-million dollars (in 1969, yet!). MPC went into high gear and shipped out the K-Mart order. To match the way K-Mart displayed plastic model kits, MPC packaged its rockets in shrink-wrapped boxes.

Thanks to this initial large order, MPC was able to fund the development of many new kits and other rocketry products, establishing the company as a major player in the model rocket industry. MPC lead the industry in the introduction of plastic parts and assemblies – plastic fins, transitions and nose cones became common in MPC kits. While other companies incorporated wood in their launch pads, MPC produced and all plastic one. The final expression of this ‘plastic is best’ philosophy was the introduction of two, all plastic, scale kits – a Titan IIIC and a Vostok RD-107, both in 1/100th scale. These two kits could be built as display models or the optional flight parts could be incorporated to make a flying model.

Not long after this initial excitement the situation began to sour for MPC. Twenty years ago many states regulated model rocketry by their own laws, unlike today when most states observe some form of the NFPA (National Fire Protection Association) code for unmanned rockets. This usually meant laws designed for regulating fireworks were applied to model rockets. As a result MPC, with their rockets being displayed in a major chain store, ran into a great deal of difficulty due to various state and local laws.

Not willing to put up with such difficulties, K-Mart returned their remaining stocks to MPC. After refunding K-Mart for returned kits and motors, MPC found itself in financial difficulty. AS MPC management struggled to come up with a solution to this problem, Bergenske was left in charge of the model rocket division and continued to develop new products. This second wave of new products saw the introduction of the 13mm diameter 1/4A to B mini-motors. These motors were very popular for NAR competition events and a special line of kits (‘Minirocs’) were created for these motors.

Eventually, MPC management decided to sell off their model rocketry assets. A ‘deal’ was worked out and Mike Bergenske ended up with all of MPCs molds, motor making machines and other related items.

Bergenske set up a new company called Aerospace Vehicles, Inc. (AVI) to sell the former MPC products plus new items. AVI folded in the late 1970s and the MPC tooling disappeared, although it was rumored to be in storage somewhere in Wisconsin along with many cases of unsold MPC kits.

It now appears that someone managed to find these missing stocks of kits and motors and sold them to a hobby distributor and from there they were distributed to various hobby shops. The motor making machines were also located and are now the property of Flight Systems, Inc. The machines consist of three for making 18mm motors and two for making 13mm ‘mini-motors’. It is understood that the condition of these machines is poor as they had not been properly stored. The exact location of the kit molds is not known, but rumor has it that they are in excellent shape and could be used to make more parts.

The final chapter concerning the MPC model rockets has yet to be written. It is well known that many of the MPC kits, especially the Vostok and Titan IIIC, are sought after collector’s items. We may yet see these kits again!

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I knew more about what happened with the MPC molds and some other items but was asked not to discuss it.

For the moment let me just say I was privy to information which would lead to the announcement of Quest Aerospace.

I would like to get a copy of all DART newsletters from 1990. One has an article of our release of reloadables (first in the nation January 1990).

Great information Bob, thanks for the post!

I sold a lot of my rocketry memorabilia when I was in grad school, for pizza money.

I have a file box full left, and I bet I still have some interesting stuff from the MRI / MPC / AVI era.

I'm building a Nike-Patriot right now. I'm really impressed by the body tubes. They were really thick, and also made of a really tough paper. It was fully wound, it that makes sense. No gaps or weak points. The slightly wrinkly outer shell sands beautifully, and you can hit it with sanding sealer to make it even smoother.

I wonder what it would take to recreate these tubes?

Bob,

Very interesting article. In high school, a friend built the MPC Vostok. I loved that model, but never found one. In the early 90s I bought one from Countdown Hobbies. I paid a lot of money for that kit, around $75 as I recall. (Did I mention I loved that kit as a kid? :) )

Last year I decided to start building it. I have not completed it yet, but I will finish it. After reading about poor flight performance, I decided I'd fly it using the 18/20 RMS hardware using either D13 or D24 reloads.

While I was doing research on color schemes, I found out the kit had been re-issued, minus the cardboard body tube and other parts like parachute, necessary for flight. I bought another last year for around $30 from an online hobby store.

Here are a couple pictures. In one, you see the original kit, and the newer kit next to it.

I send people free Fedex Ground labels and shipping lablels to preserve collections for free. I don't ask that many questions about what is in the boxes.

I wonder that too! Interestingly, the tubes in those MPC kits (the 18 mm motor powered ones as well as their 13 mm Minijet-powered Miniroc kits) are referred to in the kits' instructions as "fiber body tubes." While they aren't the same material as the fiber (or fibre, as Centuri spelled it to be fancy) fin material (that's beveridge board), the MPC fiber body tubes are of comparable strength and stiffness--even after all of these decades since they were made!--to the fiber fin stock. Now:

Not having an example of the MPC fiber body tubes in front of me at the moment (I presume AVI and AVI Astroport used the same tubes, since they got MPC's inventory), but recalling their appearance and how they dented, creased, or buckled (which required a lot of force!), my impression was that they may have been impregnated with some kind of resin (not necessarily something like an epoxy, polyester, or polyurethane resin, but maybe something that is appropriate for paper), and:

I once dented the end of a small scrap piece of the MPC fiber tubing with my thumb, and it made a faint "ch-ch-ch" sound as the creases at the edges of the dent formed. It sounded like how a thin (or wide and un-braced) piece of fiberglass (such as the floor of a cheap fiberglass shower stall, when one moves around while standing on it) sounds when it flexes or breaks. Not only that "acoustic similarity," but also a "cultural one," makes me inclined to think that the MPC fiber body tubes may have been resin-impregnated:

Back in the days when MPC was producing their model rocket kits, "fiber" things were considered modern, more efficient, cool, and futuristic (just as "digital" things were in later years). In issues of magazines such as "Mechanix Illustrated," "Popular Mechanics," and "Popular Science" in those years (and before), fiberglass was considered a 'wonder material,' and countless project articles in those publications (and in others) covered how to mold parts and items with complex curvatures, laminate boats and other wooden things, and patch damage to car bodies using fiberglass. In that "nomenclatural atmosphere," fiber body tubes (and for other model rocket companies, fiber [fibre] fins) would have sounded advanced and futuristic (and to me, they still do--the only difference is that today, the "buzz-word" for resin-impregnated fiber items is "composites"). In addition:

If a model rocket company re-created the MPC fiber body tubes (even in other sizes, although I'm perfectly pleased with the MPC/AVI/AVI Astroport/Quest Aerospace "5 mm increment" metric body tube sizes), I would pay extra (within reason) for kits that utilized them, because they're so much stronger, stiffer, and more durable than even brown virgin (having long fibers) kraft paper tubes (which are quite tough themselves--they're my close second-favorite body tubes!), BUT:

"Trailing the pack along the outside rail, in a distant last place," is my absolutely *least-favorite* body tube type--the white, recycled kraft paper tubes, which are made with short, chopped paper fibers that make them soft, weak, and easily damageable. If they could be made as strong and stiff as brown virgin kraft paper tubes by impregnating them with some type of resin, I would consider them good, but my preference would be for the even tougher MPC-type fiber body tubes, which were, I'm pretty sure, made using virgin kraft paper, whose long paper fibers (along with whatever was impregnated into the paper) made them the strongest of all.

The instructions for the Nike-Patriot I'm building refer, in the step where the plastic launch lug is glued on, to the tube covering as "plastic."

I think the tube core is just really high quality paper. Dense, completely wrapped. No gaps.

Least-favorite tube has a brown inner layer that isn't complete; held together by the outer layer.

I wonder if Myke Bergenske would remember these details, or if Bill Stine could help.

* * *
Other oddments for this thread:

* AVI produced its own motors for a short time. Same as the MPC motors, but with funky 1970s labeling.
* At least one MPC kit had, on the instruction sheet's suggested motor list, what appear to be FSI motors! D4, D6, etc. Were these really FSI motors, or vaporware MPC motors?
* Who designed and build the MRI / MPC / AVI motor making machine?
* What became of the 13 mm motor making machine? Or was were those motors made on the bigger machine with some kind of alternate tooling set?

So which low and mid power body tubes have the smallest spirals to fill in?

Probably the old CMR (Competition Model Rockets) body tubes. All you needed for a smooth finish was some sandpaper and little elbow grease to deal with the spiral. Some of the BTCs may know which company produced those body tubes.

I don't know if Euclid made them or not, but they were capable of doing it. You could order up just about anything from them.

Speaking of MPC and G. Harry's involvement, I thought you guys might enjoy seeing this. I picked it up a LONG time ago. The box and shrink wrap are in perfect condition and someone very wisely thought to have Harry sign it. I'm pretty sure it was in pre-Sharpie days because Harry signed on a piece of masking tape affixed to the back of the kit.

"G. Harry Stine NAR-2 Designer"

More tid-bits:

Circa 1970-71, the small hobby shop in Glen Cove, LI carried MPC parts. They came in bags with headers. I recall buying plastic fin units for the 25mm tube. They must have had tubes and cones as well.

The shop had some MPC kits in bags, which seems unusual now. I remember looking at the peculiar "fried egg' foam saucers of the Martin Patrol through the plastic bag. Is it possible that this was a later type of packaging, made for hobby shop distribution?

The same shop had a copy of the Model Rocket Manual by Stine. It had a black cover with a red or white line drawing of a rocket. The book (which I still have, minus the cover and some front and back pages) was a sort of cut-down version of the Handbook of Model Rocketry, with some of the same illustrations. It was very MPC-centric, with mentions of MPC kits and pictures of them as well!

The same shop carried MPC's "ready to fly" models. They came in glossy display boxes with cellophane "windows," more like a toy than rocketry packaging at the time.

I bought one in the late 80s from Commonwealth Displays; it was heavy and kind of clunky. I recall one had used the clipped delta T-25 fin unit. They had a T-20 interior tube that was advertised as a replaceable liner; a sliding red plastic plug was use in lieu of wadding. I never flew or took the kit out of the box; before moving to California I sold it for a good mark-up.

This is the later ARCO published version of the book you mention. It is indeed MPC focused.

It is possible that Arco published the version I described. I will have to dig it out of storage!

I saw another version, with a color cover, at Powell's about ten years ago. I really, really should have bought it!

That *is* quite an artifact! Did he get its name from the alien pet called a flat cat (a pie slice-shaped furry creature that buzzed when happy, rather like a cat purring [perhaps the inspiration for the tribbles in "Star Trek?"]) in E. E. "Doc" Smith's science fiction stories? Being a science fiction writer himself, Stine very likely read Smith's stories.

You may have solved this mystery with that one word ("plastic")--you jogged my memory of the scanned Nike-Patriot instructions on the Ninfinger Productions website. A high-quality spiral-wound kraft paper tube with a thin plastic overwrap (which might also have "soaked" into the upper layer of the paper, if the plastic was applied in a dissolved liquid [or molten] form) could also have the same physical characteristics as the MPC tubes, especially if the cured (or cooled & solidified) plastic was stiff (had a low elastic modulus). It would also--depending on its composition--be perfect for making strong plastic-to-plastic bonds (with the MPC styrene plastic launch lugs, for example), using ordinary plastic cement (if I recall correctly, the instructions called for using tube-type plastic cement).

The "Flat Cats" also appeared in Robert Heinlein's "The Rolling Stones" --- the youngest Stone called his "Fuzzy Britches". :)

I thought Heinlein used those first in "The Rolling Stones".......

I guess I should have read all the posts first...... :rolleyes:

Stine was very close to Heinlein, so the Flat Cat name has an obvious explanation of which I was unaware until now. I thought it was a Grumman aircraft reference; they named all their aircraft after types of 'Cat'.

Thank you both [correction: all three of you]--I may have been mistaken about who invented the flat cat (I haven't read any of Smith's or Heinlein's stories, but I read somewhere about Smith incorporating the creatures in his works; maybe they both used them?).

More Flat Cats --- no, not the flying variety!
 

This has been bugging me today --- did a little web research, and found this article over at Wikipedia (but the story is repeated in numerous other websites' links, all basically telling the same story, and in the context of the Star Trek episode "The Trouble with Tribbles"):

Heinlein's flat cats are often said to have been the inspiration for the tribbles of the Star Trek episode "The Trouble with Tribbles". (Heinlein himself said he may have gotten the idea from Ellis Parker Butler's 1905 story "Pigs Is Pigs".) David Gerrold, the author of the episode, claims that he had read the Heinlein book years before writing his screenplay and was not consciously aware of the similarities until Desilu/Paramount conducted a routine studio clearances review following an inquiry by Kellam de Forest, its primary in-house researcher. This prompted a contact with Heinlein who admitted the similarities but also graciously waived all rights, Heinlein asking only for an autographed copy of the script.

No reference to "Doc" Smith's work, but that doesn't prove anything --- just that The Rolling Stone's "Flat Cats" ideological predecessors were apparently guinea pigs in the Ellis Parker Butler story. :)

I've heard it stated that, eventually, almost all writers end up "recycling" ideas of others...looks like this may be the case, even here. :p

We now return this thread to its original intent, a discussion of the history of the uber-cool rockets from MPC (of which, incidentally, my favorite is the Theta-Cajun) :D

Coincidences, coincidences...
 

I was an avid reader of both men's works when I was a young boy --- my first science fiction book was "Starship Through Space" by Stine (under his Lee Correy pseudonym). My favorite Heinlein story has always been "Have Space Suit, Will Travel".

It was not until 30-plus years later that I learned that those two books, from my two favorite authors, were actually dedicated to each other!

Stine's Starship states, "To Ginny and Bob", while Heinlein's "Space Suit" is dedicated "For Harry and Barbara Stine".

I wonder what RAH's opinion of model rocketry was? I don't believe it was ever mentioned in any of his books...and the two books mentioned above were published in 1954 and 1958, respectively, well before the "launch" of our hobby. Ah, well. Not the most earth-shattering of questions, but it would be interesting, in this "historical" thread, if anyone out there had ever asked G. Harry about his interactions with the Grand Master of SF. :)

Dean,

There's a Heinlein/Stine anecdote which I recall without remembering its source. As the story goes after Heinlein's death someone asked Stine if was going to speak at the funeral, to which Stine replied "Would you be able to speak at your father's funeral?". Not exactly a direct interaction but it speaks to Stine's feelings on RAH.

Here's an image for you from the National Collection.

Pat, she's a beauty. Thanks! :)

There is a side-by-side photograph of two of that rocket, which is rather reminiscent of Centuri's Excalibur (or maybe it's a "split-screen," before-and-after picture--it shows an un-decorated one and a fully-decaled one) in Stine's Arco-published "The New Model Rocketry Manual." Its 15 mm diameter upper section looks similar to the second stage of the AVI Space Angel, which used the same 5:1 tangent ogive nose cone (see: http://www.ninfinger.org/rockets/nostalgia/73avi04.html ); maybe it was inspired by the design in the book?

blackshire,

My introduction to Heinlein was discovering his juvenile series books in my junior high library in the 7th grade. The Rolling Stones and Rocket Ship Galileo hooked me on Heinlein. My favorite as a kid was Red Planet. When my oldest daughter was in 5th grade, I turned her loose on my collection, with a few of his adult-content books pulled from selection. She went on to be a voracious reader, and a big fan of science fiction. She became an an English teacher probably as a result.

You really ought to give his works a try.

I don't think the tubes are as "plastic" as you speculate. I think we're dealing with really good quality paper tubes with a wrap that is coated paper.

I have some scraps of T-20 and might try to do a peel and see what the bond is like.

CMR tubing was similar. Used the same metric sizing. I had compartively fewer CMR kits through the years.

Yes, some of his later works, as I've read from reviewers, weren't for juvenile consumption, but his earlier ones seem very entertaining and insightful.

That could very well be, as I don't have any "loose" examples of their tubing to examine (my few MPC kits are sealed, and the few built MPC rockets I have are painted).

RAH himself once said writers, him included, will rub the serial numbers off an idea and re-use it ad infinitum.

Mri
 

Seems like a good place to post these:

Below are a couple of MRI pieces. The first is an instruction card and nichrome igniter wire that came with their motors. Apparently there were 2 versions, one lightly larger. Pictured are the front and back. Both sizes are identical, except that on the larger card, both sides are printed in red.

The second is a detail of a MRI parachute that came with a kit I bought back in 67/68 from a Hobby Shop in Woburn, Ma. Not sure, but I think it was the Icarus. Very thick plastic, and I remember it being quite difficult to stuff into the min. diameter tube.

Sean

The MRI kits I bought back in the day (from AVI) mostly had streamers. They were made of thick, hard-to-uncurl blue plastic. Really weird. I believe these came with the Zeus and Lepus

I have an MRI parachute; I think it came with the FLARE kit. Different color pattern.

Every time I see those initials, I pronounce it as the name Ra and think of Stargate SG-1. :rolleyes:

Dig it out and post a pic since it is different. :cool:

Back in the day, I put in an order to MPC and purchased Flat Cat, Lunar Patrol, Flare Patriot, and Theta Cajun kits. They were all cool rockets that looked and flew very nicely. Also had purchased a few packages of MPC engines. Most worked well except for an A3 that CATO'd and destroyed the Lunar Patrol booster. I also purchased (from AVI) the MRI Icarus. That was a nice sport bird that flew very well. I believe I have an old pic of that one that I will scan and post if I can find it. Clone builds of all these rockets are on my shop docket, though I suspect most of them will be built with Estes body tubes and lathe-turned nose cones. I might have to do a small amount of scaling work to make them true to proportion.
A few years ago, late 1990s, I ran across a couple of MPC rocket kits at an antique mall in Colorado Springs. I kick myself for not picking those up.....

Mike,

At that time, had you seen "October Sky" yet? (I think it came out in late 98.)

Doug

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Quest Aerospace http://www.questaerospace.com/ sells many of the MPC nose cones, transitions, and fin units, and all of the MPC-size body tubes.

I cloned a MRI Lepus a few years ago, using the cone from my old MRI "Flare" and an actual MPC body tube. Sturdy as heck; I finally launched it on a C6-7 and it plain disappeared.

I have enough Semroc parts to make a couple of Lepus and Zeus clones. I believe I gave a set to SEL as well.

Yes, you did. The Lepus has been awaiting a paint job to quite some time now...