What I said was, that legalizing HPR was not a good thing for Estes Industries. Or at least it was easy to see it as a threat to them at the time. It opened the door to an "alternative" market that would take away SOME of the Estes sales due to those who would either jump from M.R. to HPR, or at the least spend a good chunk of their "Estes money" on HPR.

I implied nothing about HPR safety. It is hard to tell to what extent someone in charge of a company like Estes would have had true 100% concern about the hobby of Model Rocketry if there was an HPR accident, versus an excuse made up to be against HPR so as to stifle competition.

Now in reality as it played out, HPR has led to more NAR sections, and more organized launches that do HPR. Which as a benefit means more model rocket flying too, whether by other family members flying models, or the fact that the more clubs and the more launches, the more new people you get to become involved... and some of those will stick around for years instead of the typical few months "fad" then move on.

So I am pretty darned sure that Estes has had more sales by riding the coat-tails of HPR for that reason alone, than if HPR had not become legalized and mainstream.

Also, even the Television shows that have shown HPR, have gotten more interest in the whole hobby, some with adults who flew models as kids who got into HPR, sometimes also getting their kids into flying models, and some who didn’t get into HPR but did try the M.R. end of the hobby.

- George Gassaway