An important part of the Museum of Flight mission is to record personal history interviews. In May 2016, model rocket pioneer Lee Piester was interviewed by Bill Stine about his early rocketry experiments and the creation of Centuri Engineering. Peder Nelson of MOF recorded the interview in the Charles Simonyi Space Gallery which houses the National Model and Sport Rocketry Collection exhibit "Inspiring Rockets".




Vern Estes and Estes Industries supplied the motive power (or operating system) to get model rocketry off the ground much as Bill Gates and Microsoft provided the software to power the first personal computers. Lee Piester's eye for for both aesthetics and engineering brilliance earns him the title of the "Steve Jobs of Model Rocketry".

Lee shows off some of the incredible original art used in Centuri Engineering kits and catalogs.

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National Collection Images: G. Harry Stine Collection/The Museum of Flight.