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Originally Posted by blackshire
Hello All,
I was just looking at the inside back cover of the 1971 Centuri catalog on the Ninfinger Productions web site (see: http://www.ninfinger.org/rockets/ca...d/71dcen96.html ) when I saw an unidentified black-and-yellow 'double boost-glider' in the color "group portrait" picture. It is sitting on a Servo-Launcher, just above and to the right of the white IQSY Tomahawk in the lower left corner. (You can also see it on Doug Holverson's "Centuri Memories" web site here: http://members.cox.net/retrojayrocket/history.html .)
It isn't the "SST Shuttle" (Lee Piester can be seen holding one of those in the background), nor is it the "Centuri Space Shuttle" with the gliding booster and orbiter. Instead, it looks very much like Max Faget's original "DC-3" two-stage space shuttle design, whose booster and orbiter both had straight, stubby wings and conventional tail assemblies. Was this model perhaps a very early prototype of the "Centuri Space Shuttle" kit that was patterned after Faget's original design? |
It ISN'T a glider at all! Funny but his use of black paint worked the same way auto makers would mask off sections of new models they drive around the Detroit area in years past to show off next years model without giving away all the details
OK, the black rocket seen in the photo isn't a glider at all. I need to give you a little back ground before I can tell you what the model is:
In the Golden Era of model rocketry, manufactures like Estes, Centuri and the rest would take photos of almost everything they produced or did. It wasn't so much that they were protecting the history of Model Rocketry, as it was that they were protecting their intellectual property rights of their products.
Photos were chosen to promote product lines; we know this. Photos were not used sequentially all the time. Meaning, just because a photo was used in the 1971 catalog didn't mean that it was taken in mid or late 1970; it could have been taken in 1968 and used in the 1971 catalog. We see this through out early model rocket publications. If you look through the 1970's technical reports from both companies, they show models that were no longer being made and had been photographed back in the 1960's.
Now I give the reader all this setup for the following reason: The photo listed in the 1971 catalog wasn't taken in 1970, or even 1969; it was taken in 1968! A full two years before the 1971 catalog was released; and most likely 18 months before they started working on the 1971 catalog.
So now, what IS the 'Black Mystery' rocket in the 1971 catalog photo you ask? Well I can either make a guessing game out of this or just tell you
I think I will make a game of it!
I will provide you a hint: The 'Black Mystery' rocket finally was produced in its final retail configuration and is actually in the 1969 catalog!!!
http://www.ninfinger.org/rockets/no...a/69cenp97.html
Remember my long winded explanation of car manufactures protecting what a model looks like by using black paints and masking off areas of the car to 'hide' details? Lee used the same methodology with a particular design, and finally released it retail in 1969. Two years before the photo that was taken in 1968 was published in the 1971 catalog,
Come on now, put on your thinking caps and figure out what that 'Black Mystery' rocket was; it IS in the 1969 catalog photo I have linked above; well its final retail configuration is in the 1969 catalog.
This should be interesting ... or maybe not
Bob