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Old 06-05-2018, 02:05 PM
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BEC BEC is offline
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Join Date: Feb 2009
Location: Auburn, Washington
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Steve,

In researching the history of the Astron Alpha for the 50th celebration last year, I looked at lots of old catalogs, instruction sets, and spent an afternoon with Bill Simon, the designer of the Alpha (and a bunch of other memorable models), at his home.

From that work I came to the conclusion that the Alpha, which first appeared in the December 1965 MRN but first appeared in the Estes catalog in 1967, was the first model to actually use the tri-fold shock cord mount AND the metal quick change engine hook as such.

Bill attributed the tri-fold mount itself to Gene Street.
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