It occurs to me that during my time so far on this list I have come to know some things about some companies and some of the people associated with them, but that I've heard very little about Quest. Does anyone have some background on the company? Who started it, what was the catalyst for its creation, etc.? I like their products but know a lot about Estes compared to Quest...

__________________
-Brain
SKY AYE ROCKETRY
Follow Your Impulse!

I confess that I don't know a whole lot about 'em. What I do know (or at least think I know):

- Founded by Bill Stine (Harry's son)
- At one point, Quest was sold to a toy company (Toy Biz, IIRC)
- Bill bought it back from the toy company a few years back

Adding a little here...

Back when Quest was starting to really get into operation, they produced a few models that seriously distinguished them from Estes. They had a challenging-to-build model of the McDonnell-Douglas DC-X (flying pyramid) , and of the proposed Rockwell X-30 (aka NASP, or, National Aero Space Plane) . Some builders were reportedly able to make the X-30 glide.

__________________
Craig McGraw

BARCLONE Rocketry -- http://barclone.rocketshoppe.com
BARCLONE Blogsite -- http://barclone.wordpress.com
BARCLONE Forum -- BARCLONE Forum

BARs helping BARs

SAM 0044
AMA 352635

Quest Aerospace was founded by Bill Stine and Dane Boles in 1991 or 1992. Many of their first kits used plastic nose cones and plastic fin units made from the AVI (Aerospace Vehicles, Inc.) molds, which in turn had come originally from MPC (Model Products Corporation [or Company--I don't remember which]). G. Harry Stine had designed many if not all of MPC's kits, several of which were also produced by Quest (the Starhawk, Tomahawk, Nike-Patriot, Nike-Smoke, Zenith II, etc.). In the early years, they offered all of the MPC/AVI plastic airframe parts and plastic detail parts.

Quest's earliest motors looked like the AVI motors, having distinctive smoothly-contoured white nozzles, so they may very well have had (other YORF members could confirm this) the old AVI motor machine. At one point (perhaps from the very beginning), their motor production facility was located in Arizona (on Indian tribal land in the vicinity of Yuma, if memory serves--an early 1990s article in "Sport Rocketry" had photos of it), and their kits were made just across the border in a Mexican maquiladora (spelling?). There was a fatal accident at their motor facility, which may have led to (or at least been a factor in) their importation of Chinese-made and German-made motors.

Their first launch pads were durable but fixed (non-tiltable without propping a leg up on something), consisting of three plastic pipe legs fitted into a plastic hub. The catalog citations for it also said that the 1/8" X 36" launch rod was topped by a highly-visible 1/8" diameter "Day-Glo" orange plastic tip piece to prevent people from bumping into the rod. (I had one of these launch pads, but it didn't come with this tip piece, just an ordinary two-piece 1/8" launch rod.) Their first launch controller was also tough (being made of a fiber-filled plastic) and resembled the Estes Electron Beam launch controller, but the Quest one had one disadvantage: instead of having a battery compartment door, its case had to be disassembled by removing a screw from the back in order to change the four "AA" batteries.

A major innovation was Bill Stine's invention--the combination Kevlar/elastic shock cord design. Their color-coded kit parts (yellow motor mount tubes, blue thrust rings, red centering rings, etc.) were developed especially for educational and youth group needs. For their first few years, Quest operated two distinct arms, one for hobbyists and one for educators, with different "livery" kits in each product line. For example, the Starhawk (their simplest school kit) had a differently-decorated hobbyist "doppelganger" kit called the Antari. Some kits were common to both product lines, but had simplified and cheaper packaging (no kit cards) for the educational line (I believe their Nike-Smoke was one of these "dual-product line" kits). They also put out separate hobbyist and educational catalogs.

I hope that one day, Bill Stine and/or Dane Boles will write a comprehensive history of the company.

__________________
Black Shire--Draft horse in human form, model rocketeer, occasional mystic, and writer, see:
http://www.lulu.com/content/paperba...an-form/8075185
http://www.lulu.com/product/cd/what...of-2%29/6122050
http://www.lulu.com/product/cd/what...of-2%29/6126511
All of my book proceeds go to the Northcote Heavy Horse Centre www.northcotehorses.com.
NAR #54895 SR

That's pretty good. I'll add that other ex-Centuri people were involved, and Ed LaCroix, who founded Apogee in Minnesota, also joined. He ran Apogee for awhile while still working for Quest, but then sold Apogee off to Tim Van Milligan and someone else. He eventually left Quest and worked for Gary over at Aerotech.

The motors definitely came from the old Mike Bergenski machines, but I'd really like for Bill to someday tell the story about how they came into his possession after being mothballed for decades.

I still have one of the original Quest launch pads too, and probably a launch controller too.

Actually, I think Ed LaCroix came up with the kevlar/elastic combo. Ed was using it in Apogee competition kits about a year before the MRC Concept II kits came out, and the MRC kits used kevlar only. Bill and his dad were among the first to try to convince people that they didn't need elastic at all for shock cords; that simple cotton twine was good enough as long as it was long enough (the MPC kits used relatively short lengths of cotton twine).
Some of the nose cones and the early egg cone came from Ed LaCroix as well.

__________________
Roy
nar12605

In 1999, Quest Aerospace created an entirely new branch of model rocketry when the company introduced the MicroMaxx line of motors and launch sets. The motors, which were 1/4" in diameter by 1" in length (6mm x 25mm) were the smallest hobby rocket motors ever sold in North America. The motors were in nearly every respect identical in design to familiar black powder model rocket motors, but were considerably downsized. They were produced on contract for Quest by a German company. The original run of motors (now retroactively named MicroMaxx I) had casings made out of extruded brown plastic with integral molded plastic nozzles. They had a total impulse equivalent to about 1/12A, a delay grain (of about 1.1 seconds duration) and an ejection charge. Because the motors and the rockets that they would be used in were so tiny, no user-buildable kits were released for them initially. Instead, Quest produced several starter sets that contained RTF rockets that were made out of molded plastic or plastic and paper. At least half of the original RTF rockets consisted of surprisingly detailed scale models. The sets were made in China. The RTF models that were produced were a bit heavier than Quest had originally anticipated, and did not boost well with the original MicroMaxx motors. This situation was largely remedied when the company introduced a new, higher thrust version of the motor in 2001. The MicroMaxx II, as it came to be called, had a spiral-wound case made from gray fish paper and had pressed-in clay nozzles. They delivered the higher initial thrust spike that was needed to kick the RTF models off the pad and up into the air and they had a somewhat higher total impulse, equivalent to 1/8A. They also had a shorter delay grain (about 0.8 sec) that was more appropriate for the mass of the molded plastic rockets that they were sold with.

Although the new line had attracted passionate adherents right from the start, acceptance by the general hobby rocketry community was slow to develop, and sales of the starter sets were slower than expected. Some of the RTF rockets were seen as having a disturbing resemblance to Fisher-Price toys, which led to the perception that the entire line was more like toys than real hobby rockets. Nevertheless, a few companies, especially Aerospace Speciality Products, Art Applewhite Rockets, Nano Rocketry and Micro Classics, did come out with actual builder's kits for the format. Still, it took a number of years before the format and the branch of the hobby that it spawned (Micro rocketry) finally achieved widespread acceptance and a sizable following in the hobby. Micro rocketry has been added to the three existing (largely informal but widely-known) "divisions" of the hobby, so that they now consist of Low Power, Mid Power, High Power and Micro rocketry. In addition, 1/8A is now an officially recognized motor class in a number of events in NAR competition.

__________________
SAM # 0011

Myke Bergenske is a member here. He hasn't logged on in awhile though.

__________________
Scott D. Hansen
Ye Olde Rocket Shoppe - Your One Stop BAR Shoppe!
Ye Olde Rocket Plans - OOP Rocket Plans From 38 Companies!
Ye Olde Rocket Forum
WOOSH NAR Section #558

Yes, Ed LaCroix! The early Quest catalogs each had a photograph of him with Bill Stine and Dane Boles. Also, the company was originally called Quest Aerospace Education, Inc., which reflected their early emphasis on school, Scouting, and 4-H group customers. -SNIP- G. Harry Stine wrote in his "Handbook of Model Rocketry" (in the 1994 Edition) that Bill Stine developed the Kevlar/elastic shock cord in 1991 (but then again, elsewhere in the book he wrote that all rocket motors developed for use in the hobby have been solid propellant--even though earlier editions of his book covered Cold Propellant model rockets).The Courier and V.E.E.P. egg capsules certainly do have that same "look" as his Apogee egg capsules.

__________________
Black Shire--Draft horse in human form, model rocketeer, occasional mystic, and writer, see:
http://www.lulu.com/content/paperba...an-form/8075185
http://www.lulu.com/product/cd/what...of-2%29/6122050
http://www.lulu.com/product/cd/what...of-2%29/6126511
All of my book proceeds go to the Northcote Heavy Horse Centre www.northcotehorses.com.
NAR #54895 SR

Wow!
Ask and ye shall receive!
Thank you, gents.

__________________
-Brain
SKY AYE ROCKETRY
Follow Your Impulse!

Let add to my previous post that another early supporter of the Micro format was Qualfied Competition Rockets, which produces a number of competition-style kits for almost every 1/8A event. The profile of Micro rocketry was given a big boost in 2006 when FlisKits launched their new line of "Micro To The Maxx" kits and components. The number and variety of high quality scale, sport, oddroc and competition kits has continued to expand, and kits based on Quest Aerospace's ground-breaking motors have been developed that span nearly every type of rocket flying in the hobby. In 2008, Quest introduced an innovative new igniter for the motors and also brought out the latest member of the motor line: the MicroMaxx II NE. These are identical to MicroMaxx II motors, but with the ejection charge removed (NE = no ejection). They are officially listed as being intended for saucers and the non-ejection outboard motors of clusters, but a number of micro enthusiasts have discovered that with careful attention to design and construction, these motors can be used as boosters in micro-sized multi-stage rockets. There is very little left in hobby rocketry in general that has not been implemented on a micro scale. (No dual deployment yet, but we're working on it. ) Micro RCRGs are rumored to be right around the corner.

__________________
SAM # 0011