Mine was the 1966 edition. Estes mailed a bunch of these to school teachers, including my 6th grade teacher, Kathleen Messick. She dropped it on my desk saying, "Here. You know more about this than I do."

The rest, as they say, is history. . . . . .

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A dark night in a city that knows how to keep its secrets. But high above the quiet streets on the 12th floor of the Acme Building, one man is still trying to find the answers to life's persistent questions. Guy Noir, Private Eye.

Fox Valley Rocketeers: http://www.foxvalleyrocketeers.org

The first one I can positively remember having is the 1967 catalog (though I may have had the 1966 one as well). I turned 12 that year.

Nice blog entry, indeed. Well told.

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Bernard Cawley
NAR 89040 L1 - Life Member
SAM 0061
AMA 42160
KG7AIE

I sometimes wonder WHOSE catalog it was that I found (and put back) at Camp Wangum.

Did he actually pursue the hobby? How long did he stay in it?

Bravo Zulu Stefan! Brought back a flood of memories.

The first model rocketry catalog I saw was my cousin's 1967 Estes--I lusted after it whenever I was over at his house. He is 3 yr older than me, and was pretty onery, and would take it away from me and hide it. He lived in Tucson, I lived in Lake Havasu City, AZ a dinky little town (at the time).

Finally a hobby shop opened in LHC and the owner carried only Centuri, so my first catalog was the 1969 Centuri. I think a teacher at school had a 68 edition, but I don't remember ever having my own copy.

My first Estes catalog was the 1969 edition, but I vividly remember when the 1970 issue came in the mail and all my buddies and I thought that cover was so cool looking. None of us had the guts to tackle the Orbital Transport, but we thought she was a beauty!

Thanks for the memories...

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David Stribling
NAR 18402 SR
But it is rocket science!
Get yer Barrowmans here

My first was the 1974 catalog.

The only moving my plastic models did was when I stuck the M-80 in them.

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Bernard J. Herman Ohio RLS

Starport Sagitta Rockets
email bherman@sagittarockets.com

NAR # 97971 SR

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We're looking for a few good Catos, please tell us about any you may have had. Survey of Anecdotal Malfunctioning Engines or S.A.M.E.

That 1970 catalog is near and dear to my heart. It's the first exposure I had to rocketry, when my best friend Mike got one. I watched his first few rockets fly, and spent countless hours with the catalog when I was laid up. I was hooked, apparently for life.

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John
NAR 92621

Going back to my post about the '68 catalog, I must emphasize how much that little book meant to me. A buddy of mine got into rocktery at the same time I did, and we'd call each other every night and go over the Estes catalog like it was the Bible. We were learning and feeding our fascination with everything rocket-related. This was in October, 1968. Rememeber, this was the time frame when our space program was getting back on track with the flight of Apollo 7, and the mind-bending year of 1968 was coming to an end. We were just beginning to hear about the plans for Apollo 8 - going around the moon!!! On October 17, 1968, we both made our first model rocket flights - on near identical Estes Astron Scouts on 1/2A6-2 motors.....ignited by Jetex wick [shhhhhhh]. I've been hooked ever since. Fast forward to the early 90's. I decided to scratch build a 1/70 Saturn 1B. Why? Because of the cover of the '68 catalog, and because I couldn't afford the $9.95 back then!! There was no "cloning" materials available back then, other than what Estes had for sale and what you could hand-make. I even painted it as per the cover, without the black band around the uper stage, and built it to fly on 4 18mm motors. I flew that baby once and then retired it. To this day, it's still the highlight of my model rocketry career, all because of the '68 Estes catalog.

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