Guys,
HPR can be fun. Lord knows my first few attempts were awful with two zippers, a cato and an unstable crash before successfully putting one up, but since then, I've flown ~6 H-I impulse flights with no problems (not counting the one bad J :)

I'm working on another L2 bird right now along with a rocket for hybrids (SRS) and I have a couple of complex electronic (airstarted outboards, staging, deployment) birds coming up in the queue.

While I lament the absence of A3-6T's, 1/2A3-0T's, et al, I realize this is the best of times. I missed out on the stuff I was too young/poor/inexperienced to participate in during the late sixties/early seventies. But I'm not gonna miss the brass ring this time. I want to burn one of everything. There's probably too much available to do it all, but I can at least try :)

While there's no B14-0 to get a 3-stager moving with authority, there are some neat AP motors out there that will get larger rockets moving off the rod. My 2.2" Midget is too heavy to be booster on a D12-0, so I need to use a bigger booster. All I gotta do is figure out how to light the sustainer - ie, build a (reliable) staging timer. If I can make it work on the 2.2" Midget, then I'll build a 2.6" or 3" HPR version. The point is to burn what's available, even if you got to build a rocket to put it in. That's easier than waiting for Estes, Quest or somebody else to resurrect C5-0's or 1/4A4-4T's.

You can fly and enjoy HPR, and do so without turning into an HPR megalomaniac snob that none of us like. If you don't want to invest in the hardware, and that's entirely understandable, borrow it. I've put up three 29mm HPR flights on borrowed cases, and returned them Boy Scout style, cleaner than when I got 'em. If you've built a few 24/40 or 29/40-120 motors, the AT 29mm HPR motors are about the same.

I picked up a complete AT 38mm set used for $200 - 6 cases, late model closures and forward seal disk. (I didn't get the new 120Ns case, 'tho). I used it for the first time a couple weeks ago - I357 - on an upscale Midget (4").

Like so many other Old-Far...er...Rocketeers, I enjoy scratchbuilding, whether I'm cloning or doing an original. For HPR, I just scale up from there. I haven't seen many HPR kits that called to me, but I get a big kick out of taking classic designs and putting my upscale, HPR spin on them. Besides a 3.2" Bertha and 4" Midget, I have a 3" Avenger in the works (for the SRS hybrids). And my new L2 bird is a Sat-1b inspired, 54mm powered scratchbuild called the Doug-1b. Flying a big upscale or takeoff of a well known kit really makes HPR fun for me.

Doug