I'm sure that I'm not the only Mudcatter who experimented with rockets as a teenager. I am willing to share my experiences but would love to hear the stories of others in return.

Now the rocket technology that I and my high school classmates used was based on paper matches. What we'd do is wrap the head of the match tightly with foil, then insert a pin to provide an exhaust passage. We would than bend the sharp ends of a paperclip into a launching pad, so that the "rocket" would be angled about 60 degrees. The rocket range was, of course, study hall, and the objective was to fire one off and watch it arching gracefully across the room, without being caught. Oh, it was important to have some large book opened on one's desk for concealed launching; I preferred the geography book. One used another match for igniting the foil-wrapped match head.

We never really refined the technology beyond trimming the match to reduce weight and determining the minimum amount of foil required for lift-off. Non-lift-off was not desirable since it usually resulting in a conspicuous cloud of smoke rising from the launching pad, and a subsequent march down to the principal's office.

There was discussion of two-stage rockets but none were successful. The larger kitchen matches had more fuel but were too heavy. The typical result was a flight of no more than six feet and neighboring desk mates were seldom amused. The paper matches would go twenty feet or more, and provoked much amusement as they eventually returned to earth.

We never tried real rocket fuel (equal parts of carbon, sulfur and sodium nitrate). That came later when I was unofficial advisor to the science club at our technical school in Addis Abeba where I was teaching as a Peace Corp volunteer in the 1960's. Some students had approached me, wanting to know the basic components of rocket fuel, and not wanting to discourage their interest in science I provided the basic formula. I woefully underestimated their technical knowledge and ambition and was quite astonished to see later what they were working on. They had fashioned a 6-cylinder rocket launcher on a tripod base from which they could electrically fired foot-long cast aluminum missiles. The rocket fuel was a great success and the missiles went up in the air for a thousand feet or more before landing in the soccer field. The official science advisor, an Indian teacher, turned paler than I when this apparatus was demonstrated, and both of us nearly had heart failure when we learned that there would be a rocket firing demonstration when Emperor Haile Selassie paid the school a visit the following week. I have a great shaky picture of the rockets being fired off as proof of this successful demonstration. But I was fully prepared to hear from Peace Corps central that I would be shipped home on 24 hours notice. Apparently, HQ never heard of this special event and I was able to finish my tour in peace. However, the police at the station across from the school did observe the ceremony and were conspicuously absent at the next student protest demonstration.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble