[ale] Extreme OT, rocketry: was Engineering Archaeology

[Jim Kinney]

Bwahahaha!!!!

-- 
James P. Kinney III

Every time you stop a school, you will have to build a jail. What you gain
at one end you lose at the other. It's like feeding a dog on his own tail.
It won't fatten the dog.
- Speech 11/23/1900 Mark Twain


*http://heretothereideas.blogspot.com/
<http://heretothereideas.blogspot.com/>*

On Sun, Jan 25, 2026, 2:08 PM Steve Litt via Ale <ale at ale.org> wrote:

>
> On Mon, 19 Jan 2026 20:50:45 +0000
> lollipopman691 via Ale <ale at ale.org> wrote:
>
> > Whoa! IIRC, launching model rockets against ground targets was
> > explicitly verboten. And in fact still is (
> >
> https://www.nar.org/content.aspx?page_id=22&club_id=114127&module_id=669234
> > ), NAR Rule 8.
> >
> > GFY!
>
> Let me tell you about my buddy Johnny's ultra-safe rocketry. Rumor
> was he'd take a hollow metal fence post for a picket fence, block one
> end, drop in a lit M80 firecracker followed by a golf ball, and aim a
> trajectory toward the house of someone he didn't like, a quarter mile
> away.
>
> I never saw that but I did see this when Johnny and I were 15:
>
> He drilled out a used CO2 cartridge, filled it with match heads, and
> tried to light it. Nothing happened. So he poured lighter fluid into
> the space not taken by matchheads and lit it. The exterior flamed for a
> second and then went out. So against my warning, he refilled the lighter
> fluid and took a propane torch to the whole thing. Nothing happened.
>
> Bored, I walked around his yard. A few minutes later I happened to be
> about 10 feet away from him when simultaneously I heard a Krakatoa
> volume explosion and felt a sting on my ankle, which was now bleeding.
> The next sound was shrieks of laughter from Johnny, whose face was
> bleeding in six places from the same shrapnel that had sliced my ankle.
> Johnny ALWAYS laughed maniacally after blowing something up.
>
> Maybe someday I'll tell you how Johnny brought a harpoon gun to middle
> school.
>
> Toldja it was extremely OT :-)
>
> SteveT
>
> Steve Litt
> Spring 2023 featured book: Troubleshooting Techniques of the Successful
> Technologist http://www.troubleshooters.com/techniques
>
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