Destination:Gutter!

Reading Mikes Fireball story recently put me in mind of the countless summer days when i'd come back from holiday with some kind of flying toy or rocket. Out on the beaches in the wide open spaces, catapult launched toys were great fun and easy to track as they came in to land. However, when I got back home and tried them in the yard or garden, it was always a recipe for disaster. The Topper Cape Canaveral set had been responsible for disabling the fairy lights on the xmas tree and the Merit Water Rockets had disappeared into oblivion over a garden wall several times. Woolworths was always a safe bet for cheap toys and one such was a neat little Cape Kennedy set like the one pictured above. The gantry itself is about six inches high and has a small wheel for moving the tower back and to and also a handy lift on the side for loading up the crew. The detachable launcher was fitted with a powerful spring and the plastic rocket was made with a sliding nose cone. Included in the pack were two fan shaped satellites and the idea was to attach a string to the base of the rocket fin and tether it to the gantry. When the satellites were sat on the nose of the rocket and it was launched, the string paid out, stopped the rocket at its set height and jerked the nose forward, sending the satellites flying on. Naturally, I never used the string and was content to blast the whole lot as far skyward as I could manage, invariably losing a satellite in a tree or in the gutter! Years later I found a sealed carded set in the states via ebay and although it was comparatively inexpensive, ive no longer any desire to try it out in the garden!