4.1 What the heck is a 'Born Again Rocketeer'?
Description
This article is from the Model Rockets FAQ, by Wolfram von Kiparski with numerous contributions by others.
4.1 What the heck is a 'Born Again Rocketeer'?
A Born Again Rocketeer (BAR) is a person who started out in model
rocketry in their 'younger' days, dropped out of the hobby for some
number of years, and then came to their senses and got back into it.
BARs are noted for re-entering the hobby with extreme enthusiasm and
much deeper pockets than they had during their first encounter with
the hobby. The editor of this FAQ is a BAR (and proud of it :-).
Paul Wolaver <pwolaver@sybase.com> wrote this BAR observation:
Be prepared for the BAR phenomenon. Open your wallet. Write off your
weekends. Set aside a room in your house to build rockets.
Buy epoxy.
An informal survey of 49 Born-Again Rocketeers on r.m.r. yielded the
following information:
- average number of years away from the hobby - 18.6
- Why did you get back into rocketry?
The answers varied greatly, but these three were at the top:
1. Involvement with children (33%)
2. 'discovered' rec.models.rockets (12%)
3. wanted to get into HPR after seeing how much the hobby has
changed. (8%)
- current 'mode' of flying rockets
1. model rocketry (49%)
2. high power (20%)
3. high power 'lite' (10%)
- what did you fly first?
Seems like everyone did something different. Estes kits were the
overwhelming majority, with the Big Bertha, Alpha, Alpha III, and
Phoenix all being mentioned more than once or twice.
- what were your old favorites, way back when?
Again, everyone liked something different, and everyone had more
than one single favorite kit. Estes kits figured prominently in
the memories of the surveyed. The Big Bertha, Mars Lander, and
Orbital Transport kits were most popular. A few folks were Centuri
fans, with the Orion kit getting the most votes (2). A few
eschewed the kit scene completely, and someone recalled fond
memories of building ZnS rockets.
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