This is the third of a series I have going. These are true stories, mind you. So, enjoy.

    My little brother bought a ridiculously small rocket called the Lil’ Hercules. It was nothing more than a tube as long as the rocket engine, with a nose cone and four fins. There was no parachute. Not necessary.
    Some explanation is necessary. You see, the way the standard hobby rocket works is that the engine has three parts to it. The first part is the boost phase where it flies into the sky. It fires for so many seconds. Then there is a delay, in seconds where the engine does nothing. Then there’s an explosive at the end (for most engines). Each engine you buy has numbers after the letter. So, an A-2-1 engine has a thrust level of “A” which is the smallest power that would burn for 2 seconds, then pause for 1 second before the explosive goes off.
    Now why in the world would you worry about all that complicated stuff? Well, kids don’t, but the darn rocket needs to have the right engine in it. Because it needs enough thrust to gain some altitude. If the rocket is too heavy, it won’t get off the pad. Too light, well, that’s OK, but you might have to drive to the next county to find it.
    After it powers up to altitude, it needs to coast before the charge ejects the parachute. Otherwise, the chute will come out and probably rip right off the rocket because it’s still flying really fast. If the chute rips off, everything will tumble to the ground at high speed and get crushed (except the chute, which will float down like a plastic bag).
    Now, back to the Lil Hercules. You see, this rocket is so tiny that it’s already light weight. Without an engine in it, it would just lightly tumble to the ground. So, the Lil Hercules didn’t have a clip that held the engine in. No, when the charge went off, instead of puffing the chute out the top, it would blow the engine out the back. Then the engine and rocket would tumble back. Though I doubt you could ever find the engine in the weeds.
    My brother had engines, or he just borrowed one of mine instead of buying the right engine for the rocket. You see, the package that the rocket kit comes in tells what types of engines the rocket will fly with. It’s nice, that the NASA scientists computed all those complicated numbers for us kids, because we didn’t have any Calculus classes under our belt yet. Anyway, the engine we chose had a delay that was too long. We didn’t think about the implications of that. We just looked at the engines we had, shrugged our shoulders and stuffed it in the rocket. Houston, we’re ready to go!
    My brother put the thing on the pad and wired it up. I don’t think the whole family watched this one. It was one of those, me and my bro are gonna fly rockets in the back yard this afternoon and nobody cared anymore. I recall many weekends where we just went out to the back yard and flew rockets. He still counted down, because we always did. Then he hit the button and it flew pretty good. It arced over and above one of the big trees in the other corner of our yard and then it started coming down. Straight down. Oh, then the explosive charge went off. Right as the rocket was near the top of the tree. That ejected the engine and accelerated the rocket down the tree. The branches of the tree sheered off all the fins before it hit the ground. We laughed at the nosecone and tube that was left of the thing. Fortunately, it was a really cheap rocket.
    We never did find the engine.