Don't know if this is related to model building, but one time years ago when I was going to college (1976), I built a rocket using a paper towel tube, a cone shaped drinking cup for a nosecone, with a small black powder payload (about the size of a golf ball) as a warhead. Used two Estes rocket motors in the other end of the tube, and made "wings" and vertical and horizontal stabs out of cardboard. Then painted it red with black and white alternating stripes on the nosecone.
One of my dorm mates supplied the launching pad (standard rocket launch pad). I used about a ten foot long strip of black powder sprinkled on masking tape for a fuse...the tape attached to the rocket motors. We decided we would launch from one of the boulders in a creek bed in the woods. This was a popular swimming hole area, and there were lots of people around.
We let people around us know what we were about to do, so they could watch out. I lit the fuse and the rocket takes off to about 30 feet in the air, then does a sharp nose over and runs like a cruise missle down the creek, almost hitting one of the bystanders...was kinda funny watching that thing chasing him. Then the "missle" changes course and heads directly towards a fraternity creek party about 100 yards down the creek at a level ten ft. altitude. Luckily, it hit the water well before reaching them, and the "warhead" did not go off. (The warhead detonator was to be the chute ejecting charge that fires upward at the end of the rocket motor's cycle.) The Estes rockets burned for quite awhile in the water and produced a great deal of smoke.
It was quite a spectacle, and very intense for about two minutes. One guy there who witnessed it even wanted to know how I did that...I think he was an engineering student. The trajectory of the rocket couldn't have been better, as it managed to avoid the many trees near the creek. I had no idea what it would do, but it sure was fun. I thought it would go straight up and then explode.
DISCLAIMER: Don't try this experiment yourselves; black powder is a Class A Explosive and extremely dangerous to handle. It can be set off by percussion, i.e. drop the can on the ground and it could go off, or by static electricity or a spark. Never smoke while working around black powder.
I was young and dum back then, and lucky.
We took a picture of the lift off, and man, I wish I had that picture today.
Les
