Simple Construction Materials

The easiest way to understand how the materials used to make a model rocket play a major role in overall safety is to pick a finished model up. The first thing you will notice is that the model is surprisingly lightweight for its’ size. Constructed of a paperboard tube, a hollow plastic nosecone and balsa wood fins, it is sometimes difficult to believe model rockets are sturdy enough to be flown literally dozens of times. The Model Rocket Safety Code strictly prohibits the use of any metal in the construction of the body (fuselage) or fins. Surface finishing is usually paint although model rockets can be covered in anything from stickers to wallpaper and still retain their flight stability.

Safe and Reliable Motors

Model rocketry has come a long way from the days when aspiring rocketeers could be found in basements and garages and warehouses mixing various chemicals for unreliable and often dangerous home-made rocket motors. Todays’ model rocket motor is a safe, commercially produced unit consisting of a small amount of dry black powder surrounded by a thick, multi layered casing. Due to the motors’ design it extremely difficult to ignite by either a fuse or an open flame. Motor ignition requires the use of a battery-powered launch controller connected to a special “igniter” that is placed in the bottom of the unit itself.

The Model Rocket Safety Code

As we mentioned in the beginning of this chapter it is estimated that nearly 5 million model rockets take to the skies every year. Yet - even with such a large number of flights - it is rare to hear of even a minor injury. How? The answer lies in the development and strict implementation of the Model Rocketry Safety Code. When G. Harry Stine started the worlds first model rocket company back in the 1950’s model rockets were a novelty item often thought of as a firework or pyrotechnic device. This notion (and the realization that model rockets acted entirely different from fireworks) took many years to disprove. Key to changing this perception was one undeniable fact: injuries from accidents involving model rockets were few and minor when compared to nearly every other hobby or activity. Why? Rocketeers were following a safety code that was clear, easy-to-follow and that required little more than common sense to implement.

Of course over the years the safety code has been changed and updated to mirror the growth of model rocketry technology but the key provisions that guided rocketeers safely throughout the end of the last century still guide rocketeers into the new. Today the Code is at the heart of a continued record of model rocket safety. A rocketeer would be hard pressed not to find a copy of the Code at any club-hosted launch as well as in every model kit on the market today.