Another BAR who came back at the behest of a group of home-school students for which I was giving an "Aeronautics" class. So, of course I have more rockets and motors now than I ever dreamed of 30-odd years ago when I was a rocketeer for the first time.
I am currently a Configurations engineer at Boeing in Renton (home of the 737). I've been at Boeing now just over 32 years as of this writing (mid February, 2011).
I am also the treasurer of the Boeing Employees Model Rocket Club - which is struggling to keep going as it has only a tiny patch of ground at the south end of Boeing's Kent, Washington facility left as a flying site. I also belong to the Blue Mountain Rocketeers - a youth-run club on the other side of the state. They have a flying site in a big alfalfa field at which several launches a year are held.
I have been an active aeromodeller all my life and am somewhat of a pioneer in electric powered RC. I've been flying electric airplanes since 1980. Because electric is now mainstream and it doesn't take much finesse to put together an electric airplane that performs well is, I think, one of the reasons returning to rockets has taken hold so hard.
I'm still strictly low power - the highest impulse motor I've used is an E (single-use Aerotechs) and will likely stay that way for the forseeable future, though I do have an Aerotech Initiator kit for a proper introduction to mid-power. But first I need to build all the rockets I wanted to but couldn't afford back in the mid to late 1970s.....Trident, Orbital Transport, Starship Excalibur, Ranger, etc., etc.....:)
