Bill Eichelberger's Page

AKA: Wallyum, Fishhead, Fire Marshall Bill

Location: Ft. Thomas, KY

Certification Level: NAR - Bronze

Club Memberships: Wright Stuff Rocketeers,Dayton,OH,QUARK,Cincinnati,OH

Favorite Rockets: Estes Condor, Estes Satellite Interceptor, any Goony, Semroc Lil Hustler, Centuri Raven, Centuri USS America, Centuri Mach 10, FSI Viking

Biography:

First started flying in the summer of 1977.  Lost interest in college, made the classic mistake of giving almost all of my rockets away, then started over in the early 90's after my son was born.  Sam and I flew an occasional mix of semi-RTF stuff until my brother in law took me to a launch in Cleveland in 2001, after which the bug bit hard once again.  Since then I've gone with the occasional ebbs and flows of the hobby, seen a lot of changes, made a lot of friends, and lost a great field.   

Favorite Quote:

"No one respects the flame quite like the fool who's badly burned" - Pete Townshend

RocketReviews.com Pages:


   

2024-11-02

FSI - Eos

Flight

Leaned left off the pad, but not enough to keep it from crossing the creek on recovery. Chute issues because the top section threaded the needle with the spill hole, or the drift would have been far worse. - E15-6 - WSR Cornfield, Cedarville, OH [More]

   

Coaster - Saturn

Flight

Followed the script to the letter. Left off the pad and recovery across the creek - E12-6 - WSR Cornfield, Cedarville, OH [More]

   

Enerjet - 1340 Sounding Rocket

Flight

Leaned out away slightly from the pads at liftoff. Altitude was 1762' and ejection appeared to happen after it tipped. LONG recovery drift almost to Federal Road/ - F15-6 - WSR Cornfield, Cedarville, OH [More]

   

Estes - Mega Mosquito

Flight

Slight arc to the left over the corn off the pad. Altitude 973' and ejection occurred as it was tipping over. Recovered 150' into the corn and just behind the flightline. - E12-6 - WSR Cornfield, Cedarville, OH [More]

   

Fishhead Rocketry - Kingpin

Flight

This would be my first flight on the day to cross the creek. Left the pad with a pretty severe arc to the right due to the breeze, but survivable. Altitude was impressive at 1139' and recovery was several hundred feet into the corn. - E12-6 - WSR Cornfield, Cedarville, OH [More]

   

Fishhead Rocketry - Viking IV

Flight

Leaned left off the pad, a copy of the Mega Mosquito before it. Altitude was 991' and ejection occurred as it tipped. Recovered left of the creek, but deeper in the field than the Mega Mosquito by 100' plus. - E12-6 - WSR Cornfield, Cedarville, OH [More]

   

Estes - Vagabond

Flight

Left off the pad, but still required a creek crossing on recovery. - E12-6 - WSR Cornfield, Cedarville, OH [More]

   

Centuri Engineering Co. - Orion

Flight

This was loaded when I pulled it from the storage tote. Slight lean to the left as it ascended. I called cross-creek recovery and Carter disagreed. It was recovered across the creek. Altitude was 553' and recovery would likely have been closer if I'd reefed the chute. - D12-3 - WSR Cornfield, ... [More]

   

2024-10-27

Estes - X-15

Flight

Left the pad heading toward the school and arced out over Woodfill Avenue. Chute popped as scheduled and rocket landed on the hill next to the street. - B6-2 - Fabulous B6-4 Field, Ft. Thomas, Kentucky [More]

   

Estes - Astron Mark II

Flight

Quick off the pad and directly into the sun, so try as I did, I couldn't pick it up. I started walking the field just hoping to run across it by luck. Skate dudes told me that it landed closer to the pad and I found it about 20 feet left and behind. - A8-3 - Fabulous B6-4 Field, Ft. Thomas, ... [More]

   

2024-02-02

Rockets Gone Bad

Photograph


Fishhead Rocketry SLS Wizard E12 flight


   

2022-02-01

The Launch Pad Anubis (Clone)

Review

      Brief  With The launch Pad possibly in permanent hiatus, I had no way of satisfying my craving for cool scale-like kits.  Bummer, but since the website and all the face cards from the kits were still online, I decided to try building something using just the ... [More]

   

2021-11-26

Estes - Beta

Build

Back in 1977, a friend who lived two doors up from me launched what I think was an Estes Scout from his backyard.  A group of us were there to watch and expected the typical big explosion as the finale, but we were told that despite what looked like an M80 being loaded into the back end, the ... [More]

   

2021-10-28

Rocket Development Corporation V-Max Clone (Clone)

Review

    Brief   I spent many years working third shift, which occasionally allowed me to cash in on some really cool late night "Buy It Now" deals on eBay.  In this case it was a used nose cone lot, the star of which was an RDC-625 nose cone, or a reasonable facsimile ... [More]

   

2021-09-30

MRC Firefighter (Kit)

Review

Back in the early days of my BAR-dom, I discovered the wonders of Ebay, which allowed me to pick up two MRC kits, the Firefighter and XR-20, on the cheap one night.  I was pretty pumped at getting two OOP kits for the price, but when they arrived, the bulk of my enthusiasm ... [More]

   

2021-09-23

Logix Explorer (Kit)

Review

Back in 1977, one of the Christmas gifts that I most looked forward to opening was the Science Fair SFX-4000 Aeronautical Lab Kit from Radio Shack.  I'd been flying for all of six months at the time and the idea of digging deeper into the science of aeronautics was oddly appealing to a ... [More]

   

2021-09-20

Semroc Saki (Kit)

Review

At first glance the Semroc Saki appears to be an Estes Goonybird Cloud Hopper with different paint and decals, but comparing the two side by side tells a different story.  They share the same basic shape, but little else, as the Saki is not only larger than the BT-60 Estes bird, ... [More]

   

2021-09-17

Estes Mega Mini Max (Modification)

Review

  Just your basic plain Jane Estes Mini Max with some added nose weight and 24mm power. Components Estes Mini Max kit Many BBs Kevlar Sewing elastic Hot pink streamer /h2 Back in the days of the Hobby Lobby 40% coupon days I got in the habit ... [More]

   

2021-07-09

Pitsco Synergy (Kit)

Review

    Everyone has seen this kit at one time or another, and maybe even considered buying one.  I actually pulled the trigger.  Pitsco is an educational supplier that produces two different solid fuel rocket kits, this one, and another that is a more complicated build ... [More]

   

2020-12-16

Canaroc FK-3 (Plan)

Review

In my quest to have as many new or old rocket companies as possible represented in my fleet, it was inevitable that I'd eventually find the road to Canaroc.  I'd chased several kits on Ebay over the years, seldom coming within sniffing distance, but forever intrigued.  ... [More]

   

2020-11-25

Quest Courier (Kit)

Review

Picked up at Hobby Lobby during the Quest clearance "just because."   The Courier would become my first competition egglofter by default.  (It was the only one I had that met the single engine criteria.)  Despite a lack of enthusiasm for the project at first that ... [More]

   

2020-11-23

Scratch Estes Raven Clone (Clone)

Review

This is a story of reclamation.  At some point in the past decade I became enamored with the Estes National Aerospace Plane and decided that I needed to clone one.  To that end I began scouring Ebay for one of the kits that shared the unique nose cone with the NASP, namely the ... [More]

   

2020-11-16

U.S. Rockets Sniper (Kit)

Review

Slick and sleek looking US Rockets product with great lines and a killer name.  Another cool feature is that the power possibilities go from 18mm to 29mm, and it is entirely imaginable to see it built to handle any of the three motor sizes.  (Although it may never be seen ... [More]

   

2020-11-12

Estes Ventris (Kit)

Review

The Ventris is one of the first four rockets released by Estes as part of their new Pro Series II mid-power collection.  While all are great looking birds, the Enerjet-esque lines of the Ventris were the clincher when it came time to make the choice of which bird would be my 50th ... [More]

   

2020-08-04

The Launch Pad Perseus (Kit)

Review

Apparently I'm not alone in this.  I initially bought the TLP Perseus thinking that it was a scale kit, only to find out that it was a TLP original.  There were two problems with that: 1) it eliminated any chance of using the rocket in a scale competition, and 2) it freed me from ... [More]

   

2020-08-03

Scratch Rocket Development Corporation Starflite (Clone)

Review

Another of my late night cruises through old catalogs, the RDC Starflite actually gave me the choice of two different designs to pick from, the Starflite and Starflite II.  The difference was the fin pattern, and I chose to go with the early version.  What caught my eye was the ... [More]

   

2020-08-02

Bo-Mar Spartan (Clone)

Review

The inspiration for this project was born out of desperation and boredom.  Nothing at any of the plan sites seemed to interest me and one night at work I started looking through all the catalogs at Ninfinger and YORP.  I realized that there were a lot of different builds from a lot ... [More]

   

2020-07-31

Modification Estes Vampire from Estes Jynx (Modification)

Review

My first Estes catalog was the 1977 version, which I got in mid-July and read to tatters by the time school started back.  Much of my cloning has centered around this catalog and the rockets therein, mostly those I never saw or couldn't afford.  I never saw an Estes Vampire, and if ... [More]

   

2020-07-29

Modification Estes Quasar from Estes Metalizer (Modification)

Review

I created an upscale Estes Quasar from the currently available Estes Metalizer kit. Components Estes Metalizer kit (Hobby Lobby) BT-56 body tube (Red Arrow) Mylar tape QUASAR decal (HP Inkjet) /h2 The Metalizer is an E2X kit that I normally wouldn't ... [More]

   

Bill Eichelberger