Christopher had never built a multi-stage rocket before, and despite my warnings to wait until I could work with him on it, he proceeded without me and soon ran into problems.  Not spending enough time reading the Zenith II’s instructions, he didn’t recess the sustainer motor mount deeply enough into the body and consequently the booster stage did not fit properly.  “See, I told you should have waited for me to help you.” I admonished him.  We then had to retrofit a longer tube section on the booster and cut down the coupler to what I considered the bare minimum to get it to fit.  It would still require some added tape to ensure that it wouldn’t separate during boost.  Of course, this set him behind in completing the rocket and would mean he didn’t have time to paint the rocket before the launch.  (Which he doesn’t like to do anyway.)

I, on the other, followed the instructions of the Navaho AGM closely, made sure all connections fit nicely, then spent time filling and painting the rocket.  I even took the time to apply the nearly 50 water slide decals that came with the kit.  Not the best finishing job I’d ever done, but it looked good from a distance.

At the launch, we be both set up our rockets with a C6-0 booster and C6-7 sustainer.  We were going to go for broke, besides, thats all we had.  I was first up.  The RSO counted down, hit the fire button and the rocket leap skyward - but only briefly.  Just after leaving the rod it did several cartwheels traveling just down range enough not to be a danger to the crowd, then, at an attitude of about 45° to the ground, the second stage went off driving the rocket directly into the ground.  It stuck there, exhausting the remainder of it’s thrust into the air, then, after a stream of tracking smoke, the ejection charge blew the airframe back into the air.  Perhaps the most stable part of the flight.  The AGM designation turned out to be all to true!  (There, somebody had to say it.)

Christopher was next up.  He had spent some time figuring out just the right amount of tape that would secure the thinly held sections together while still releasing at staging.  He also had discovered that the payload section was crooked and had to add tape on one side of the transition's shoulder to straighten it out.  With all the modifications and adjustments, his naked, badly built rocket was placed on the pad.  After a short countdown, it flew into the air, weather cocked just a bit, then the second stage went off propelling it to nearly 2000’.  A beautiful flight!  [See the movie of CJ looking for his rocket.]

The moral of this story:  A father’s admonishments don’t add up to a hill of beans when his rocket flies like a Chinese Pinwheel.