This book is everything you need to get started with model rocketry. It has regulations, methods, wings, everything. It even has great model diagrams.

This book has some good things to know in it and it is more about the sport of model rocketry than anything else. Note of caution, there is very little in this book on designing model rockets from scratch beyond the basics. I was designing a rather advanced rocket and this book didn't help me very much.

But when taken for what it's intended for it's a rather good book. It gives a lot of advice that you might not have come up with on your own and in fact is a pretty good guide for anyone who is a light hobbyist model rocketeer and is looking at getting into clubs and more frequent and serious model rocketry. He keeps the book interesting and amusing with some comments that I found absolutely hilarious. For example he always refers to trees as "Rocket Eating Trees" and in one illustration he has a rocket saying "Bye Bye" as it is carried off with the breeze. I found those kept the book readable. While I liked the anecdotes to his own rocketry experience and found them enlightening those after pure facts may find them excessive.

The late G. Harry Stine is considered the father of model rocketry and was also the founder of the National Association of Rocketry (NAR). In this book, Harry explains the basics of model rocketry, including propulsion, stability, recovery, design, launching, safety and much more. And the language is on a level that's easy to read and understand by both young and old. This book is truly the bible of model rocketry and should be in every rocketeer's library. Great job Harry - Thank you!

G. Harry Stine is considered one of the founding fathers of model rocketry by most rocketeers. This book, The Handbook of Model Rocketry is insightful, always interesting, often humorous, and remains as Harry's gift to our rocket community. Harry is no longer with us for he passed away recently but his legacy lives on in this terrific handbook. A "must read" book for all model rocketeers!

... In this story, unpretentious but super-talented astronomer/ pilot Mike Call gets "downsized" (you'll see by his description of his stature why that's a pun) by a previous employer and lands a job in a small industry that has just stumbled upon a revolutionary invention with industrial and space flight implications. Not only that--Call finds a bona-fide nice girl as a love interest. There are some tense moments involving industrial espionage--remember, this story was written back when it wasn't trendy to see "the Feds" as villains yet. Call me a reactionary (and I'll thank you for the compliment), but it's great to read a story that has good guys as heroes rather than dysfunctional anti-heroes.

Good guy with just a Master's degree in astronomy gets laid off from his job since he doesn't have the Ph.D. union card. He does job search and gets hired for interesting research and development job that requires his abilities as engineer, astronomer, and pilot. I still like to re-read it occasionally.