Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="billd91" data-source="post: 2392518" data-attributes="member: 3400">There are a few incidents that I remember, usually related to pyrotechnics of some sort.We used to have semi-regular bottle rocket fights, using pvc pipe as firing tubes. We weren't too accurate, but hits were occasionally scored. What was worse was the backblast of sparks from the rocket. One night, a friend and I had taken cover behind an old pickup and suddenly noticed someone firing off their whole pack. We thought it was one of the other team firing off a salvo. Then we heard a different friend yell, "My jacket is a slag heap!"  We returned with "Stuart, are you alright?"  "Of course I'm not alright, I loved that jacket!"Turns out, he had put the rest of his ammo in the breast pocket of his nylon jacket. The backblast of sparks had melted through his nylon and ignited the rest of the bottle rockets... in his pocket. Closer team mates of his said he was wildly gyrating and trying to beat out the flames. Fortunately, while the jacket was a loss, he was largely unhurt (physically, emotionally scarred, well....) aside from a few minor burns on his hand.During another bottle rocket fight, we set the lawn on fire. It was a hot, dry summer and we were experimenting with smoke bombs as smoke grenades. But when they go off, they send out quite a flame and the lawn was too dry. We put it out with hoses but not before threatening the cultivated mushroom patch and getting in trouble.We also used to play with model rocket engines but not so much the rocket models. We'd just attach the engines to arrows and fire them off. (Note to self: Multi-stages set up with lengths of fuse don't work well.) We learned quickly how to dive for cover. I'm still not sure how we avoided major injuries.</blockquote>

Verification