Way back in the day, you couldn't always obtain a competition-grade boost glider kit. So I cobbled one together combining a Comet hand-launch glider kit with the remains of a Centuri Viking model rocket. The vertical stabilizer was relocated to the underside of the fuselage and the nose was shimmed with scrap balsa to engage a pylon attached to the stripped-down Viking, which became the power pod. At apogee, the pod recoiled, banged into the wing roots, and flipped free to return by streamer recovery. The glider would transition to level flight and circle about for several minutes. Nothing in CAP model rocketry competition could challenge it.

This photo, from the early 1980s also shows a rare Estes MX missile and a Sandpiper missile replica. The one at the right is an original design and is still used for boosting space shuttle gliders aloft.