In 2007 Thomas Beach put together a great Vashon website:http://www.mindspring.com/~vashon/history.html
There is a lot of information there: catalogs, instruction scans and Vashon art decals for the old, cold propellant kits.
From the website is the same catalog I had around 1970.
A little more searching brought up an Apogee Peak of Flight newsletter about the Vashon models:
http://www.apogeerockets.com/education/downloads/Newsletter157.pdf
Interesting points from the Peak of Flight article:
Change of Hands
By the time the company was sold to the Damon Corporation in 1971, (Vashon) production had exceeded 100,000 units.
It's interesting to note that on paper Vashon merged with Estes, under the Vashon Industries name, which was quickly changed from Vashon to Estes.
One reason for this name shuffle was so that Estes could exploit Vashon's entries into the marketing arena including chain stores such as Sears and Neimen Marcus.
i have a Vashon Industries model rocket plane kit no. 5072. Can anyone tell me when it was from and anydetails about it?
ReplyDeleteHi Unknown,
DeleteThe Vashon Rocket Planes started showing up around 1969 or 1970. http://www.ninfinger.org/rockets/catalogs/vashon/vashoncat.html
Estes carried them after that in the 1972 catalog: http://www.ninfinger.org/rockets/nostalgia/72est028.html
Vashon was started around 1968 by two aerospace engineers.They were either friends or brothers
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