I found this white sticker over the original hang topper on the Quest Raptor kit.
The age recommendation went up from 10 to 14 years.
"Direct Adult Supervision" for building and flying is now age 14.
From the 2013 Estes catalog:
Estes model rocketry is recommended for ages 10
years and up. Adult supervision is recommended for those under 12 years of age
It's interesting that "NOT A TOY" has been added to the Quest label. I've never considered model rockets "toys". Anything that requires ignition and can move that fast shouldn't be called a toy.
Our club has, over the years, seen a huge increase in parents bringing their 5 and 6 year-olds (and even a few 4 year-olds) out to our launches to introduce them to rocketry. I try to discourage ALL of these parents, but others in the club think it's great, saying the package recommendations are just "CYA" lawyer-speak. I point out to them that Estes has had that 10 years of age recommendation since the mid-60's, when the atmosphere was much less litigious.
ReplyDeleteOf course there are outliers like Alyssa Stenberg, who won a National Championship at age 8, but her father was very experienced with model rocketry, and she obviously had natural skills that were very advanced for her age.
But the typical seven year-old just can't yet grasp some of the concepts needed to build and fly model rockets, and their attention span assures that they will spend most of their time at the launch field running around playing with other kids and not paying attention to rockets.
That said, I think raising the recommendation to 14 is overkill, and may indeed be "CYA" lawyer-speak.
In 1969 and 70, I knew a bunch of 11-13 year-olds who could easily build and fly Tridents, and Mars Snoopers, and Mars Landers, and Estes Saturn 1Bs and Centuri Saturn Vs. I know, because I was one of them. And a few of us had even graduated to flying FSI F7 and F100 and Enerjet motors.
Hi Roy,
ReplyDeleteI agree, it is probably more CYA lawyer-speak. I tried to play it safe and add a disclaimer statement to the hang tags on my Odd'l Rockets kits.
In 1969 (I was 13 too) and I was building Mars Landers and Saturn Vs. Some 13 year olds today would probably have trouble putting together a parachute on a ARTF model. (But then again, I started building plastic models at age 5 and Guillow's style kits at 8.)
It's not about model rockets at all. The CPSIA law has stricter lead content limits for 'toys' geared toward 12 and under. By marking the kits as 'not a toy' and for 14 and older, Quest would in theory be exempt from the lower limits.
ReplyDeleteThanks Chris -
ReplyDeleteMystery solved! I didn't know about the lead limit laws.