Ha, good stunt :lol:
Though reading the article and description of the pilot it could not have been a model rocket, as this John Etgen confirms. At apogee there is no "thick smoke trail" anymore, although the pilot could have meant something else.
For some reason I was assuming that the pilot reported it was at apogee, but after reading the article again, you could be right about a 2nd stage (or a long burning first stage). It indeed says "fast moving".
Anyhow I wasn't saying that it was a SAM either
Easier said than done , at least I'm trying... Though I would be happy already if it reached 1/5 of that altitude.Making a model rocket which has a visible smoke trail in 5000 ft is no problem.
Hehe, makes you wonder whether model rockets could be used as cheap ammo for terrorists etc. I suppose if you put a large amount of black powder in the body, ontop of a basic motor, with the right sequence of fusing you could get one hell of a bang at the end of the flight.
Although something tells me it'd be rather pathetic...
Why would a terrorist want to build a model rocket?
I mean, a single trucker with a heavy load of gasoline is way more dangerous than entire country's rocket-modeilng community.
Why would terrorist wan't a flying bomb?
You may remember a few years ago when a few 'flying bombs' crashed into some rather tall buildings and a five sided building. Those seemed to work pretty well for the terrorists, although they were on a slightly larger scale.