Continental Pilot Encounters "Rocket" Over Texas

[Matt Molnar]

Houston Chronicle:

Continental pilot startled by encounter with 'rocket'

By CINDY HORSWELL
Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle

A Continental Airlines pilot reported being startled by what he described as a rocket that shot past his cockpit window Monday when the plane was about eight miles north of George Bush Intercontinental Airport.

The Federal Aviation Administration and the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force are investigating the incident, which occurred about 10:30 a.m.

"We don't know for sure what the object was. But we think it might be somebody doing model rocketing," said Roland Herwig, an FAA spokesman. "The pilot saw the rocket and some people saw the rocket's trail (of smoke)." [Full Article]

[JetBlueAirwaysFan]

The article is probably right. It was probably just a model rocket.
Even so, I would have been just as startled, if not more.

[moose135]

Don't worry, the CIA will come out with a cartoon "proving" it wasn't a rocket :shock:

[LGA777]

When I was a kid growing up in Florida, I built and flew Estes Model Rockets, probably built over 20 rockets (kits) and I think my record altitude with one of mine achieved was 1500 feet, it was such a blast. We had this really cool teacher in 6th grade and some of my friends and I convinced her to let us build them in class as our project. On the last day of the project a school bus took the whole class to our field where flew them and my dad left his office and met us using his car as the car battery we needed for power. The rest of the class and our teacher loved the demo and my 5 or 6 classmates and I in the project all got an A+ for the semester. Life was pretty good back then. Surprisingly two of the kits I built way back in 1970-1974 are still on the market, take a look

http://www.estesrockets.com/products.php?number=1225

http://www.estesrockets.com/products.php?number=1948

Anybody else on here a former Estes customer ?

LGA777

[stuart schechter]

I'm not a former Estes customer but a current Estes customer! I have 20-30 kits and many built from scratch. My estimated highest is around 3400ft with a triple stage rocket(one engine fires, dies, second engine fires, etc.). I go out on many weekends and shoot of smaller rockets at my local middle school's soccer fields.

This is my largest:
http://estesrockets.com/products.php?number=1295

Some others:
http://estesrockets.com/products.php?number=1942
http://estesrockets.com/products.php?number=1327
http://estesrockets.com/products.php?number=1225
http://estesrockets.com/products.php?number=1292 (its fun to buy these and just blow them up!)