Worlds Smallest Flying Fish Fuse Rocket

One night I was sitting on Ken Musgrave's back deck playing with silver flying fish fuse. We were lighting little one-inch long pieces of the fuse and throwing them out into the night sky.

After throwing several thousand or so pieces of fuse Ken says, "look at this." He had a piece of dried grass stalk lying on the table. Using scissors, he snipped a piece about 2 inches long to make his rocket stick. Then he cut a length of silver flying fish fuse the same length as the width of the scotch tape he had on the table, about 3/4 inch. Using a really short length of scotch tape, perhaps 1/4 long or less, he taped the piece of fuse to the top end of the stick. He then stood the litte rocket up in a hollow drift from a 6-pound stinger missile tool. You light it from the bottom, of course. Et voila! You have the world's smallest rocket.

Tips: The grass stalk was really thin, a millimeter or less. It was brown, not green and lightweight. It may take some experimenting to get the right length stick. Make it too long and your rocket will do a kamikaze dive. The flying fish fuse was totally covered by the tape, creating a quickmatch kind of sleeve. Without the "sleeve", the rockets didn't fly. We didn't leave any fuse sticking out at all, and just kind of touched the flame to the bottom of the tape sleeve. The 6-pound stinger missile drift made an excellent launch tube. Plastic straws also make good cheap rocket launch tubes but they will melt a little.

Materials Needed

• Dried Grass Stalk
• Flying Fish Fuse
• Launch tube, small
• Scissors
• Scotch Tape