I remember building an Estes model rocket that had a payload module. My dad had given me several model rockets and I had the launch pad equipment. A few of us saved one summer and bought one of the rockets with a payload compartment. Well we decided it would be neat if we filled that with gasoline and we removed the parachute part and used a first stage engine that didnt have the parachute deployment part of the engine it had a burn through top on it so that it would ignite a second stage engine. We figured that it would take off and fly up and explode in the sky and provide some nice fireworks!MoJo wrote:Y'all sound like the kids in my neighborhood growing up. One stunt my brother and I used to do was to put .22 shells in the mud and shoot them with a BB gun to make them pop then recovering the bullet. All went well until one of the cases hit me next to my eye. It left a mark so we never did that again. I wonder how kids grew to adulthood in the 40s, 50s and 60s. It was a lot more fun back then.
We pulled a part a couple of .22s and packed the gunpowder between the engine and the base of the payload compartment filled with said gasoline... 
Well we thought we were a bunch of brilliant "rocket engineers"
but we forgot about things like weight and center of gravity and aerodynamics and flight stability you know all of that useless math stuff... 
We figured we were in the desert nothing to burn so we would have some fun...
We were pretty excited
when we hit the end of the countdown and launched that baby. Well back to the aforementioned "weight" issue... 
the rocket only made it about 4 inches up the launch rod before it started tipping over. can you say RUN! Well the launched tipped over and when it did the rocket had less gravity to overcome so it started picking up some speed, now mind you all of this happened in about two seconds 
The rocket made it about 2 feet from the launcher before it hit the ground, dang it stupid center of gravity! The rocket then proceed to break apart spilling gasoline all over the place. Then the engine burned through and lit everything up in a nice conflagration! Burned up the rocket, my launching pad, one of our backpacks and a nearby cactus! 
It was then that we all decided we should scale back our adventures and go back to things like launching rockets against the back of our brick garage. It just crushed the rockets and the engine would flip around. We considered that less dangerous than our previous activities...
Oh yes I remember those days. We used to go out and rid our bikes all day. I had no restrictions except that I had to "in our neighborhood" by night fall.