Bruce: Ever since Bruce Lee was on the TV show "The Green Hornet", I have been joking around with the Kung Fu connection with my name. I have a great time with my name and the cast and production crew of Junk Yard Wars had a fun time ribbing me about it on the show, none of the footage made into the final edit.

J: Were you given any information prior to arriving in England for the show?

B: I was told that my rocket could not be made out of just a tube with a nose cone and fins, that would be to easy. That is when I came up with the non-traditional cigar design. They look cool for the movies, but the average rocket builder does not make them since they are so much more difficult to construct. But, it is the design used by competition egg lofting teams, only their versions are not usually longer than 2 feet. Technically that design works best because the long taper off the nose cone compensates for the very large cross sectional area (high drag) that is required for the nose cone which has to hold the egg.

J: It's a wonder those things even get off the ground. What was the team like to work with?

B: The Long Brothers were great. They were fun to be with and we had fun doing the show. They were serious about winning. The best part is they know how to build things and were very creative. The nose cone lathe was a great idea and because it worked so well we actually built 3 nose cones and used the best one. Another innovation was the aluminum pipe used for the body. I was planning on using steel rods, they thought about it and come up with the idea of using an aluminum pipe split in 3 pieces which reduced the rocket wieght by over 7 pounds, which is significant since weight is critical.

J: And that was probably part of the key to your success. When you heard about or saw the other team's design, did that put your confidence through the roof?

B: I had no idea of what the other team was building, that is part of the secrecy of the 2 build area of the show. About 5 hours into the build, one of the Long Brothers came over to me and told me they were building a cone rocket. I couldn't believe it, no one serious about an altitude competition would ever consider constructing one because of the very high drag design. I had to assume that their main purpose was the egg recovery, where a high altitude team was more likely to break their egg. Of course, I was not worried because of the panty hose supension system was a definite winner. Up until I found out about the cone rocket I was very concerned about winning, and the Long brothers were really putting the pressure on me since they overheard the Judge, Ky Michaelson, talking about how difficult it is to fly a 3 rocket motor rocket. The 3 motors (cluster) were not an issue for me since I have been flying clusters for years with excellent success. When I found out the Art Attck was flying a Tee Pee I was confident we could win.

J: They never told us how high or how fast your rocket went. I know it's a moot point since the egg didn't break, but did they give any of that information to you?

B: I never did go back and run simulations on the final design to get predicted speed and altitude. I should probably do that, especially since I plan on building a replica of the Long brothers rocket to fly at national events. I have seen lots of rocket flights and I would estimate that we did get the ostrich egg to just over 1000 feet. The body of the rocket went up to about 1750 feet. Against the Tee Pee rocket I still felt we had a good chance of winning. Both teams had problems with drag separation. I forgot to consider drag separation, since the rockets I fly do not have 4 pound ostrich egg payloads and usually only contain electronics systems which only weigh a couple of ounces.

J: For a junk built rocket, a thousand feet is still quite spectacular. I'd like to ask a couple of questions not related to your Junkyard Wars experience. What is the largest rocket you've ever launched?

B: I'll mention 2. One was big and slow and the other was big and fast. The absolute biggest was the 1/3 scale version of the Mercury Redstone that Alan Shepard rode into space. It was 30 feet tall and weighed in at about 605 pounds. My team and I were featured on the TLC "Extreme Machines" show for this project a year before shooting Junk Yard Wars. For the nitty fact fan this rocket was mentioned in my introduction for Junk Yard Yards when they called me "the kung fu master of space." My other special rocket was the Space Shot rocket, of which I am a member of the team. This one is 19 feet tall and is meant to go mach 5.5 on it's way to 75 miles, setting the record for the first amateur team to get a rocket to space. There should be a Discovery channel show about this project in 2003.

J: I'll be sure to look for that. I know that recently (July 2002) you tried to luanch into space. How did that turn out? Did you make it to space?

B: Unfortunately the weather did not cooperate, we either had high winds or cloud cover. We will be trying again later this year if the FAA cooperates with us, they have to give approval and it takes months.

J: That's too bad. I hope it goes better next time. My brother and I have launched a few rockets ourselves. Small tubular rocket kits. Do you have any suggestions for people who are looking to get into model rocketry?

B: Yes, go to your hobby shop and buy an Estes rocket kit, try it out and when you found that your hooked on rockets, look up the Tripoli High Power Rocketry web page www.tripoli.org find a local group and just get involved. Rocketry people are the most friendly I have come accross, and are more than happy to explain how to get involved in High Power rocket flying.

J: Thanks for being with us Bruce. One final question for you. Would you go back on Junkyard Wars (or even Scrapheap Challenge) again?