Estes "Star Wars" Flying Model Rockets

With the success of "Star Wars" it was only natural that Estes would want to get in on the huge cash pie.  

Enter the Estes flying models in the "Star Wars" flavor.  

I'd long been a fan of model rocketry and the Estes catalogs held the same kind of fascination with me that the Dinky diecast toy catalogs held ... they were filled with things that as a child I thought were neat beyond belief but which I didn't seem to ever be a part of.  Estes catalogs featuring that impressive camo German V2 rocket and the "Star Trek" versions of the "USS Enterprise" and the "Klingon Battlecruiser" drew my child-like fascination.  

Oh, I saw a few model rocketry shows in my childhood but my attempts to build model rockets always met with failure.   I was much better with models of rockets rather than model rocketry and it remains that way even today.  While interesting, model rocketry just isn't a hobby that I think I would get very much enjoyment out of ... 

I digress.

In the late 1970's Estes produced several flying rocket models under the "Star Wars" license; the Proton Torpedo, the X-Wing Fighter, the TIE Fighter, and IIRC, a flying R2D2 rocket (yeah, where was that in the movie?).  I always wanted the X-Wing and the TIE Fighter because the X-Wing looked really cool (better than the MPC kit IMHO) and since MPC never made a model of the basic Imperial TIE Fighter I wanted the flying model rocket just to put together as a static, non-flying model.  Never did that, either, but it was a wish, a hope and a dream of mine back in that special time that was 1977 to 1979.


The Estes Proton Torpedo ruined me as a child and as a "Star Wars" fan because it looked so plausible ... then whoever it was that finally designed and drew the canon proton torpedo made it look like a snow cone sitting on top of a fire extinguisher and ... well, I like the simplicity of the Estes Proton Torpedo better.   I mean, what happens to the casing after the torpedo is fired?

Discussion for another time, I guess.  Given that, here's three 1978 period advertisements for the Estes products ... the X-Wing Fighter, the TIE Fighter and the Proton Torpedo.  I really, really wanted the X-wing and TIE simply because MPC didn't make a TIE Fighter model (not a regular TIE Fighter) and the X-wing looked better than the MPC model did (at least to me).