Model Rocketry Hats

Model rocketry runs on a countdown, a launch pad and one question every flier dreads. According to one rocketry writer, the most dreaded question is how to retrieve a rocket stuck in a tree, second only to "Where did it go?" It happens often enough that in January 2023 a Texas fire department rescued a boy's rocket from a neighbor's tree. Fliers who get serious go for high-power certification: Level 1 allows H and I motors, and Level 2 opens J, K and L. Estes publishes seasonal gift guides for Father's Day and the holidays, so the hobby has a gift market all year. These hats speak for the person on the launch field. MODEL ROCKETRY and MODEL ROCKET DAD are the plain badges, and HIGH-POWER ROCKETRY LEVEL 1 is the credential. The longer designs carry the hobby's shared tragedy: a scoreboard with 17 rockets still in trees, a recovery system that is the wearer, running, a recipe of cardboard, glue and optimism, a rocket that went up as planned, and a search of the cornfield. The scoreboard and the went-up-as-planned design each come in a second colorway. Every design is custom embroidered on an unstructured dad hat. Wear one to the next launch, or give one to the dad who builds the rockets.