"Wheeesh," exclaimed Roxana Safipour as she watched her model rocket shoot into the sky.

Safipour is the co-president of the Saratoga High School club Climbing Upward Beyond the Earth (CUBE). She and her fellow club members followed their rocket until it fell from the sky.

"Wow," shouted club member Scott Burley after recovering and checking the model rocket. "It went so fast that the fins were ripped off."

Local model rocket lovers don't know how well their model rockets will fly until BayNAR, a Bay Area model rocket club, holds its monthly launch at De Anza College on the fourth Sunday of every month.

Even though BayNAR's latest launch occurred on Jan. 25, Super Bowl Sunday, about 55 people showed up. A total of 114 launches were conducted.

"This is my relaxation," says Terry Swift, a Lockheed Martin engineer who designs test equipment for missiles. The living room of his Sunnyvale home is strewn with the more than 200 model rockets he has built since he joined the club in 1999.

John Frankel, activity officer of Lynbrook High School Model Rocket Club, says launching is the most exciting part of model rocketry.

"It's fun to watch,' Frankel says. "Even the mishaps are fun to watch."

Model rocketry has been a popular hobby since its birth in the 1950s.

In 1957, Russia launched the first artificial satellite, Sputnik I, spurring the United States into an international competition popularly known as the "space race." Across the United States, many people were injured, maimed and even killed while trying to build their own rockets out of metal parts and mixing dangerous propellants.

Engineer G.H. Stine wrote an article for Popular Mechanics in 1957 lamenting the dangers of amateur rocketry and seeking solutions. Orville Carlisle, a shoe salesman and amateur pyrotechnician, and his brother Robert, a model airplane builder, responded to Stine's article by sending him a few simple rockets they had designed. The Carlisle brothers believed people wouldn't experiment with dangerous chemicals if trained professionals manufactured model rocket motors, the most dangerous part of a rocket.

After testing the model rockets successfully, Stine started the first model rocket company, Model Missiles Inc., whose earliest kits were based on the original Carlisle rocket. In 1957, he also founded the National Association of Rocketry (NAR), the oldest sport rocketry organization in the world. His book, The Handbook of Model Rocketry, is considered the rocket-maker's Bible.

Today, NAR is the world's largest model rocketry organization with more than 4,800 members.

"Our club is about safety, education and fun," says NAR President Mark Bundick, who has built more than 500 model rockets since he was 12. "Although I have been involved in model rocketry for almost 40 years, the launch still excites me."

BayNAR, one of the NAR's 113 chapters, has about 50 regular members.

"The backgrounds of our members are widely varied," says Marty Krikorian, president of BayNAR. "We do have some aerospace workers. But we also have people from other fields."

The principles of model rockets are the same as those for real rockets.

"Our toys are just smaller," says former BayNAR President Carl Reisinger, who calls himself a "BAR," a born-again rocketeer. Like many model rocket lovers, he built model rockets in high school and picked up the hobby again later in life.

There are five main stages to any model rocket flight: ignition, boost, coast, ejection and recovery.

The ignition stage involves igniting the fuel inside the engine through electronic means. A high current is passed through a circuit and through an ignitor inside the engine. The ignitor acts as a resistor to the current, creating high heat in the fuel, which ultimately leads to the ignition of the engine.

The boost stage is where the model is under powered flight, and the duration and power of the engine determine the altitude that the rocket can reach. Engines can be clustered or connected together to equal engines of greater power.

During the ejection stage, a parachute or streamer is pushed out of the top of the rocket's body to slow the descent. The final stage is recovery of the rockets.

"A tip to seeing the rocket is to stand back. Don't look where the rocket goes but to where it ends," Krikorian says.

Model rockets are not hard to assemble. Depending on their skill level and the complexity of the rocket, amateur rocketeers can make model rockets within minutes.

Model rocket kits are available in many stores, such as Michael's Craft Store and Fry's Electronics. One of the biggest model rocket supply shops in the South Bay is D&J Hobby, located at 96 San Tomas Aquino Road in Campbell. According to the store's office manager, Jason Pozzi, the hobby and crafts store sells around 800 model rocket kits every month.

"Model rockets have been strong for a long time," Pozzi says. "It is usually a family thing."

Krikorian says there are usually about 30 children from Scouts or youth groups at their monthly launch.

Brent Browning, a volunteer science teacher for the Sunnyvale Cub Scouts, took his sons, Austin and Ryan, and two other boys to BayNAR's launch on Jan. 26. They built their model rockets in December and had to over a month for the launch. BayNAR canceled its monthly launch in December because of rain.

Austin and Ryan looked weepy when their first launch failed. But they laughed when Browning fixed their rockets.

Krikorian says part of model rocketry is competition.

"Modelers make rockets that are designed to carry out a particular mission," Krikorian says. "This would include attempts to achieve high altitudes, long flights or flights of a specific duration."

Kevin Stein, president of the Lynbrook High School Model Rocket Club, says building a rocket brings him a lot of satisfaction and a sense of accomplishment.

"There are thousands of ways a rocket can go wrong, but there is only one way a rocket goes right," Stein says. It's a hobby in which, he says, "you can see your payoff immediately."

Although model rocketry is traditionally considered "a guy thing," more and more women are pursuing the hobby.

"If you go to a power rocket launch, there are about the same number of women as men," says Swift, who often travels around the country with his wife, Tamara, to watch launches. "It appeals to everyone."

For more information about the BayNAR Model Rocket Club, visit www.baynar.org or email nfo@baynar.org