This is a flying Big John rocket model built by the Coaster Corporation during the late 1950s or 1960s. It is not known whether it was flown. The model has a pasteboard body and a balsa nose and fins. The parachute is missing. A solid propellant rocket motor propels the model, and then at the end of the vertical flight it forces the release of a parachute. The model is then retrieved and can be used again. The model is launched from a launch pad, with a hand-held launch controller being used to ignite the motor.
G. Harry Stine, one of the American pioneers in the field of flying rocket and missile models, donated the model to the Smithsonian in 1973.
This object is not on display at the National Air and Space Museum. It is either on loan or in storage.