The Del Boy favourite says building mini rockets keeps him young after getting model making during Covid when presented with an immense amount of free time during lockdown
Comedy legend David Jason has admitted he is spending his retirement happily launching model rockets into space.
The Only Fools and Horses legend says he loves nothing more than spending his spare time building little rockets and then firing them into the sky to see how they fare. The 85-year-old said the mini spacecrafts are his passion, and the amateur astronaut work has become his number one hobby at home.
Jason, who played cockney geezer Del Boy in the hit series, got into model making during Covid, when he was presented with loads of free time during lockdowns. And since then his passion has soared to new heights, because he “loves watching them fly”.
So far he has managed to launch numerous space rockets and has very recently built a special 4ft 6in scale-sized recreation of the Saturn V rocket – which was used for the Apollo missions to the moon – that he is looking forward to launching any day now.
He said: “I’ve built it and I’ve got it in my garage and I’m still waiting for the right time, for the weather to settle down, so I can launch it because it’s quite a big rocket. “It’s quite technical stuff.
“The models that I build are rockets. The reason why they were rockets as opposed to aircraft is because if you had one with an elastic band you had to wind it up and then it would fly if you were lucky and then it would crash somewhere and that would be the end of it.
“I decided rockets would be better because they would come down on their own parachute.”
The actor, one of the most loved in British TV history, spoke about his new found love of rockets while chatting on the Things We Like podcast. Once you’ve built it and you get it ready to fly you have the wrap the parachutes up in a certain way,” he explained.
“But you can’t leave it wrapped up in the rocket for any length of time because it’s launched and the top end of the rocket pops out – because you have to have a special engine that has an explosive end on it – if the parachutes have been wrapped up for three or four months then it hits the deck before the parachute opens.”
And he said the new hobby has helped keep him sharp in his older age. “When I was doing A Touch Of Frost, there was an awful lot of down time where you’re not on call all the time,” he said.
“There are scenes that don’t include you but they’re important to the show. So you get downtime. “The worst thing you can with your downtime is just sit in your caravan or wherever and slow down, slow down and then you nod off and you’re asleep.
“They knock on the door, ‘Ready for you Mr Jason.’ “Then you’ve got to wake yourself up and it does take quite a lot of time to get the energy back.
“So I thought I mustn’t do it that way because I get sluggish, I’ve got to keep my mind active. So I thought, ‘I know what I’ll do, I’ll build some models.’”
Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk
