Many
years back, down in Cornwall, my uncle found some objects washed up on the beach. There were 2 of them - green plastic cases, each one containing 2 ground to air-type missiles about 2.5 foot long, stacked top to tail (don't ask me the exact type - I don't know about these kind of things).

Being a bit mischievous, my uncle decided that, rather than hand them in, he would find some way of setting them off. He knew a military-type person, and so went about enquiring in a 'hypothetical' way how to go about doing this. He discovered that the best way was to use a length of half-cut drainpipe, a mousetrap and a piece of string.

Him & some friends launched them from a quiet headland one evening. Apparently, they flew off out to sea in a spiral, spinning kind of way, and went for miles. He then got paranoid that he might have been spotted by the coastguard, or even worse, blown up a trawler. Luckily there wasn't anything in the papers.

He's still got the empty cases, and shows them off when he's been at the Jack Daniels.
(8-Ball, Wed 6 Jul 2005, 17:16, Reply)