Back In The Day, Part 9: More Estes Stickers Found..

This past weekend, I was again rummaging through the piles of accumulated stuff stored under the basement stairway, when I came across yet another object adorned with old Estes Industries stickers...

Only this is not a rocketry-related item.

It's my old skate board!

And we are talking 'Very Old School' here.  The Genesis of skate boards!

You Gen-X-ers and Millennial skaters in the blog-reading audience may not recognize such an antique, but us old Baby-Boomers know all about them.

So, here's the scoop...back in the late sixties, if you wanted a skateboard, you made one.  Literally.
All it took was a good, sturdy hardwood plank, a roller skate, and a handful of hardware.
The skate, of course, was one of those old metal-wheeled jobs that clamped over your shoe and was tightened with a key.   The skate was taken apart, bolted to the board, and...voila... you had yourself a skateboard!

These early skateboards were a beast to ride - nothing like the fancy boards available nowadays. 
The difficult part in riding one was that you had to carefully balance on an extremely narrow wheel-base.  The metal wheels were not very forgiving with sidewalk cracks and bumpy surfaces. Pretty rough ride...and noisy as all get-out!   They also did not lend themselves very well to performing flips, jumps, and all the other stunting seen with modern boards.
Basically, you just jumped on it and clattered down the sidewalk!

Anyway, this is the one I rode back in the day...and it was decorated with spare Estes stickers.   I must have had enough of those to plaster all over everything I owned....

Cheers!

MPC Lunar Patrol: Part 12 - Let The Painting Begin !

The first task in getting the LP finished is painting the interiors of the booster pods and glider fuselage tubes.  I went with some matte black acrylic for this part.

Back in my 'old fleet' days, I wouldn't have bothered with this detail.  Back then, it was all about getting the bird out to the launch pad ASAP, without spending a great deal of time with the craftsmanship aspect of the build.
Nowadays, in my curmudgeonly, grumpy, perfectionistic old-fart BAR years, these details do not go overlooked!

Next is a couple of brushed-on coats of gloss black enamel to the glider nose cones.

 I'm not worried at all about weight here, since I am going to have to add more to the nose cone bases anyway for glide trimming.

Next up- the good stuff - masking and shooting the base color coats.

Cheers.

MPC Lunar Patrol, Part 11

Finally..(cough, cough)
   .... all of that filling, priming, and (hack, hack) sanding is done on this bird !!

Ready to start on painting and detailing. 
I might actually have this model finished by the end of December. 
I am definitely in great anticipation of getting this model rocket in the air.
Stay tuned....

Launch Date: November 25, 2017

This Thanksgiving weekend was marked by a spell of wonderfully warm and calm Colorado weather, so what better time to get out and launch a few model rockets? 
Friday night, my 7 year old grand son put the finishing touches on his Generic E2X model, and we planned to launch the next morning.  I was also anxious to get out and launch the newly- built Griffin-2 booster and Firefly parasite glider.
Saturday morning, we stopped by the hobby store to pick up a couple needed packages of engines, then headed for Dove Valley Park.  Arriving around 11a.m. we found the field deserted except for a large flock of geese.  Temperature was  55 degrees and wind hovered around 5mph.

The first bird off the pad was the Hornet on an A3-4T engine.  Another perfect flight, with the newly
installed internal engine retainer performing wonderfully.







Next up was the maiden flight of the grandsons' Generic E2X.  The model boosted nicely on an A8-3 engine, deployed its parachute and landed fairly close to the launch pad. The young lad was quite elated, and gleefully set out on recovery.

After a short session of hand launch glide trimming of the Estes Firefly, I had it on the pad attached to the Griffin-2 boost vehicle.  Flying on a B4-2 engine, the tandem boosted nicely, albeit in a somewhat wide spiraling trajectory, but reaching a respectable altitude.  At ejection, the Firefly separated and seconds later the Griffin's parachute popped open. 
The Firefly immediately settled into an interesting glide pattern, staying perfectly nose-into-the-wind during its entire descent. There was absolutely no turning, stalling, or diving whatsoever. The wind actually pushed it slowly and consistently downrange, so that it appeared that the glider was flying backward.  I got the impression of watching the flight of a hovercraft rather than a glider!
I watched the bird as it appeared to fly over the nearby street and into a parking lot area on the other side, but lost sight of it before it landed.  My grandson and I set out on recovery.  Thinking that this would be a tricky recovery, we walked toward where I had last seen the glider.
"Grandpa, there it is!!", exclaimed the keen-eyed young man.  To my surprise, there was indeed a red object lying in the grass within the borders of the flying field.  The model had made a soft landing on the turf still pointed into the direction of the wind.

Looking later at the cel phone launch video of the flight, 59 seconds had elapsed from liftoff until my comment that I had lost sight of it.  The glider was probably still aloft for another 5 to 10 seconds after that.  60+ seconds is not a bad flight duration for a delta-wing parasite glider on B impulse.












On the way back to the pad area, I happened to find this on the ground...

Not sure if it's a rocket fin or the tail rudder of a small model airplane.
The Griffin-2 booster rocket was successfully recovered as well, thanks to the efforts of the enthusiastic grand-kiddo.

Following that, we put the Generic E2X up for its second flight, again on

an A8-3.  The flight went just as well as the first with the bird landing within 50 feet of the launch pad.
I had brought along the Estes Lynx and the Mini-Maggot glider, but chickened out on flying either one because of the steady 5 mph wind.
Instead, I stuck another A3 in the Hornet and sent it aloft for its 37th flight. Another perfect launch and recovery.
It was really great having my grandson along for this flight session.  Not only was he the 'recovery crew', but he served as Launch Control Officer as well, counting down and pushing the button for all five of today's flights.  He even remembered to announce control system continuity, check for low-flying aircraft, and pull the safety key after each launch.  A splendid new rocketeer in the making!

 

Back In The Day, Part 8: More Stickers!

A couple of weeks ago on The Model Rocket Building Blog, Chris Michielssen wrote a post containing some pictures of old model rocket stickers that the manufacturers used to send with orders.
I also have a number of these, except most of them are stuck to my old range boxes and are rather battle scarred and weather-worn. 
Here are some pix of my range box which I am using now. 

 

During the 30+ years that I was away from rocketry, this served as the around-the-house tool box.  Of course, now that I am a BAR, it has returned to being a range box.  Most of the stickers on it were put there in 1974-1976. All are from either Estes or AVI.  Also on top of the box is a NAR sticker, a well-faded Estes Aerospace club sticker, a flag, and a couple of random Space Shuttle stickers..

Another tool box I used back in the day features more EAC stickers. For many years after rocketry, this box held my electronics tool kit, and is now my fishing tackle box.

Also, I have this notebook with more stickers in the front cover pouch.  These well-preserved copies were never used and are still attached to their backing paper.  

Internal Engine Hook For The Hornet

Last week I posted the woeful story about the messed-up engine tube in the ol' Hornet.
Here's the re-build I came up with: a new engine tube featuring an internal engine retaining hook.
I ran across this neat little technique back sometime in the mid 1970s.  I believe it was published as a contest building tip in an issue of 'Model Rocketeer' or 'American Space Modeling'.
Sadly, I no longer have my old issues of those publications, but if there are any of you out there who might be able to cite the reference, I invite you to post a reply. For this build, I will be relying solely on memory of something I did 35+ years ago....
I recall using this engine retention method in all of my minimum-diameter contest birds and glider pods back in the day, and never once suffered a DQ due to engine ejection.  Very reliable system that beats friction-taping hands down.
The heart of this system consists of a length of .020 music wire that is formed and mounted inside the engine tube.  This size wire is thin enough that it will fit inside the tube alongside the engine casing.

To mount the wire, a slot is cut on the outside of the engine block (here a section of 13mm engine casing).  This provides clearance for the wire between the block and the inner body tube wall.
The fore end of the wire is bent to form over the top of the engine block.
The whole assembly is then glued into place inside the engine tube.

Once the glue is dry, an engine casing can be inserted to mark for the bend at the aft end of the wire.
Because the wire is designed to hook over the engine at its strongest point right next to the bend, there are no real worries about using such a thin diameter wire. Music wire is tough stuff.
The excess wire is then cut off, and, voila.... a nice little engine hook!
When prepping a model for flight with this system, a small pair of needle nose pliers or tweezers are required to grab the end of the hook and secure it over the end of the engine casing.

The only aspect of this system I haven't tested is its endurance.  The contest models I used it in back in the day were never flown more that half a dozen times.
Since I still have 65 flights left to go on the Hornet to reach that magic 100 mark, this bird will be a good test platform for the technique.
If the system proves reliable over time, I may  start incorporating it into more of my future clone and custom designed birds.  Music wire is way less expensive than manufactured engine hooks.
Stay tuned....

It IS Rocket Surgery !

Last night, I finally got around to unpacking the models which I had flown on October 7th.  OK, I am slow at getting around to doing some things....
Anyway, I went to remove the spent engine casing out of the old Mini-Brute Hornet (Remember that one?), only to find that it was a very tight fit. 
Grabbing some needle nose pliers, I twisted and pulled a bit harder on it.  To my chagrin, the engine tube and engine hook pulled out partially along with the casing.
Internal glue failure from age and flight wear n' tear, no doubt.
I eventually ended up having to extract the engine tube, tearing it out piece by piece until only the centering rings remained inside the model.
A new piece of BT-5 engine tube will slide back into the airframe, but I will have to get creative with internal gluing techniques to secure it. 
Replacing the engine hook is not possible, so I may have to settle for friction fitting engines the ol' school way.
There is another alternative which I will explore in a future post. 
Stay tuned....

Back In The Day Part 7: The Original Griffin

Earlier in the day, I posted a new-build clone of one of my old fleet designs - the Griffin-2.
This evening I found the only existing photo of the original Griffin rocket....

This pic was taken in December of 1976.  The previous final flight of the Griffin had resulted in a crash that badly crunched the body tube just above the engine mount.

Rather than scrap the model and part it out for other projects, I cut out the broken section, glued in a couple of nose blocks, and bent some coat hanger wire to fashion a 'Rocket-Thru-The-Head' gag prop.

I wore the device to many a Skywatchers/ROMAR club meet, to the delight of the spectators, and to the consternation of my fellow rocketeers!

Here, the device is helping me to decide whether or not I should launch my A-20 Demon on such a cold and somewhat blustery day. 

Nowadays, of course, I would not even think of stooping to such levels of silliness in my advanced age.....

Cheers!

BAR Rocket Fleet #110 Griffin-2

Custom Design

Carrier Vehicle for Parasite Gliders
Single Stage
Engine Type:  18mm
Recovery:  Parachute
Length:  22.25”  (56.51 cm)
Diameter:  .976”  (25mm)
Weight Empty:   .035 oz.  (38.35 gm )
Nose Cone:  Tangent Ogive
Fin Type:  Tapered Swept
Number of Fins:  3
Color Scheme:  White, Silver, Dark Blue
Date Completed:  25 October 2017

 The Griffin-2 is a re-build of a similar old-fleet model rocket constructed back in 1976.

Like its predecessor, the model is designed specifically to serve as a booster vehicle for parasite gliders, more specifically, the Estes Firefly.
The Griffin -2 is essentially a basic skill level 1 3FNC model rocket, based around a BT-50 airframe, and using standard construction techniques throughout.  The only variation is the addition of a forward located section of launch lug material for attachment of a parasite glider vehicle.  In addition, the fins are constructed of 1/16 basswood. 
A new fin shape has been designed for the Griffin 2, mainly as the original is not documented. 

 HOME PRINT DECAL

The Griffin-2 is the first model of the fleet on which a home-printed decal was used.  The image is of a ‘rampant Griffin’ design common to those used on a coat-of-arms.  The Griffin (sometimes spelled Gryphon) is a mythological creature – half eagle, half lion.  
Interestingly Griffin is also the name of the Invisible Man in the famous H.G. Wells novel.  For obvious reasons I chose not to use this as the decal symbol for this model rocket!

 

















A MYTHOLOGICAL BEAST AND A BUG…..

The Griffin-2 and Firefly in flight configuration.

MPC Lunar Patrol : Part 10

It's back to the bench for some more progress on the LP.
   The glider nose cones are now equipped with pylons and attachment pins, and have been through the filling and sanding process.

   The cones will not yet be glued onto the gliders until everything is primer'd and painted.  The noses must be removable to allow for attachment of internal weights for glide trimming.  It's also beneficial for the noses to be rotatable so that the attachment pins are on top for glide trimming. 
   All that repeated 'crashing' during trimming could risk breaking the pins, no matter how strongly they're built.
   The main booster and gliders have now been shot with the first coat of primer.  There are a lot of surfaces on this model to be sanded, so this segment of the build will take some time.

I'm hoping to have this bird flight-ready by the end of October.
Cheers!

Launch Date: 7 October, 2017

Today promised to be a fine day to head out to ‘Douglas County Proving Grounds’ to conduct some model rocket launches.  Wind and weather websites for Castle Rock indicated a wind speed of 5 mph and a temperature of 71 degrees at 3:00 p.m.   Not too bad.  It had been over three months since I last sent some models skyward, so this would be a much needed ‘flying fix’!

The first model off the pad was, of course, the Estes Mini-Brute Hornet.  This would be its 35^th flight on an A3-4T and 8-inch parachute.
As I was ‘commencing countdown’, a local bird did a fly-by to check things out!

 

After turning in its signature great boost and parachute deployment, the Hornet was carried to the southern edge of the flying field by the wind, where it landed on a gravel pathway.  Only a slight paint chip off of one fin.

Next up was the maiden flight of the MPC Super-Star clone.  The model turned in a picture perfect high flight on a ½A engine.  The streamer deployed and landed the model fairly close to the launch area.

 

The Super-Star was quickly re-prepped and put up for a second flight.  Again on a ½A engine.  Again, another perfect flight and recovery.  No damage to the bird after two flights, except for a small amount of paint bubbling from the hot engine casings. I may try this bird on an A engine when I can get to the bigger field at Dove Valley Park in Centennial.  

Next bird to fly was the old-fleet Delta II.  Equipped with a B4-4 and a 12 inch parachute, the model turned in a nice flight.  The delay was a bit longer than I would have liked, as the model was headed down when the ejection charge went off, but all was recovered safely.

I had intended to end the flying session at this point, but the last launch of the Delta II had attracted the attention of three boys who were tossing a football around on another part of the field.  They wandered over to see the rockets.

“Are you going to fly any more?” they asked.

Not one to miss an opportunity to introduce newbies to our wonderful hobby, I decided to put the Delta-II up again for their benefit.  As I prepped the bird, I fielded a LOT of questions, and explained what model rocketry was all about.

I let one of the lads push the button to send the bird on its way for its second flight of the day on a B6-4 engine.  Another great flight, this time accompanied by the ‘Wows’ and ‘Awesomes’ from the young onlookers.  They enthusiastically went on recovery and brought the bird back.

    I had one more bird in my model box – the diminutive Mosquito.  This one is a quick prep, so I had it on the pad in no time, and let another of the boys launch it.  A ¼A engine took it quite high.  We all strained to see where it went.

“There it is!!” one of the boys shouted, pointing.  I looked, and sure enough I caught sight of a falling object.
    Engine casing.   We watched as it descended and bounced on the turf about 30 feet away. 
    No rocket though. 



It took about a ten minute search before one of the boys found it at the east edge of the soccer field, quite a distance from the pad.  He received a dollar for his efforts.
Incidentally, this was flight  number 7 on this particular Mosquito.
With that done, I packed up to head for home. This local field has certainly proven itself totally suitable for model rocket flying, at least up to B engines.  Maybe even some C an D flights on larger birds. 
    We shall see.
   Anyway, today’s session: 6 great flights.  No damaged or lost models.  Perhaps a couple of new model rocketeers in the making.

I’ll take it.

Just Catching Up....

 

Back in 2016, I had a version of this blog that I ended up taking down for various reasons known only to me.  I had intended to re-post some of the original entries here on this newer updated version, but, alas, I found that I could no longer access them.    Bummer!

And I hadn’t saved any drafts of them either.  Double Bummer!

So, I will just have to sit down and re-write the material, take new pics,  and re-post them over the next couple of weeks.

Also, I haven’t progressed too much further on the Lunar Patrol build series, so there hasn’t been a great deal to report  there.

WHADDA SLACKER!

   I haven’t had a chance to get out and do much flying lately either.  It seems there have constantly been other things scheduled on those ‘ideal weather’ days.  Not to mention that, a couple of weeks ago, I took a floor dive while playing basketball, and have had to spend many a recent evening with a hot compress on a sore, swollen knee.  Nothing was broken or torn, but I guess I need to be a little more careful at my age.

Anyway, I have a lot of rocketry stuff planned for the very near future, so stay tuned!

Cheers.

BAR Rocket Fleet #111 Super-Star

Sport Model

High Performance
MPC Kit Clone
Designed by G. Harry Stine
Date Completed:  14 September, 2017

 Designed for 13mm mini engines

Length:  254mm
Diameter:  13.7mm
Weight:  10.2g
Fins: 3
Nose cone: Tangent ogive,   Approx.  4.1 Caliber
Color scheme: white, dark blue with red and dark blue trim

 The construction of this model began back in July of 2016, shortly after I became a BAR.  At the time, I had gathered the parts to build several mini engine birds in parallel.  The Super-Star was one of them, but the project eventually got pushed to the back of the workbench in favor of other rocket builds.

Even though this is a standard 3FNC model rocket, I reasoned that no fleet should be complete without a high performance Stine-designed bird.
The original kit was introduced back in 1971 as part of MPC’s Mini-Roc product offering. These birds were powered by a new line of 13mm engines in the 1/2A to B total impulse ranges.   At the time, competition modelers using these new minimum diameter 13mm birds and engines essentially re-wrote the NAR record books, especially in the low-power altitude categories.  The Super-Star was easily capable of an ‘out-of-sight’ flight on a B3 engine.
My build started with the plans being downloaded from the ‘Ye Olde Rocket Plans’ website, and dimensioned around an Estes BT-5 body tube.  I really enjoyed reading through the kit instructions.  They were obviously written by Mr. Stine himself –full of, well…Stine-isms!  It was as if one was reading a chapter straight out of the Handbook of Model Rocketry, except it was dedicated to a single model design.
Construction was fairly straight forward.  Initially, I had intended to turn the nose cone on the lathe, but I plopped on a spare Estes PNC-5AW cone I happened to have hanging around, and found that it would be quite serviceable.  Of course, this takes the model out of the ‘exact replica’ category, but I’m not overly concerned about that.
A small amount of clay weight was pressed and CA’d into the tip of the nose cone to give the bird a little more front-end ‘ballast’.
Since I am strictly a sport flier, I opted not to sand an airfoil into the fins, rounding the edges instead.  I also slapped on a standard launch lug.  This bird will go plenty high enough for my purposes without all of the performance optimizations.

 A DECAL TRIUMPH

 The decals used to decorate the Super Star came from the red, white, and blue sheet in the current Estes waterslide kit. 

I did try one thing that was really a test of my eyesight and manual dexterity – the digits making up the fleet number (111) were cut from the corner of one of the Estes decal sheets.  These were part of the tiny lettering that makes up the sheet product number and date.  The numbers are around 2mm in height.  It was no easy task to get them cut from the sheet, immersed in water, and positioned correctly on the model.   A magnifier lamp, micro-tip tweezers, and an Xacto blade came into heavy play here.  
The endeavor worked out pretty well for a 60+ year old guy who has to wear reading glasses in order to see anything at all!

Overall, the Super-Star build produced a nice looking bird that I am proud to have in my fleet.  It will definitely be on the launch pad at the very next flight session.

 

 

 

A REAL Blast From The Past...

One of my early childhood memories is that of a Nike Hercules missile that was on display in downtown Colorado Springs where I grew up..  I remember always being thrilled whenever I was in the car with my folks and we happened to drive by that missile. 
Of course, being around 3-5 years old, I knew nothing of military missiles.
In my eyes, this thing was an honest-to goodness SPACESHIP! 
I was quite convinced that the little access hatch on the side of the rocket was a door for miniature spacemen!
 I was also completely unaware that, at the time, a group of people in nearby Denver, and even in my home town of Colorado Springs were quite busy laying the groundwork for a model hobby involving missiles, rockets, and spaceships. 
Not to mention that a mere dozen or so years later, I would be deeply immersed in that hobby myself!
Or that another 40 or so years hence, I would still be deeply immersed in that hobby.
So, just the other day, I was thinking about that Nike Hercules missile which sparked my imagination so many years ago.  I knew that the vehicle had disappeared from display sometime in the late 1960's, and I wondered whatever became of it.
A quick search on the Wonderful World Wide Web revealed that there is a Nike Hercules currently on display at the Peterson AFB Air and Space Museum in Colorado Springs.  I wondered if this could be the same missile.
I found a website for the Museum, and shot them a quick e-mail inquiring if this was the same vehicle.
I got the response this morning....

"Mr. Mitton,

You are correct, our display Nike Hercules was presented to El Paso County in July 1959 by the US Army Air Defense Command, headquartered at Ent Air Force Base, and on display in front of the El Paso County Courthouse (now the Colorado Springs Pioneer Museum) for a number of years.  It came into our possession in the late 1970's when the North American Air Defense Command established a Visitor Center on then-Peterson Field in 1976.  The NORAD Visitor Center was replaced with the Peterson Air and Space Museum when the museum was established in 1981.

I've attached a photo of the bronze plaque that was part of the Nike missile display when it was located downtown."

Cool!

Here is a picture of the plaque...

and of the Nike Hercules itself on display at the museum...

Cheers!

MPC Lunar Patrol, Part 9, Booster Assembled

It's back to the workbench to plug away at the Lunar Patrol Build.
For starters, I procured Mrs. BlastFromThePast's hair drier to attempt a fix for the body tube warping mentioned a few posts back.
Placing expended engine casings in all of the effected tubing for support, the assembly was hit with hot air to soften the glue.
It worked.
Now the  model is the correct shape.  An engine fits nicely in the center tube, and the gliders fit much better between the fins.
The last items to attach now are the two half-inch sections of launch lug inside the glider support tubes.

These function to center the gliders and provided extra support to the edge of the tubes.
Construction is now complete on the booster rocket. 

 

Next step is shooting primer and performing additional surface prep for painting.