The Old Delta II Rides Again!

This model is one of the two ‘old fleet’ rockets that were retained when the collection was sold in 1985.

Like the old fleet Hornet, the Delta II / Astrocam110 spent 30+ years stored in a RubberMaid tote along with other model rocket items.

In early 2016, when my BAR activities began, the Delta/Astrocam110 tandem was pulled from storage and put on a display stand in the workshop.

It wasn’t long before I made the determination that the model would be restored to flying condition and launched again in the BAR era.  The Astrocam110 payload will not be flown, because of the inherent risk of losing or damaging what I consider to be a collector’s item. 

I had entertained the thought of trying to get ahold of some 110 film cartridges and fly the Astrocam110 as intended.  After researching, I found that such film is prohibitively expensive (at least on my hobby budget).  Also, finding a place that will process the film might be difficult and costly. Better to leave well-enough alone.

Instead, a new payload section has been built to fly atop the Delta II booster.  This consists of a length of BT-50, a PNC-50 nose cone, and a lathe-turned balsa transition section.

A new balsa transition section fresh off the lathe.

Curiously, when the Delta II/Astrocam was first pulled from the storage box, I popped the camera payload off and was met with the strong odor of burnt black powder, as if the model had been launched only yesterday!

“No way”, I exclaimed, “This thing’s been in storage since 1985!”

I soon found out why…

The original Delta II / Astrocam 110 model.

Apparently, back in the day, I had prepped the model for another flight, which never took place. 

Inside the body tube were still packed the recovery wadding, folded parachute, and shock cord. 

The wadding had essentially sealed the tube, and the BP smell from the model’s last flight (April 25^th, 1981, according to the flight logs) was still present after all these years.   

Go figure!

Now, fully equipped with a new payload section and shock cord, the Delta II is quite ready to log many additional flight missions.

Possible future plans for the model may call for constructing yet another payload section designed to carry one of those small spy video cameras. 

For now, however, I will enjoy flying old number 79 as a sport bird.

Here are a couple more pix of the payload section under construction.....