And Now For Something Way Cool !...

 Yesterday afternoon I was hanging around the house when the doorbell rang.

It was my neighbor from across the street, Mike Perreault.

As you all remember, Mike was featured in my recent post covering the April 17th launch here in Castle Rock.

Mike is new to the hobby, and is as enthusiastic as they come.

Turns out he had just returned home from a trip to Penrose, Colorado.

He had managed to score two slots for the special scheduled tour of the Estes facility, so he and his wife spent the day at the 'Model Rocket Capitol of the World'!

How cool is that?

Mike described the tour, which was personally led by Bill Stine himself. They got to see most all of the operations there, except for motor manufacturing, of course. 

Part of the tour package included an Antar kit signed by Mr. Stine.

As an added bonus, Vern and Gleda Estes were both on hand at the event, meeting the guests and autographing various items.

They graciously added their signatures to the two kits presented to Mike and his wife.

Mike had brought one of them over to my home to show it to me.

I was delighted to see a pristine Antar kit bearing the signatures of so much model rocketry 'royalty'.

Then, to my immense surprise and amazement, Mike handed the kit to me.

"This is Yours", he declared.

HOLY MOLEY !!

He insisted that I have it, pointing out that he has another at home.

The item, never to be opened, now proudly has a special spot in my model rocket display cabinet.

THANK YOU A BILLION, MIKE !!!!

As I am writing this, an interesting thought has struck me -

What are the chances of two such rare model rocketry collector's items ending up residing in two homes on the same street in the same town?

Wow!

Cheers!

7th BAR Birthday!

 Once again, it's time to celebrate another consecutive year of involvement in the model rocketry hobby.

I haven't exactly yet decided what I will do to mark the occasion.

Maybe go out and launch a rocket, weather permitting.

Or possibly sit down and process an order with Estes or AC Supply.

Perhaps the 'partying' will be limited to quietly immersing myself for the entire day in a rocketry build project in the basement La-BOR-atory.

Or, organize rocketry files on the PC....

....build parachutes ? ...

Maybe not that one.

....take a road trip to Colorado Springs and pop into Apogee Components for a visit.....

.....crack open the collection of massive tomes containing  the 'Old Fleet Days' material and lose myself in memories....

...surf the net to catch up on all the latest forum posts, blogs, and other model rocket stuff....

...write another blog post......

The possibilities are endless.

Whichever course I choose, it might just involve a box of Krispy Kreme doughnuts and a can o' Dew!

Cheers!

More Deltie, Please!....

The Colorado Front range has seen quite a bit of overcast, rainy weather this past week, so there has presented itself precious little time to get outside to paint models or do anything in the way of flying them.

I did encounter an afternoon with a bit of respite from the drizzle when I managed to get out and shoot white primer on the three Deltie gliders.

These are now in the process of being sanded with 400 grit to smooth out all the surfaces.

The idea here is not to sand down to bare wood, but instead to provide a smooth 'canvas' for providing coloring with permanent markers. 

The primer coat prevents the marker fluid from soaking into the balsa wood and producing fuzzy edges.

The booster rocket...

After accidentally breaking off yet another balsa glider support pin, I decided 'enough is enough'. 

Those weak fin end pieces have now been removed, and I will be re-building them with stronger basswood versions.

More to come.....

More Progress On The Deltie AirSLOW...

 I've added some steps to this build that don't appear in the original kit instructions. 

First off, some CWF is applied to all of the small gaps in the wing and fuselage joints, then sanded smooth.

I've also chosen to round the leading and trailing edges of all the wings and stabs, as well as the fuselages.

These embellishments are quite time consuming, but they make for a cleaner, more attractive build. They also help to cut down on overall drag.

All of the balsa surfaces are then given a 400 grit smoothing operation to complete the cleanup.

I think the original instructions, which show all the edges squared and unfinished, were geared more toward getting this bird built and out on the flying field as quickly as possible, rather than taking the time to finish it properly. 

What's wrong with this picture?

Yep, boys and girls, you guessed it. When I was laying out all of the parts on the balsa sheet, I failed to pay attention to grain direction on the vertical stabs.

D'oh !!!!!

A rookie mistake.

I didn't even notice this until I started all the sanding. As a workaround fix, I applied some CA to all of the end-grain edges in the hopes that this will be enough to strengthen them.

If not, I'll probably have to break them off, and make a new set.  I'll see how things go with trim testing and powered flight, first.

Anyway, this upcoming week promises to be pretty decent, weather wise, so I should be able to get these babies outside to shoot on some thin primer coats.

The REAL BlastFromThePast Workshop!

 In the past, whenever I have posted pictures of my workshop here on the blog, they have always depicted a clean, organized, uncluttered, shiny work environment.

Those pics, that give the impression that I am a consummate neat-freak, are completely mis-leading.

Here is the reality:

This is the scene that greeted me early this morning when I descended into the murky depths of the basement.

It's a much more accurate representation of what my environs look like while I'm in the midst of rocket-building, multi-tasking mode.

Over the course of the last few days, I've managed to completely cover sixteen feet of workbench space with rocket stuff.

Time to don the apron, pull out the shovel, shop-vac, and cleaning rags....

Back To The Deltie Airshow

Not much longer after the finishing touches were applied to the Mountaineer IV model, I had the pieces, parts, and partially completed assemblies of the Edmonds Deltie Airshow arrayed back on the work bench.

Last night, the remaining balsa parts were cut out and the three gliders were completely assembled.

All that remains on them is to perform some cleanup sanding, primer application, and coloring.

I found a bit of an 'oops' on the booster rocket that must be repaired. 

In the sometimes mess and maelstrom that my work bench can often become, one of the small glider support tabs had broken off.

These tiny balsa parts seem to be exceedingly fragile, so I may end up papering over all of them to provide some extra strength.

After all, they are the parts intended to keep the gliders in place during boost and coast phases.

In parallel to this build, the EAC Viper also got it's two errant fins glued back on, filleted, and painted over.

The rocket is (almost) good as new and completely flight-ready.

Moving on...

Back In The Day, Part 51 - The Old Fleet Mountaineers

Having just completed the Mountaineer IV model rocket, I thought it would be a good time to re-cap the history of this series.

 In the late 1970s, I flew three Omega Mountaineer model rockets for the purpose of launching Cineroc flights for Herb Desind of Silver Spring, Maryland.

Mountaineers I and II were built by Herb and mailed to me.  Since these two rockets were not part of my personal collection, they did not have fleet numbers assigned to them.

Mountaineer I, shown below, was last flown at Breckenridge, Colorado. The model and attached Cineroc 8mm movie camera drifted into the nearby woods and was lost.

Mountaineer II was launched several times, each flight carrying a Cineroc. The collage below is the only picture I have of the bird.

I don't recall what became of that rocket, whether it was lost or destroyed.

Mountaineer III, fleet # 71, was built by myself in 1979. It also flew several Cineroc missions for Mr. Desind.  The model was part of the general rocketry sale in 1985 when I exited the hobby.

A quick note: My old flight logs indicate that the launch shown above was made in Colorado Springs during peak coverage of a partial solar eclipse.  My intention was to see if there were any visible effects on the ground from a few hundred feet altitude. I'm uncertain if I still have the video footage from this flight.

All of these Mountaineer/Omega models were such a joy to fly. Sturdy, good-looking, and reliable workhorses, they always performed very well with the 'Mighty-D' engines. 

I fully anticipate that my newly built Mountaineer-IV will follow that tradition and prove to be just as much fun to launch as those from the days of yore, and log lots of great video-cam flights.

Cheers!