LarryBAR99

Long time no post.  Well, I live in the Chicago area, which currently has snow on the ground and more expected tonight.  I almost went to my club's "Polar Bear" launch in January but was concerned the air temperature (the high was 19 F) would prevent my rocket's parachutes from opening.  Estes recommends launching above 40 F when using their plastic parachutes. Rocket-wise, I've been busy updating my blog with pictures from my launches in 1999~2004.  The site I used to host on geocities.com was shut down and all my pictures were pre-digital so I had to find the original prints and scan them to rebuild these memories.  They're linked at the top of my main page under " LARRY'S FLEET ".  I've also added flight pictures from our earlier and pictures and videos from my more recent launches under LAUNCH REPORTS on the main page. I've also done some minor repair work on some of my fleet.  First, the "escape tower" broke off my Mercury...

A couple of months ago my wife asked, "Why don't you join a club to find other people to launch your rockets with?"  Since I always listen to my wife's advice, I joined the National Association of Rocketry  and then joined a local NAR club, the Northern Illinois Rocketry Association .  Yesterday I drove to the far western suburbs for their last scheduled club launch of the year at the East Branch Forest Preserve in Glendale Heights.  First, of course, Google Maps took me to the wrong side of the large park so I had to pull up the emailed announcement and follow the directions to the entrance "about 1000 feet north of the railroad bridge." When I arrived I found a dozen cars parked on the edge of a field, overlooking a large field of open prairie.  Several parents were walking in with their children for a scout group's launch, which NIRA was hosting.  I introduced myself to a couple of club members, including the current president.  It quickly be...

Kit-bashing and resurrecting old rockets from online plans Sometimes I read about a cool rocket that’s no longer made.  Some of these live on at sites like eBay, but I refuse to pay $350 or more for a kit I might lose on the first launch!  Luckily, Estes, Apogee and several other vendors offer PDFs instructions of many of their old or current kits.  Sites like JimZ ( http://www.spacemodeling.org/jimz/estes.htm) , Ninfinger ( http://www.ninfinger.org/rockets/rockets.html ) and occasionally RocketReviews.org provide links to PDFs users have scanned from original instructions, often with scans of fins and decals.  Usually all you need to do to build one is order parts and cut your own fins.  If you need to cut fins, print the fin diagram, spray the back with a removable adhesive like Fast Grab Tacky Spray, press in place and cut the fins through the sheet.  Of course, if you’ve got a spare $2,000 or so you can get a laser cutter and program it to cut your fin...

From the 2005 Estes catalog (the last year it was sold): When thinking about all the old kits on my shelf, trying to decide what to build next, I remembered reading lots of notes on RocketReviews about converting the Estes FatBoy to use D or E engines.    The kit comes with through the wall balsa fins that anchor the fins with the engine mount.  I’ll try to leverage this and use a larger launch lug (3/16”) to stabilize liftoff with a more powerful engine.  I can j ust use the BT-80 card stock centering rings that came in the Estes D & E mount kit (#3159) glued together for double thickness, instead of trying to cut basswood centering rings. I'll use a 4” Apogee E engine hook (#24049).   I'll need to c heck if there's enough space for chute & wadding w/ longer engine mount.   If not, I m ay need to build a baffle. I call it  DE’ FatBoy  or “ De’ FatBoy ” OpenRocket predicts a 24 mm mount DE’ FatBoy will fly: 416’ on C11-5 847’ on D12-5...

The Estes Pathinder was a Skill level 3 kit, kit #1997, sold from 1988-1990.   I bought it at my local Ace Hardware store for $10.99, probably in 1999 or 2000, and left it on my shelf for 18 or more years.   The kit states you should only fly it on D engines, but I plan on modifying it to also fly with E engines (same diameter but an inch longer) First I upgraded the 2.75” engine mount tube & D hook to 4” 24 mm E engine tube.  Using super glue I glued on the 24 mm screw off engine retaine r.  I also glued an engine block at the top of the engine mount tube. When building the Pathfinder I decided to use my Estes fin alignment guide for the first time to attach all four fins at once.  The guide is something I bought and forgot about (it was buried in the parts box). After assembly was finished I recognized that one fin was attached a quarter inch below the other three. I decided to live with it…. It turns out that Estes included the WRONG launch lug...

This is a Skill level 4, D powered Estes kit. #1904; a similar current kit (#3228) sold for $26.99 in 2020.   There was an o riginal 1904 kit listed for $70 at https://www.launchlabrocketry.com/shop/the-vault 9/22/21.   I f ound my original Commonwealth receipt from when I purchased mine for $29.99 on 7/6/2000. I’ve always wanted to build a V2, not because of it’s use in WWII but because it was the basis, after the war, of jump starting the American space program.  As such, I spent a lot of time looking at different paint patterns for the V2, since I didn't want to do a camouflage pattern for war, before settling on the final yellow and black scheme.   I bought this kit in 2000, but it was a reissue of an earlier kit from 1984 (and has since been re-reissued).  They included the original 1984 20-step instructions with a cover page describing the new engine hook they provided and a few other minor updates.  This kit was designed to fly on a D12 engine, but...

For my next project I decided to build the Ansari X Prize winning SpaceshipOne, a Skill level kit 2, #2191 (from 2004), reported to go 400’ on C6-3.   I paid $16.99 in 2004 and had it sitting on my shelf.   I actually got to stand next to the real SpaceShipOne and it's mother ship on July 30, 2005 at the Oshkosh experimental aircraft fly in; SpaceShipOne and it’s mother ship were on their way to Washington DC to their permanent home in the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum. Estes had a couple of versions of the SpaceShipOne, including a Ready To Fly version, a foam body version and my version with a short body tube, plastic nose cone and tail section you have to saw apart, and lots of balsa fins and stickers. While building this kit, I had some issues with the plastic cement used to retain the engine mount causing the rear boat tail to collapse, so I tried to fill the surface with wood putty and sand.  I ended up priming, sanding, and painting the whole rocket white...