old treasures

[Green Dragon]

agian, looking through photos I already have ( will get pics of the new projects, promise, lol ) .

and wanted to post / ask - what are members ' treasures' .. like the old rocket you either never fly, or always fly, or that holy grail kit, whatever...

please post pics amd details WHY it's special to YOU .

( might be a rehashed topic, but what the heck :-)

...

Photo attached is of my vintage Astron Scrambler.

When I first got into rocketry, circa October 76 (my brothday present), I remember seeing a Scrambler once in the hobby shop, only ever saw that one kiit, one time.
It always stuck in my mind, and wanted one for years, with no luck .

During my collecting phase in the mid 80's I finally found this one ( don't recall who I got it from, one of the collectors of the time, might;ve been Danny Almond or M. Jungclass,lol ).

Anyways, opened it up and built it , rather well, too, although not as perfect as I'd do now.( skill was there, desire to have it flawless / take more time in finishing was not, lol ) .
One of the few oldies I ever opened up, too .

It's flown exactly ONCE, don't recall the date off my head, but could find out if need be from my photos / records - it flew at a NAR contest launch in Manassas, VA ( ECRM-something, 15 maybe ?).
flew with a Herb Desind Cineroc payload on three C6 engines - perfect flight and recovery.

After Herb passed on, I never could bring myself to fly it agian ( plus was worried about loosing or damaging the one I always wanted - even today I'm apprehensive about that, parts to clone one have not showed up yet, maybe sometime .. Carl ? , lol )

SO, it was originally one of my personal 'Holy grails', and now has too much sentimental value to go out and chance wrecking or loosing it - that would make this the only one I'd refuse to fly.
( although my vintage builtup never been flown Laser X might soon get flown, now that Semroc has replacement kits if something goes bad)

well, there's my story, now for yours, lol .

~ AL

[ghrocketman]

Someone cloned that one for a while...might have been Rocketpad, but not sure....I know I built one of the clones last year.
The only part for the kit that is not easily available is the PST65 clear payload tubing.
The correct cone (BNC-65AF) is offered by Carl at Semroc, as well as the TA-6065 balsa adapter, BT60 body tubing and BT20 engine mount tubing.
Decals are available from Tango Papa, and I'd also bet you could talk PDR into producing you a set of decals.
The PST65 tubing must be available somewhere because about 2 years ago it was easy to find Scrambler clones on ebay.
At least 2-3 times a year I see an original Astron Scrambler kit on ebay for sale, but they usually sell for WELL over $100.00.

[Green Dragon]

hmm.. did not know Carl had the cone / adapter ( I might still have a vintage adapter laying around,actually ).

problem then is the clear tubing ... if anyone has any leads or inside info ????

iirc, the decals are already up on Kurt's page , so that's easily solved.

I'd love to build a clone Scrambler to fly, so I can continue to save my 'treasured one' :o

~ AL

[Ltvscout]

hmm.. did not know Carl had the cone / adapter ( I might still have a vintage adapter laying around,actually ).

problem then is the clear tubing ... if anyone has any leads or inside info ????

iirc, the decals are already up on Kurt's page , so that's easily solved.

I'd love to build a clone Scrambler to fly, so I can continue to save my 'treasured one' :o

~ AL
Kurt keeps talking about having Euclid make some of the mylar payload sections. One of these days we may see them. ;)

[jflis]

For me it would have to be my Sprint'73

I bought and built this in 1973, at a time where I kept logs of every rocket I flew. After a while I got tired of keeping records of things that no one was going to ever read so I slowly stopped keeping records, however I noticed that I had over 100 flights on my Sprint, so I kept track of that one...

Last year, at NARAM, I had the opportunity to have Vern Estes fly her on her 500th and last flight. His lovely wife Gleda launched her on her 499th flight. Other than the shock cord, streamer and launch lug, she is all original.

After the flight I donated the rocket to Vern and Gleda as a thank you for all they have done for this fun hobby.

The neatest stats on this rocket are:

Purchase price: $2.50
Estimated total cost of motors used: $765
Estimated flight distance of this model (liftoff to landing) 71.96 miles

:D

Here is a picture of Vern Estes loading it on the pad. (http://fliskits.com/photo_album/2005/naram47/images3/p1010342.jpg)

You can see the photo album page (part 3) of this flight by clicking here. (http://fliskits.com/photo_album/2005/naram47/index3.htm)

Needless to say, this was a very special day for me :)

jim

[snaquin]

*snip* what are members ' treasures' .. like the old rocket you either never fly, or always fly, or that holy grail kit, whatever...

please post pics amd details WHY it's special to YOU .*snip*

~ AL

Well AL, first off very nice Scrambler :D I love the color scheme!

Second, no making fun of my hair or my spindly little 16 year old arms in the pics below ..... but hands down and without a doubt - The FSI Mach 1 Dart with RX-1 Thruster System was the "holy grail" for me at that time circa 1978 :cool:

Ah, the Mach 1 System. Touted as "A Model Rocket System With The Ability To BREAK THE SOUND BARRIER". It was unlike ANYTHING else I had ever seen and I just had to have it. All in all I probably built and flew about a half a dozen of these in two stage configuration.

I did recover both the booster and the sustainer. That was also the only time I ever snapped a decent lift off picture that wasn't just a full frame of F100-0 smoke. I always used a full 10 foot length of the thin aluminized mylar streamers from CMR in the sustainer but only spotted one of the sustainers at apogee and manged to recover it. I remember being amazed at how long it took for that little rocket to free fall from that altitude.

I once simmed that rocket in RockSim but I think the RockSim estimates are conservative. It does show 729mph (darn close to mach) and an altitude of 3,248 feet but I could swear it got much more altitude than my SSRS Lasor-114 with an F25 or F67 with a very long delay. It seemed more like a G motor shot in a small sounding rocket, but that could just be the way I remember it ..... :)

I later built and flew several with a D18-0/D20-0 boosters made from a piece of FSI HRT-10 tubing cut to slightly shorter than the length of an F100 and put a couple of centering rings at each end to center a HRT-8 tube inside it that was cut only slightly longer than the HRT-10 so I could build up a small glue fillet on the forward end of the HRT-8 tube and centering ring to simulate the rounded edge of the original booster - if that makes sense. I think it used the same fins as the Nova. I used D18-0/D20-0 in those staged to FSI D and E's in the sustainer for less expensive flights.

I still my original from my only recovered flight and I think a few of the D sized boosters I used up in the attic somewhere ..... :o

**********

And for those of you who thought I would post something like an EnerJet rocket for my holy grail shame on you.

(Ok, I guess that would be the 2650 sounding rocket. Here's one flown with (3) G55-10W motors circa 1995). Sorry, I just couldn't resist

:D

[Green Dragon]

Cool stories, both Jim and Steve.

just what we want to see posted, cool historical / personal items.

Jim's was just a neat story, I can't imagine getting that many flights from one bird, most we've ever seen was maybe 35-40 from my Astron Bandit before it burnt through.
As a tie-in to my own story - I've met vern a few times, and one I recall was at LDRS-5, Herb Desind was flying his 10,000 Cineroc flight, and Vern turned it on and ran .. I have pics someplace , will have to see if I can find em.

Steve - Dart looks good, and, personally, we never got one back either.
looks like you have the same ' tiny field with lots trees' same as us, though - might hurt your recovery odds. lol .
I also noted your comparison to SSRS LASOR series kits, and have to note we never recovered any of our LASOR 114 / 134 on F motors either, so pertty similar, lol.

Keep the pics / stories / etc coning :-)

~ AL

[Green Dragon]

Well AL, first off very nice Scrambler :D I love the color scheme!
:D


Thanks.

story on that ,actually - the Scrambler package photo is black and white, and I did not have a catalog on hand with the Scrabler in it, at the time I was building that * and of course, no YORP,Jim Z,etc in 1985 :-) .

So I used the blue - wasn't until much later when I finally saw one in a catalog, that I realised it was orange , personally, I still like the blue.

~ AL

[JSP]

I never actually flew the Dart, but I had my own FSI insanity. I built the "Penetrator," which was an FSI EOS with clipped fins and a D-12 booster. I flew it as a D12-0 to F7 combo. I wasn't going for speed, just raw altitude. I actually got it back the first time I flew it, which was amazing since you could hear the silly thing burning even after it was completely out of sight. However, on the second flight the Rocket Gods were appeased. I think it's somewhere in Europe now.... :eek:

[snaquin]

I also noted your comparison to SSRS LASOR series kits, and have to note we never recovered any of our LASOR 114 / 134 on F motors either, so pertty similar, lol.

Keep the pics / stories / etc coning :-)

~ AL

My Lasor 114 and Lasor 134 would place as second runners up to the FSI Mach 1 Dart as far as "treasures" that flew often. Mine were composite F and G motor eating machines. Again, I just couldn't resist a sounding rocket that made claims with the starter set that I could break the sound barrier with the Lasor 114 and Crown F67-12 motors.

http://www.ninfinger.org/~sven/rockets/catalogs/crown82/82crown12.html

I bought the first one of each of these as kits and later sent Mark Mayhle an order for a bunch of his hardwood nose cones and heavy walled airframe tubes and hardwood bulkheads to build more from his Crown parts. I now have Semroc tubes and solid basswood nose cones custom turned by Sandman to meet the Crown specs to build at least three of these.

When I flew my original Lasor rockets I had a pretty good recovery rate on F and G motors. I only lost a couple and I attribute that to a fairly quick decent rate with a streamer with the heavier hardwood parts. They didn't seem to drift as far as the lighter FSI rockets. I flew the one in the attached pics on 5/15/88 on an F67-12 without the payload section as suggested in the catalog for a supersonic attempt. Don't know if it achieved it's advertised top speed but they were fast flights. I used my old Pentax ME Super and I would shoot at 1/2000sec and that still wasn't enough to stop it from bluring :D

[snaquin]

Thanks.

story on that ,actually - the Scrambler package photo is black and white, and I did not have a catalog on hand with the Scrabler in it, at the time I was building that * and of course, no YORP,Jim Z,etc in 1985 :-) .

So I used the blue - wasn't until much later when I finally saw one in a catalog, that I realised it was orange , personally, I still like the blue.

~ AL

It's a unique color scheme, that's why I like it.

[snaquin]

I never actually flew the Dart, but I had my own FSI insanity. I built the "Penetrator," which was an FSI EOS with clipped fins and a D-12 booster. I flew it as a D12-0 to F7 combo. I wasn't going for speed, just raw altitude. I actually got it back the first time I flew it, which was amazing since you could hear the silly thing burning even after it was completely out of sight. However, on the second flight the Rocket Gods were appeased. I think it's somewhere in Europe now.... :eek:

That's really cool! I wouldn't have guessed that was an FSI EOS because of the clipped fins but it has a sleek look built like that. At first glance it looks like an Echo-1 for the booster but that would be too small of a diameter compared to the EOS. Did you custom make the booster? Must have been an awesome flight. I loved those FSI F7 and F100 motors.

[barone]

......The FSI Mach 1 Dart with RX-1 Thruster System was the "holy grail" for me at that time circa 1978 :cool:

.....I once simmed that rocket in RockSim but I think the RockSim estimates are conservative. It does show 729mph (darn close to mach) and an altitude of 3,248 feet .....
:D

Oooohhhhh yyyyeeeeeeeeaaaaaahhhhhhhh!

The Dart with the thruster system was awesome. Would really scoot off the pad. Any launch shot was a good one. I had my father-in-law video taping mine when I first launched it. Thought the booster had blown up. Always seemed to have a problem with the FSI motors CATOing. But, when I recovered the booster intact, I assumed I had broken the sound barrier. Circa 1987. Wish I had bought more of the thrusters.......(booster was just the FSI motor with fins glued on and a coupler to fit into the sustainer BT).

Don
NAR 53455

[JSP]

That's really cool! I wouldn't have guessed that was an FSI EOS because of the clipped fins but it has a sleek look built like that. At first glance it looks like an Echo-1 for the booster but that would be too small of a diameter compared to the EOS. Did you custom make the booster? Must have been an awesome flight. I loved those FSI F7 and F100 motors.

Actually, it WAS an Echo 1. I lost the top stage and then got inspiration.
Yeah, there's something about a black powder F that composites just can't touch. Fire- Smoke- occasional catos..... It's life on the edge!