New Estes Patriot Citation Build
 

I received my Estes Patriot Citation kit today and will begin building Mon. My camera is in the shop so I wont be able to download pictures until Mon. The kit looks great and I will compare it to my Vintage Citation boxed Patriot and my 1970s/80s bagged Patriot.

Great! How do the decals look?

I have a standing order for many of them with a discount retailer. It will be interesting to see if the decals stay on at Mach 2.

Jerry

It would be interesting to see if ANYTHING in that kit survives at Mach 2.

I will be including an original Estes Patriot in each M2 kit just for the decals. The original parts work just fine with a B6-2. :D

They look pretty good, I will post pictures of all three kits I have and the decals.

I am able to post pictures today, so I have all three of my kits open to show the minor differences. The New Citation decals look good and they are kind of a mix between the old Citation and the late 70s 80s version. The Vintage Citation stripes are longer than the second generation and the new Citation has the same length stripes as the Vintage boxed Citation. The Eagles wrap around the decal is shorter in height in the vintage Boxed Patriot and the two bagged versions are the same height. The old box Patriot decal has white ink where the newer kits its clear, probably since those areas of the rocket are painted white. The only other minor difference is the Estes Logo on the new released kit is over the T in both the Patriot wording.... In the two older kits the Estes Logo is over the T on one Patriot and over the P on the other. The motor mount tube is shorter on the new released kit vs the older two kits. Obviously the engine holder hook is different on the newer kit. The laser cut balsa is spot on with the exact same size fin as the older kits. The last thing to note is the 3 cones are identical in shape and size but obviously different generation nose cones. All and all a great bring back kit. More to follow.

Couple of more pictures

Which kit has the shorter main body tubes? Appears to be the boxed Citation version. Sorry, trying to view on a small tablet.

Chas

If the Estes logo doesn't touch the gold Patriot decal, it can be separated and moved to match the 1st gen Citation and 2nd gen bagged kits. Only us old guys with tattered catalogs would care. ;)

The new kit with the white tube is shorter. The vintage bagged and boxed kit use the same size brown tube.

Thank you. Guess I will use a brown tube.

By how much?

Well, based on the mat they're laid on, which has 1 inch squares, about an inch....

I wonder why they did that. Must be some other kit with the same size tube.

A one inch shorter tube is enough for most BAR's to notice the difference in spacing between the decals. I've got a crap load of BT-60, so when I get around to building one, I will substitute the classic length. I'll choose between the new kit and the clone...the best looking one will stay hanging on the wall. The other will become a great demo for the school rocket day. :cool:

I just want to be clear, It is the Bt-20 tube that is shorter than the two older Patriot kits. Used to be a Bt-20B tube.

LOL! I wasn't paying attention to that. The stuffer tube length is no biggie for me. I don't even mind the blow molded cone where some of these old coots just have to have an injection molded one! :D


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A fast build and great kit, she is ready for 3 to 4 coats of balsa sealer tomorrow after the fillets dry overnight. The build is straight forward and some of the measurements for building the engine mount are different on all three kits. The one thing I should have modified was to shorten how much the engine hook extends out. The way the plans have it you cannot stand the rocket on the fins because of the hook.

I break the tab off and insert that end at the top of the mount on all my rockets. I don't like the looks of it sticking down, it gets in the way, can ground the igniter on a breezy day, and like you said, keeps you from sitting some rockets on their tails.

D'OH!

I should have noticed that on those same one inch squares those were certainly NOT BT-60 tubes. :o

I should do that on the next Nova Payloader I build as well. The very first version had a "traditional" motor hook and should have been able to sit on its fins....

This Citation Patriot is a clean-looking model. With well over 400 kits on hand (which is why I'm resisting picking up any more discontinued kits from eRockets/Semroc - see Hustler thread) I'm still going to have to get at least one of these. The closest to it I have in my flyable fleet is a modelrockets.us Big Sharky (which hasn't flown in several years).

Been busy with work, but I have had time to paint the Patriot. Once again keeping my builds simple, 3 coats of Brodak balsa sealer followed by the top coats, no primer since I am using Old Formula Krylon. Tomorrow I will apply the decals and she will be all done.

Hey, I resemble that remark! :o

:chuckle: :D



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The decals went on great, much easier than the ALPS foil decals and they look great. The easiest way to apply the large wrap around decal is to apply a good amount of water to the area first and slowly work the decal around the BT squeezing out the air bubbles and making it flat. I think the next time I will trim the wrap around decal a 1/8 of an inch so it does not overlap for a cleaner look. I did end up cutting the Estes logo off one of the Patriot decals so I could apply it to the correct position. The original Patriot has you insert the engine mount until the bottom of the hook is even with the body tube, this version has you align the motor mount tube even with the body tube. I ended up trimming the engine hook so it will now rest on the fins. Good job

They just don't make 'em like that any more. Oh, wait! They do! :D

Another difference in the decals I noticed is the Estes Logo. In the old it had black lettering in a field of white and the rocket was white in a field of black. Compare that to the new version where the lettering is white in a field of black and the rocket is now black in a field of white. Also there some kind of Registered (TM) or Copyright mark at the end of the Estes' name in the new version. Problem is, it's too small for me to make out with my naked eyes, and I don't have a magnifying glass.




As to the location of the engine hook (flush with the end of the body tube, or protruding), both vesions of the old instructions are ambiguous.



You could read it as "The engine hook end of the engine mount tube must be even (flush) with the back end of body tube" OR "The engine hook must be even (flush) with the back end of the body tube". I think it's up to the individual builder to determine how they want to interpret it. However, Estes eliminated all doubt of what should be done with the re-release version (tube ends even). Personally, for the classic versions, I'm of the inclination to have the tube ends even.

A couple of other issues I have also concern the engine hook... I recently opened an older Estes kit (a Polaris (1324) with a yellow hang tag and "NEW" on the facecard) and noticed that the engine hook was a tad narrower (measured it to be 2mm wide) than all of the previous versions (1/8"wide) I've futzed with over the years. I wonder if someone with an original bagged version and an original boxed version would measure their engine hooks and get that back to me. The other issue is the location of the hook in the instructions. It seems to be halfway between one of the fins and the launch lug in the instructions. However, there's no mention of another line for it to be placed on, nor does there seem to be any real reason to need to do it. Personally, I suspect it was drawn that way to make it easier to mark the other notes about gluing the ring joint and the location of the launch lug.

Looks like I'll be opening my new kit. And buying more.

Recover it. You can salvage the NC, plastic chute material, and motor hook. :D
I'd at least save it for the NC. There's tons of stuff that PNC-60AH can be used for.

I had a water landing of the same BT80 size Phoenix missile on (2) separate occasions. Both times I dried it out to fly again.

Remove the remains of the nozzle, then let the rocket dry out completely... The use a pair of needle nose pliers to twist the motor into itself to extract it if it doesn't come out on its own.

Oh, and welcome to the Goldfish Club!

My saddest water landing was an Astro Cam 110 with 12 exposures on the roll.

12 exposures. That's your problem right there! f you had gone with a 24 exposure roll, you would have gotten 11 more good flights before hitting the water. :p

I had an Astrocam that was in a tree for a year and was returned to me by the homeowner when it fell out of the tree. My friend who is into photography told me that water will not destroy the undeveloped film so I got it developed, and the pics turned out OK. They probably were not as good as if they were developed right way, but definitely was great to finally see them.

Good grief, 400 kits! I’ve been lamenting the fact that I have around 135, and parts for maybe 25 more. However, I might have a year or two on you in age. ;)

If I maybe take off a few pounds, and eat healthier, and exercise more, I could probably get them completed before my 107th birthday.

Yes, Lee, it's a sickness. And even if I ignore "backup" kits and such I know I have far more than I'll ever build, and yet I can't resist some new ones.

On the other points you quoted....as you may recall I built a Nova Payloader for Classic Model at NARAM-60 and it does in fact sit well on its fins with the original style motor hook....though there's not much clearance to the tabletop.

And I did build a Citation Patriot (and have yet another backup kit in the stash now).

1,000+ unbuilt kits. :rolleyes: :eek:

Yup, it's a sickness but I can stop anytime I want. ;)

.....or so he says.... :D

I'm glad you don't want to stop. Every one you collect is one that is saved for posterity instead of being damaged or thrown away. If you find you've run out of room, I'd be happy to preserve some of them for you. :D