Electron Beam launch controller NOT preassembled
 

Here's one for those of you who were keeping track of things Estes in the mid 1980s:

I acquired from eBay a blue Electron Beam controller that is in kit form (with detailed instructions for assembly), just like its predecessor Solar Launch Controller. Now from my extensive research (paging through Estes catalogs posted online on ninfinger and the Estes site itself), the Electron Beam first appeared in the 1986 catalog, and one of the features touted there is that it was preassembled.

So......anyone know about how kits for the "no assembly necessary" Electron Beam came to be "in the wild"?

This is a continuation for a new fascination with old Estes GSE that started, I guess, with the two versions of the red Electro Launch.

Attached are screen caps of the salient 1986 catalog page and the front image from the eBay auction. It arrived today and it does match this image.

Bob Sanford? Any ideas?

I first took up model rocketry in 1988 and one of the first kits I ordered out of the catalog was an RTF X-15 (EST-0716) that came with pad and controller. The controller was the same blue Electron Beam you show that was disassembled and came with instructions to put it together. It was the only launch controller I had for more than a decade.

Looking back at catalogs from those days, they explicitly call out if the controller included in starter sets is assembled or not.

Interesting that they'd package a launch controller that needs to be fairly carefully assembled with an RTF rocket. Makes me wonder a little about the marketing department in those days.... :)

Just saw your second post with the catalog pages. Well, how about that! Mystery solved in short order.


Thanks for the info.

Added later: I've gotten just the center piece and blast deflector from that "Lunar" launch pad in another eBay lot. Now I know a little more about that as well.

I remember assembling my first launch controller, mine was orange.

Good point. I probably didn't pay any attention to that fine detail when I ordered it. I was so infatuated with the X-15 that it seemed the perfect starter set to buy. In any case, I didn't find it that hard to put together even at the tender age I was at the time.

My Moon Mutt launch sets came with a mini launch pad (with dowel legs and a half-length 1/8" launch rod) that looks like the "Lunar" launch pad; are they the same pad?

Jason,

No - the currently available wooden-leg pad (in this set: http://www.estesrockets.com/clearan...-and-controller) has shorter and much stouter legs than this "Lunar" pad did. I *think* the Moon Mutt set I got a few years ago came with this one. It was not the old Lunar pad that I got parts of as mentioned above.

Thank you for the link. Unfortunately, everything but the image loaded (I'm sure it's my computer's fault, as it runs Windows XP--I'll replace it soon). The Moon Mutt launch pad's legs (I just looked at mine) slide UP into position in the plastic center section, while the Lunar Launch Pad's legs--if my memory that you jogged is accurate--were inserted straight in to the center section.

Here's the image.