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Originally Posted by Pem Tech
Never heard of this program before, thanks for posting.
Very cool, looks like a Honest John with hormone issues.
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You're welcome. The Falstaff was powered by the 36" diameter Stonechat motor, the largest plastic propellant motor (and possibly the largest solid motor, period) produced by the British. The Stonechat motor was also proposed for use in several never-built variants of the BAe (British Aerospace) Skylark sounding rocket (they would make good Future/Fiction Scale rockets--please see below for more information on these Skylark variants).
An artist's illustration of the proposed Skylark 17 in a late-1990s British Aerospace Skylark Sounding Rockets marketing booklet that I have shows it with the same fins (and even the same paint scheme [white overall with two thin black circumferential stripes and a black spiral stripe between the other two]) as the operational Falstaff vehicles. The 36" constant-diameter Skylark 17 in the illustration has a rounded-tip, short conical nose cone like the ones in the Estes Yankee and Centuri X-24 Bug kits. I have e-mailed the successors to BAe and the RAE for more material on these Skylark variants and the Falstaff vehicles.
The Skylark 8, 9, 16, and 17 would all have used the 36" diameter Stonechat rocket motor as the first stage, either with or without upper stages depending on the version. The Encyclopedia Astronautica article on the Skylark rocket series (see:
www.astronautix.com/lvs/skylark.htm ) briefly describes the Skylark 8, 9, 16, and 17 thusly (the relevant article text is reproduced below):
Version: Skylark 8.
Skylark version with Stonechat booster and Waxwing second stage motor. Never built.
Version: Skylark 9.
Skylark single-stage version with Stonechat motor. This would make it similar to the Falstaff test version. Never built.
Version: Skylark 16.
Skylark version with shortened Stonechat motor. Never built.
Version: Skylark 17.
Skylark version with Stonechat booster and Mage 2 second stage motor. Never built.