LTV Scout returns!
 

Hello All,

Later this year (in September), Boyce Aerospace Hobbies will release several new scale kits, including an upscale of Estes' LTV Scout kit, sized for 29 mm motors (see: http://boyceaerospacehobbies.com/ ). Hopefully an original-size LTV Scout (and, I hope, same-scale Blue Scout I/II [the two were very similar, and could be offered as a customize-able model] and Blue Scout Junior kits) will be offered in due course. The Estes LTV Scout had a single "Recommended Engine" (the C6-3), and today such a scale model could use not only the C6-3, but also several Quest Q-Jet and Aerotech SU and RMS 18 mm composite propellant "D" motors.

The Estes LTV Scout had the C6-5 recommended as the only engine for most of it's production run. The last couple years it changed to the C6-3. The C5-3 is a far better motor for it than either.

I only ever saw the C6-3 listed, but I didn't get a catalog every year back then. Given its size (drag) and weight, I'd be leery of flying one on a C6-5 (and the feared results may be why Estes changed it to the C6-3). Today, anything other than that--for most people, other than motor stockpilers--would have to be Quest Q-Jets or Aerotech 18 mm "D" motors. (I'd love to see Estes start making C5 and B8 motors again [their resumption of C11 production is great news], but I think they're about as likely to come back as B14s, unfortunately.)

A Q-Jet C12-4 would be the best currently available replacement for a C5-3.

(I finally had a C5-3 CATO on me a couple of weeks ago, taking out my Fat Boy before i could try it on a C12-4. That was going to be its next flight.)

I saw that picture that you posted--that was a gruesome occurrence! Boyce could produce a "hybrid" Estes-type LTV Scout (using 3D printed plastic parts along with tubing that is available from Semroc and/or BMS). This would reduce the model's weight as compared with an all-plastic one (the Estes kit used several "off-size" tubes for the upper stages, although the largest tube--used for the Algol first stage--was a length of BT-60, see: http://www.spacemodeling.org/jimz/est1287.htm ).