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Originally Posted by KILTED COWBOY
I have a pretty nice Estes Mercury Redstone flying model.
I am finishing up on a pretty nice Estes Saturn V flyer.
I am going to get started on the Boyce Gemini Titan flying model which looks pretty nice.
My question is does anyone know of a pretty good semi scale flying model of the Space Shuttle with boosters that is capable of flight. The shuttle itself does not need to be a glider.
The Estes kit is nice but not very accurate as compared to the other kits I have built.
I am not a rivet counter but I want something more realistic than the Estes.
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Rob George Gassaway's house... :-) (He has built more Space Shuttle models, many of them scratch-built, than probably anyone else in the hobby & sport [thinking about it, he might have a kit he'd sell--he's here on YORF--but I can't speak for him, of course].) Also:
Since you don't require the winged Orbiter to be able to glide (the Space Shuttle proper is actually the whole stack, or--later in flight--the Orbiter and the External Tank [ET]), that gives you more options. The PMC (Plastic Model Conversion--that is, adapting a plastic model kit to fly as a scale model rocket) route may be the easiest. Plastic kits of the complete stack (Orbiter, ET, and SRBs [Solid Rocket Boosters]) are available in several scales; 1:288, 1:200, 1:144, 1:100, and maybe 1:72 and/or 1:48 scale, and:
With such PMC Space Shuttle models, the easiest--and most reliable--motor arrangement is to have a single motor mount tube, installed off-axis in the ET (off the ET's center-line axis, just below the Orbiter [as viewed from the model's rear]) because of the model's mass distribution). The ET's ogival nose section (its LOX tank) would serve as the nose cone. In larger-scale models, it would be advisable to create a smaller-volume parachute compartment by installing a bulkhead inside the ET, through which the motor mount tube would protrude; this would make parachute ejection easier for the motor's ejection charge. Plus:
For stabilization in flight, clear plastic fins (affixed to removable [for display] clear plastic rods or tubes) would fit--the rods or tubes, that is--up into the SRB nozzles (a friction fit in the SRBs would suffice, for transparent rods or tubes). As an alternative to the transparent rods or tubes, rather thick clear sheet plastic strips could be cut and glued together, to form "+" cross-section booms that would fit inside the SRB tubes. The transparent fins could be cut out separately and be affixed to the booms, *or* the fins could be integral with--cut out as part of, that is--the two sections of each boom. (Because of the Shuttle stack's off-center shape, the removable-for-display, finned rods, tubes, or booms are needed for the same reason a skyrocket needs its trailing stabilization stick; the fins on the rear ends of these stick-like trailing stabilizers provide additional stabilization forces, and they also permit the trailing portion of each unit to be shorter than it would otherwise have to be.) As well:
Estes' 1:162 scale Space Shuttle kit (Cat. No. 1284, see:
http://www.ninfinger.org/rockets/nostalgia/95est36.html and
http://www.ninfinger.org/rockets/nostalgia/81estb.html [and *here*
https://estesrockets.com/wp-content...ACE_SHUTTLE.pdf are its instructions--they show the off-center, ET-installed motor mount with the smaller-volume parachute compartment--plus the removable-for-display, fin-equipped trailing stabilization booms--that I described above for PMC Space Shuttle models]) is now rare, but you might be able to find one out there if you search diligently--although its price might be up in "Ouch!" territory. (I'd love to see Estes re-issue this kit, at least at intervals). Its Orbiter has wider-than-scale wings to improve its glide performance (they give it a lower wing loading), but the rest of the model--including the rest of the Orbiter--is accurate and well-detailed.
I hope this information will be useful.