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Old 04-29-2008, 09:50 PM
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Royatl Royatl is offline
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Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Atlanta, GA
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Quote:
Originally Posted by MarkB.
First, let me say I'm a scale fan -- sport scale, Estes style (cones a little too short, tubes a little too long, inaccurate markings, that sort of thing . . . .)

But what I was thinking and hoping I might get your comments on is the way sport scale is done now. When we were kids there was Arcas, Aerobee, Nike-Smoke, Honest John, Nike-Ajax and the Saturns. That's what was flying in the mid-sixties and early seventies and we could build models of them.

Today, the equivalent would be Super Arcas, Orion, Terrier-Lynx, Black Brant, MLRS, Patriot PAC-3, and the Aries launchers; exactly none of which are available from the "major" manufacturers. If a kid looks for rockets at a NASA or DoD website this is what he finds and he can't build models of any them.

And that just the USA stuff. Why?

Thinking about it historically, we need Saturns, but we also need R-7 (after 50 years, no major kits) and Long March and the Shuttle. But for Dr. Zooch, as of today, nothing. How about Delta II? Zenit? Ariane? H-2 Manned configuration?

Are sport scale kits (and the rocketeers who love them) doomed to the 70's and before?

No flame intended, just looking for intelligent discussion.



R-7 is occasionally available in high power form (requires an H motor with >200 newtons av thrust) from Cosmodrome Rocketry. Every once in awhile you can snag, as I did, an old MPC plastic flying Vostok R-7 on eBay. R-7 is not an easy build. Even Estes punted back in the 70's with their "profile" version. Apogee is supposed to be importing some sport scale version from Germany, i think.

Apogee, around 1999, had a Delta available. Great kit, lots of vac formed noses.

Estes has had both the Merc Redstone (from the old Centuri kit) and a Merc Atlas (same scale) available... find em on eBay.

There's a large Long March plastic display kit available from China that Matt Steele and his kids have converted for flight (look for reports of NARAM-47 scale event).

Estes R&D has made an Ares that has been flown by some people at MSFC in Huntsville (Vince Huegele either has it or is its custodian)

Black Brant II is occasionally available from Estes, and many of the BB series are available from ARG in Canada.
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