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Old 12-01-2019, 06:11 AM
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blackshire blackshire is offline
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Join Date: Jan 2009
Location: Fairbanks, Alaska
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Scott6060842
Shorty motor Birdies and Mini Motor Birdies are easy to clone yourself. I buy 6 packs of shuttlecocks at the flea market for a buck.

I ended up with a bunch of plugged 13mm motors in an Ebay lot and that was a good way to use them up. I do like the way an ejection charge sends them flying though.
Indeed--you can even make your own 18 mm, Series III "Shorty" motors, with 1/2A6-2 motors (and 1/2A6-4s and/or 1/2A6-0s, if you can find any) and a saw... For making a batch of them, I'd get a length of a hardwood 2 x 4 and drill a row of appropriately-deep (and wide) holes in it, then slide the 2.75" motors down into the holes--nozzles-down, of course--and saw off the empty upper 1" of their motor cases. Also:

Having built and flown a few Estes Birdie clones (powered by 13 mm motors), I can vouch for their "fun factor." They flew fine even in windy conditions (they didn't weathercock too much; sorry, I couldn't resist :-) [but it's true]). Even using the cheapest, junkiest, can-packed shuttlecocks, they weren't troubled even by asphalt surfaces (at the Old Tamiami Airport runway in Miami--now used by model airplane fliers--at Tamiami Park, site of the Dade County Youth Fair and Florida International University), bouncing up to thirty feet back into the air after landing on their rubber nose tips.
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