Ye Olde Rocket Forum - View Single Post - The Return of the Empire

Comrades:

Many years ago, I bought an old Empire Nike-Ajax on eBay shortly after returning to rocketry. I wasn't impressed, being off put by the conduits. But, with the help of some of the guys on this website, I sorted it out. I modified it in that I replaced the BT-70 Nike with a much-closer-to-scale T-180 (ST-18) from Totally Tubular, added an "E" length motor mount and reworked the transition piece to fit. I built it, painted it, but never flew it. I wasn't happy with the way it looked, especially the nose, I didn't leave enough room for the parachute on top of the baffle I installed and the white paint just was not attractive somehow. Every once in a while, I'd go back to it and try to figure out what to do to salvage the build but. . . .

11+ years past.

A couple of weeks ago, while surfing eBay, I saw an Empire Nike-Ajax and didn't give it a second thought beyond "Been there, done that." I saw another a few days later and thinking it was a heck of a coincidence, looked more closely and discovered this was a "new" Empire kit, the other two being sport rockets. The seller is Jen123-2009. I discovered a build thread on the other website. Importantly, on these new kits, the nose issue was addressed by a custom basswood tri-tapered nose rather than a not-even-close-to-scale-looking BNC-55AC. I thought it looked fabulous. I contacted the seller and yesterday in the mail, voila, a brand new nose cone. He was very nice and fairly prompt on his emails. I would buy from him again.

So, as if I didn't have a enough partial projects going for quarantine time, I moved the Nike-Ajax to the rescue pile. The new nose didn't fit the BT-55 of my original kit so either I sand down the shoulder or I use a BT-56/ST-13 as a basis and salvage the fins and conduits. No matter what, the forward fins are going to be moved. I'll dig out my 14 U.S. Army Missiles of the Cold War and see what I need to do. For those unfamiliar with the kit, it's approximately 1/8.96 scale based on a 1.34" ST-13 equating to a 12" sustainer on the real thing. I think the new kits still have an "oversize" Nike but hey, there's not a lot of Nike-Ajax kits out there right now.

I'll post pictures.