I know Peter :)

I should have stipulated that for scale models, the tolerances are obviously a little tighter, but even then, I agree, less than perfect is indeed commercially acceptable.

I had a similar experience with my Sprint clone. I showed it to Buzz McD who promptly informed me the fins wouldn't do. Seems the aggressive leading edge sanding I did altered the profile enough to take off points in "classic" competitions ;)



Doug

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Boy, you did go heavy on the sandpaper! :p

I don't know if you got a good enough angle cut on the front and back end of your launch lug, either. :rolleyes: :D

Well I am with him there. And those Cherokee-D fins! Way too large! ;)

And the top stripe is too low. :D

Honestly there is a lot of leeway on a clone.

Where have you seen a "clone" competition? :confused:

Buzz McDermott, now of MASA, used to have a presentation called "Cloning the Classics". I saw it when DARS hosted NARCON back in 2000, IIRC. A year or so later, at a DARS launch, he conducted a contest for classics. I had a couple of new Midgets and showed up that Sunday, chomping at the bit to show off my craftsmanship, only to learn the contest was Saturday-only :o

Anyway, a few years later, we had another one, and have been doing them every year since. We even included it at NSL a couple years ago. Gary Briggs runs them, and I help out. We have several categories allowing for originals and clones (& repro kits, too) as well as upscales and downscales.

It's becoming a tradition, and we're starting to morph the rules a little to keep it interesting. The events get a good turnout, and are slowly growing in popularity.

Not sure what other clubs around the country do, but surely we're not the only one doing this kind of event. I figure, with all the middle aged old far....er....BARs out there, there's gotta be lots of fliers wanting to bench race their clones.

Doug

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Very interesting...I never heard of that.

I like it! :D

I want to say it was around 1991~92 that HUVARS held an upscale contest. There were a lot of really good entries. Roger Wilfong had a BT-60 Gyroc and BT-101 Ramjet. Both flew really well. I had a BT-60 Screamer and StingRay. Al De La Iglesia flew a really nice BT-101 cluster Cherokee DDD. I believe there were a lot of Mosquitoes as well. *LOL*

SoAR has started doing a "Legacy" competition, bringing back "interesting" rockets from yesteryear and attaching some sort of competition to it. Our first was the Mach 10 from Centuri. I personally had never seen one work well, but we had five entrants and all five flew great. The winner, from John Lawrence, flew spectacularly (and repeated its performance this weekend at NSL).

The second is supposed to be the Gyroc. So far the only one that's been tested is one built from the BMS kit. It went unstable immediately after clearing the rod, throwing its motor out once the delay started burning. I'm assuming there should be some nose weight applied.

I've flown a ton of Gyrocs. They've all been stable. I've never added nose weight. Everyone's MMV though.

The best Mach 10 flight I've seen was Shaun Switenky's. He made his with a movable elevator that popped into glide position at ejection. It boosted straight up, transition into a flat non-turning glide with the wind and he lost it. :p

I've had that happen with my Geminee and CiCi2. I've learned to trim then with a little turn :o

Doug


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