Quest "lobbying"
Hello All,
In the thread about Quest's new Q-Jet motors, I mentioned two now-discontinued Quest kits (for which they sell all of the parts, except for their decals) as being good matches for the Q-Jets, and this comment attracted positive feedback and also inspired the following: If we "lobbied" Quest regarding this (their e-mail address is: service@questaerospace.com ), they might re-issue the kits (both of which were also offered in starter sets, as well as being sold as individual kits). I e-mailed them the following message, which includes links to catalog citations and a dramatic flight video); the body text of the message was as follows: ******************************************** In a discussion on Ye Olde Rocket Forum (YORF) about Quest’s new Q-Jet motors, mention was also made of two discontinued Quest rocket kits (which—other than their decals—you sell all of the parts for), which would be perfect matches for your Q-Jet motors, including the upcoming “C” and “D” Q-Jet motors. These are the Quest Eagle (which was also labeled as the Falcon, see: http://www.ninfinger.org/rockets/ca.../93quest10.html and http://www.ninfinger.org/rockets/nostalgia/94qst10.html ) and the Super Eagle (see: http://archive.rocketreviews.com/re...per_eagle.shtml and http://www.google.com/search?source...1.0.DB_2u3L7Saw ), and: The Super Eagle, in fact, is shown on the opening page of the Quest website (and here www.youtube.com/watch?v=St3HJgA1L7E is a YouTube video of a Quest Super Eagle that was flown on a Klima D7-3 motor). One of the posters on YORF went so far as to say, “The Eagle was my first Quest kit, IIRC. It's a great demo rocket whether flown on an A or the new 18mm D. :cool: I never thought it would be discontinued. It was pretty much their flagship model early on.” (The Eagle/Falcon and the Super Eagle were also offered in starter sets [see: http://www.ninfinger.org/rockets/ca...3/93quest4.html , http://www.ninfinger.org/rockets/nostalgia/94qst06.html , and http://www.discountrocketry.com/que...ter-p-2042.html ], and you could offer them in this way again, as well as sell them as individual bagged or boxed kits [they were offered in both of these types of packaging].) I hope this information will be helpful. |
I talked with Gary Rosenfield at NARCON and asked about new kits. I mentioned that we have noticed that when a company releases something new, it results in more sales of their existing products.
I was concerned that no new Quest kits have been introduced by them in a while. He said that Quest definitely plans to release some new kits once things settle down from developing the new motors. I suspect "new kits" includes possible reissues. -- Roger |
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He or Charlie mentioned a few months ago that they had taken inventory of parts they had and recognized that said set of parts would be sufficient to reissue at least two existing kits, so I would expect those to show up once the dust around the Q-jets has settled. |
I thank you both for posting that information--that is encouraging news! When I first started dealing with the new (post-acquisition) Quest, they--or at least the people there that I was interacting with--were quite unfamiliar even with Quest's current kits and parts, especially the latter. So it might be helpful to them and to us if we suggested to them re-issues of certain Quest kits, as ones that have been out of production for some time might be little-known or unknown to them.
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Hopefully they increase the quality of the kits. I won't be clamoring for their return unless they get a significant rework. Quest kits have always just seemed so shabby to me. Bent fin units, defects in nose cones, horrible parachutes.... You really want this crappy stuff back that bad?
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My Eagle kit was decent quality. My Superbird was terrible. I ended up turning a nosecone because the plastic one included in the kit was so malformed. Stevie Wonder would have rejected it if he had been the one packaging the kits. Almost all the kits I've built had floppy loose fitting NC's. Otherwise, they've been fair to middlin. (Translation avialible to non-country folk.) |
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We recently drove thru your “neck of the woods” on our big road trip to NSL and then back from Myrtle Beach. We managed to pick up some of the lingo, so I hear what y’all are sayin’ ‘bout kit quality. I shoulda planned better. We could have paid ya’ll a visit and flown some rockets. How’d I do? :) |
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Not bad! :cool: |
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The only feature of their kits that didn't work well (except in their larger-diameter rockets), but which was easy to remedy--and that Quest changed afterward--was the plastic "gripper tabs" on their parachutes. They initial ones were the same self-adhesive plastic hangers that are stuck onto the wrappers of candy bars that are sold in vending machines. The shroud lines were tied through the tabs' pre-punched holes. In 30 mm and 35 mm kits, they worked just fine, having plenty of room inside, but their narrower-diameter (20 mm and 25 mm) rockets couldn't accommodate them (the 'chutes could be crammed in, but deployment failures and/or singed canopies were frequent results--the original gripper tabs were okay in streamer-recovered kits, though, because only one was used), and: I simply cut away all of each gripper tab except for the adhesive-covered rectangular area, rounded off the corners, and then punched a smaller hole through each tab after pressing it into place on each corner of the canopy. These modified parachutes fitted nicely in even their narrower rockets. Later, Quest themselves introduced a smaller, thinner gripper tab which worked--and works--like a charm! In addition: Their combination Kevlar/elastic cord shock cords, which are anchored to the motor mount (or to a builder-notched thrust ring, in their minimum-diameter rockets) were/are a major innovation. While the Kevlar can "zipper-cut" the top end of the body tube after late (or too-soon) ejections, constructing the entire composite shock cord so that the Kevlar/elastic cord knot is below the top edge of the body tube (this can easily be done by "feeding" the Kevlar cord out through the rear of the rocket--their kits might even be set up this way now) prevents "zippers." (If the Kevlar *does* protrude above the top edge of the body tube, "weaving" it through two or three holes in a rectangle, square, ellipse, or disc of card stock or folded-over masking tape [in the manner of the Stine "Shock Lock"] also prevents "zippers." |
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