Estes Birdie
 

Remember this one??? It was a badminton shuttlecock. I had one and went thru LOTS of "S" series motors with it. Lived in an area with lots of trees and this one just never got hung up too bad in them (nothing a nearby hit w/ a football would not knock loose).

Yep :)

A boyhood friend of mine had an Estes Birdie kit, and many years later I built two clones using cheap "shuttlecocks in a tube" from a sporting goods store and short lengths of BT-5 tubing epoxied into them for their 13 mm mini motor mounts. They were never lost or damaged, but I finally had to retire them when their motor mount tubes became "crudded up" with ejection charge residue. When they got a little bit of launch rod tip-off on windy days when the launch rod swayed, they would corkscrew upward with a nifty spiral smoke trail--fun and tough little beasties, they were!

Still have my original Estes Birdie; nowadays when I fly it I use the A10-3T's with enough
streamer wrapped around to give it a nice, snug fit in the BT-20. When the engine ejects,
you can easily follow it down with the streamer attached as well as the Birdie's featherweight recovery.

Yup - I cloned one (I think the instructions for the 13mm version are posted on YORS). It flies just like the original - Straight up and straight down. I remember my original (which is long gone) was a lot of fun to fly in the school parking lot (where our high school rocketry club was shunted off to when the track team needed the track) - that little sucker could really bounce when it's rubber nose hit the pavement!!! :D

Greg

Yes, mine bouncing off the old runway at Florida International University (FIU, built on the site of the old Tamiami Airport in Miami) made me wonder how high a WHAM-O "Superball" would bounce if ejected from a rocket, but I never tried it.

My friend's original Estes Birdie (the 13 mm "Mini Brute" version) didn't have a rubber nose like yours. The whole shuttlecock was molded in one piece in rather soft white plastic, with a narrow (4 mm - 5 mm wide) strip of green tape wrapped around it at the base of the nose. I guess Estes sourced the shuttlecocks from different manufacturers ("style may vary slightly") over the kit's production run.

I don't have an original, but have cloned them from the modern plastic shuttlecocks, which fly great on T motors. I've also got one of the giant ones for standard motors. It's my official FVR "mascot" rocket, as it's called Woodstock, since it's a yellow birdie.

Off topic note*

I used to live in an 12 story dorm in college...lots of midnight rocket experiments!

But a superball dropped from only 11 stories literally explodes on impact!

I'm not surprised, since they were molded under great pressure--my brother cut one open once, and the oil in the center burst out before the knife blade even got to the core!

Birdie instructions
 

I've enclosed an attachment of some Birdie instructions I produced a few months back.
These were drawn for practice with my new Corel Draw software.
My company Odd'l Rockets" does not exist, I just own the name.
Now, don't ask - I don't produce these kits.
There are two changes in the instructions:
The front illustration page says a A3-4t and A10-3t engine. It should read A3-2t and A10-3t. On page two under "You'll Need:" I neglected to add an expended T motor casing.
With you providing the parts:
You'll have to cut out your own "engine block disk". The hole for the launch lug would have to be cut (or punched) at the right location in the 5/60 adapter ring.
The shuttlecocks in the instructions are purchased at Walmart. They are a little more flimsy than the original Estes Birdie, but fly fine.

Enjoy! And let me know if you build one using the instructions.