EAC Firecat
 

As I get older I find that my interest in rocketry leans away from the technical and high power towards nostalgia - I find myself wanting to build kits that I had when I was a teenager, or kits that I wanted when I was a teenager and couldn’t afford. (And I’ll probably never own a real Cineroc though it’s pretty easy to find a reasonable facsimile at this point in time.)

I happened to notice a laser cut balsa sheet for the EAC Firecat on the eRockets website while looking for something else. So I wondered if they had the funny nose cone too? Started up Acrobat and had a look at the plans downloaded from JimZ to find the part number. Sure enough they had it. And the decal? Yes, the old Bandit decal is also available. I was a member of EAC back in the day and had a Viper but never the Firecat. So I ordered all the parts (save for the motor mount and body tube which I already had). eRockets even had the odd size engine pod tube (though it’s hard to tell much difference from a standard BT50).

It was fun to build. It’s a little fragile - it’s flown once (pre-paint, which is my custom) but has been broken twice. The last break caused a little trouble with the paint which required some fixing and retouching. I usually catch those problems in primer but for some reason missed it.

Here it is after a gloss coat before the decals go on. I had some problems with the gloss coat and will have to sand down the fins and try again. It’s painted with Testor’s Acryl flat white and Guard’s red (which turns out to be somewhat glossy; wished I’d gone with gloss white then no gloss coat would have been needed.) The airbrush experts may be able to tell me what went wrong but I think that the clear coat wasn’t thin enough. It would sort of collect in the brush and then start spitting. The result was surfaces that looked for all the world to be moon craters. I usually spray Testers acrylic right out of the bottle and that seems to work pretty well for flats, but it doesn’t work so well for gloss paint. Gloss paint tends to sort of frost rather than pool and gloss up unless it’s thinned a bit. I’ll keep experimenting - I want to try Master Modeler’s products.

Sorry, no build or parts pics.

It’s a fun little model. I’m planning to add an EAC Viper to fleet soon. Right now the work bench is tied up with fleet maintenance from a season of launching. The TLC HARM is on the bench right now and will be followed by the Interceptor G. Also in hand is a very old Big Bertha that my wife found at the park some years ago and has seen a lot of action on D21's and D13's; it's getting a new motor mount. And I need to replace the brushes in the Cub Cadet’s electric lifter so I can till the garden in a couple weeks (much preferred to ride on the tiller than wrestle with it, no?)

Parts ordered:
Semroc Body Tube #8F 2.75" Long SEM-ST-8F28 * Discontinued
Semroc Laser-Cut Fins EAC Firecat™ 3/32 Balsa Sheet SEM-FES-0821
Semroc Balsa Nose Cone BT-50 4.5" Flared Ogive SEM-BNC-50BD
Semroc Decal - Bandit™(2 Decal Set) SEM-DKV-81

Groovy! I had an EAC Viper that never did get built but didn’t have the Firecat. It looks like it would be a great upscale - those are the same decals as the Bandit? Interesting...

If I remember correctly, the EAC Firecat used Honest John fins.
You had to cut a reassemble them.

I wonder how long that antenna toothpick stays glued onto the raceway?
In the JimZ instructions they don't mention it in the instructions, except on
the opening page where an "antenna notch optional" is shown in the pattern.

According to the Estes Nose Cone/Kit List Reference,
The Honest John shaped balsa nose cone (PNC-50BD) wasn't used in any other kit.

From what I’ve read the Firecat was made up from the Coldpower HoJo kit parts - the faux-motor tube fin was the inner tube that originally held the chute. So that makes sense about the fins. Tempted to bash my unbuilt Expedition into a Firecat since I’ve never been all that excited about the Expedition anyway. Or just buy another one or another HoJo since the answer is always “buy another rocket” :chuckle:

Thanks - That would explain where the full balsa HoJo nose cone and smaller "inside" parachute slide tube came from.
The cold power convertible kits used BT-50 outer body tubes.

I love the EAC Firecat, it is a fantastic design. It is on my almost unfathomably long list of rockets I would like to build someday.

Somehow it escaped my awareness when it first came out, must have been very shortly after I drifted out of rocketry. Anyone know the year it came out (that's nearly a rhetorical question; probably most of the folks around here know the year... but I don't!)

and another one for the nose for a Deep Space Transport...

http://plans.rocketshoppe.com/estes/est2034/est2034.htm

1974-1975
 

I think it was available for about a year starting sometime in 1974 and gone by the end of '75.

The EAC Firecat was actually a spare parts elimination vehicle for the Cold Power Honest John (1104) (and, I suppose, the Bandit decal sheet).

Huh, that should have been right around my peak rocketry activities. Wonder how I completely missed it. Oh well!