Estes Taser Twin, Ricochet, Crossbow, Star Stryker build
 

Well I am going to give this a shot. I am already building the Vintage Blue Bird, and now I am going to add 4 more kits. I have over 300 vintage kits to build and with these new kits coming out it makes it tough to build them all. When I fly my vintage kits people ask where I buy them, and unfortunately I have to tell them these kits are no longer made. Now I can fly these new kits and hopefully attract new rocketeers. These are simple kits and should not take long. Look at the cool white trash bag for a parachute. :chuckle: I will also post the progress of my Blue Bird Zero today. These builds will not delay my Shrike build.

Thanks for starting this project. I'm very curious about the new kits.

I don't much like the looks of the Crossbow or Star Stryker, but the others I may pick up.

The Taser Twin is such an oddity, like something a kid who owns a Skyhook might put together after losing the upper stage of his Apogee II.

Cool stuff. Thanks for showing us the parts. What's the size of that CPT?

Looks like BT-20 for the main body and BT-50 for the payload section. Notice the mylar sleeve for holding the engine hook to the outside of the tube?

Plain white chutes? That ticks me off. :mad:

I'm about ready to slap a few congress critters up side the head.

Do those Congress idiots know how hard a white chute is to see from 1500ft??

Yeah, a white chute is more "sustainable" than say a cool Der Red Max chute ..... :rolleyes:

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Taser Twin Gotcha........

The motor block is glued into the end of the booster tube......don't matter which end. But, when you glue the fins onto the booster BT, it doesn't tell you where to orient them. If you look close at the drawing, you will notice the hidden lines representing the motor block and that you are marking the booster BT 1/4" from that end. But, if you don't notice it, you could get the fins glued onto the BT in the wrong position.

For those of you who don't have one yet..... :D , the motor block in the booster is used for motor retention so it's positioned in the aft end of the booster BT instead of the forward end.

I just tossed some parts together based on a quick-n-dirty guesstimate of the components used in the kit, and ran some flight sims of the Star Stryker...

The best 18mm engine is the QUEST A6-4...

Gets 337' altitude with a Dv of 4 FPS.

The Estes A8-3 deploys at 367' with a Dv of 30 FPS, ascending.
The Estes A8-5 deploys at 376' with a Dv of 32 FPS, descending.

Using an adapter, the design gets 432' with a Dv of 6 FPS on the A3-4T. 410' and 20 FPS on the A10-3T.

A B6-6 gets 738' and 30 FPS, descending. The B6-4 gets 726' and 34 FPS. Ouch...
The QUEST B6-4 gets 780' and 37 FPS...

The C6-5 gets 1365' and 21 FPS, aascending.

That's exactly the way the Apogee and Apogee II boosters were designed.

Can you give us a root edge measurement on the booster fins?

Could you post a bigger picture of the Star Stryker box art? I'd like a closer look because decal sheet appears to have 6 fin decals that are all orientated in the same direction.

Estes printed one decal too many for those main fins... :D

The picture of the box at the beginning of this thread has the decal on one fin side only. Creates a pseudo roll-pattern effect...

Oh. I didn't think to look at the fin template. It makes more sense now. I thought it only had 4 fins.

I picked up three of the Crossbow kits tonight and have the first one ready for primer. I thought it was pretty close to a straight downscale of the Satellite Interceptor, but where the S.I. has one lower fin, the Crossbow has two. Someone already mentioned the missing tubes on the ends of the wings, but I have some 10mm tubing left over from an Apogee purchase. (Back in 2001. Does that make it vintage? :D ) I also left the external engine hook out of mine and added some Kevlar to the mix out of habit.

Ohhh.......here is where it was asked......

2.85 inches...............72.5mm

Booster BT is 3.5 inches (88.9mm)
Sustainer is two piece BT with the coupler acting as the motor block (6" and 2.75").

This may come as a surprise, but that root edge dimension more closely matches the original Apogee booster fin. The later Apogee II had a 3.2" root edge.

I detect a clone in the works... :D

I don't think anything from the 21st century can be considered vintage, at least not yet.

On the other hand, not to go wildly off topic or anything, I still think of the album Leftoverture as a new Kansas album. It was released in 1976.

CPMcGraw enthused:

"I detect a clone in the works... "

I thought about the comments that the Taser Twin looked like a Skyhook on an Apogee II booster.

Already have the Apogee II laser cut fins and plastic payload tubing in my SEMROC shopping cart. Just need to flesh out the next order. Wonder if Bruce is going to stamp out some more NW-1 nose weights? I have the tubes, nose cone. and other bits and pieces.

Chas

What kind of instructions are given for the two stage motor installation and operation? Most beginners have absolutely no idea how booster motors ignite the upper stage motors. The old fashioned technical reports did a great job of explaining this in words and pictures.

The same directions that came with the Apogee. It does not include the tech report that came with the Apogee.

These 4 birds went together nice and easy and look pretty nice. I think Estes did a great thing bringing these kits to Walmart. I did not find any flaws in the designs or directions. I will apply 3 coats of balsa sealer to the 1/16 balsa and shoot with primer. I bought some Testors Lacquer paint and will see how it works.

Wow, love those pics (especially the second, with the famous Astron Apogee!)!

Agreed.

Just Jerry

Avenger and Constellation fan.

I *really* like the Ricochet now that I've seen a photo of a real one.

And the other three, which I wasn't too hot on, look pretty darned cool, too. Just really small.

Once again I give Kudos to Estes, These are great kits for the price.

Usually, I'm not surprised when I see new government restrictions, but this . . .

I can't even begin to come up with a reason why printing colorful designs on a piece of plastic could be harmful to anyone or anything.

Life used to be fun. Thanks a lot, government.

Three words: Control, control, control.

I miss the old Mattel Vac-U-Form...........Can you imagine that around today?

I was in a Toys R Us 10-15 years, ago, and there was a 'knock-off' of the Mattel Vac-U-Form sitting on the clearance aisle.

It was $10.00 and the packages of plastic sheets were $3.00.

I bought one of the machines and two packs of the plastic sheets.

Someday, I'm going to have to break it out and learn how to use it. :eek:

Bob

Nice looking builds SCIGS! Am going to have to do a seek and get at my local W*M's and see if they have gotten any of the others in..So far just the Star Stryker and Ricochet..

Agreed (about the kits being nice and the low price). I can't believe the low prices. WalMart must've committed to a crapload of these kits to get the price that low.

Yeah...think about it......with the Taser Twin @ $5.96......you get a cloned Sky Hook (albeit no parachute) and the booster for the Apogee........ :D

You know, in a way it sucks about the parachutes. But I look at it like this....I have a 6 year old that is gonna build the Crossbow with me, me doing most of the work and all. But I want to get him more interested in rocketry, and sitting with me is a good way. But HE can color the parachute how ever he wants. He likes to draw, so I will let him sit down and do whatever pleases him, and it will be one-of-a-kind that he can call HIS. There is a good side to the madness.
Still don't like the gov't though

But that's just a temporary thing, right? I don't recall seeing the details, but I assume there was an issue with getting the material/dye to meet CPSIA. Is that correct? I figure it was just a timing thing and that eventually we will see a return to printed chutes.

Basically, Estes had to put something in the box, so they made an "executive" decision and went with plain white.

The only thing bad about it is its visibility against the sky, but it should function fine and be readily spotted on the ground.

As for me, almost all the chutes I take out of kits go unopened into the bottom of my chute stash. About the only time I open a new one is to replace one that got shredded, lost or melted. I imagine it's that way for man of us old far...er, BARs, so the plain white chutes have even less impact on us

Doug

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That's really odd since in all the stores I've seen 'em, they've had four of each.....(well, before my purchases anyway).

Ya know, that thought occurred to me, too. Several here have mentioned 4 of each, and the one store I spotted them in had the same (4x4=16). I suppose that's the initial stocking mix agreed to by W*M and Estes. It could be that, due to real-world manufacturing results, that there weren't quite enough of some kits causing some stores to be short.

If you've ever worked on a production line, and pushed the end of a run thru the line, you know that you never quite hit your target right on. There will always be a little more or less from the budget. This usually has to do with the fact that not all the sub-components come in the same bulk quantities, that some units get inadvertently destroyed or damaged during production, and that some units get pulled for quality.

Doug

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The wonders of snap swivels. Thanks to whoever invented them and to whatever rocketry article or tech note I read as a kid which recommended putting the parachute on a snap swivel.

Mike D. in his dedicated thread mentioned giving up rockets for fishing. It's fun to think of the overlap in hardware. I use snap swivels, wire leaders (as shock cord anchors), and sinker weights.

I have never painted 5 rockets at the same time before, and I hope never to do it again. I used one can of primer yesterday between these four rockets and my Blue Bird Zero. I have been real busy so my models have been on the back burner. I was hoping to have these done in the next couple of days, but in-laws have altered that plan. I will probably finish by next week some time. So far these builds have been real easy and fun. I applied 3 coats of balsa sealer to the balsa, primer and one top coat. Now I have to mask 2 of the rockets and paint the other colors. My Testors Inca Gold came in today so I will give it a try.

I like the balsa nose cones and transitions.

Scigs,
Those look Great! Wish my Walmart stocked the Crossbow and Star Stryker. They just don't understand...
Nothing but C6-3's, 5's, and 7's, also.
Clueless, just clueless! :mad:
And they couldn't care less................
Allen