Again, unless Ellis Langford and Bill Stine were blowing smoke during their interview on The Rocketry Show podcast, and John Langford was purposely misleading everyone in the room at the NARAM forum, Estes has plans for continuing their PSII line. What those plans ARE has lead to a great deal of debate - who knows exactly what we’ll see in the future? Nobody but the Langfords, Bill Stine and John Boren know for sure.

My personal guess, based solely on what I’ve read and heard, is more rockets similar to the Star Orbiter and Super Big Bertha. I’m skeptical that the PSII Nike Smoke, MDRM, Leviathan, etc will return since those rockets wouldn’t be good performers on Estes 29mm BP motors (John Langford made a comment about the difficulty of getting more performance out of BP propellant with motors that size). And if they DID bring those heavier PSII classics back they certainly wouldn’t sell them at the highly discounted prices Hobbico set during the pre-bankruptcy sales blow-outs.

Why does Estes still have relabeled Aerotech 29mm motors on their website? Probably because they still have them in stock. And I’d guess we’ll see the 24mm E30 composite motor with an Estes label available for some time since it’s the only recommended motor for the very popular 1/45 Little Joe II.

Take all this with a big grain of salt if you wish since I could be 100% wrong - which wouldn’t make me sad since I missed out on a discounted Nike Smoke!