Chris Pearson and I are working on reproducing dimensional data so that we can clone the Mongrel in anticipation of the 40th anniverasry of LDRS-1. I am still working on getting the fin dimensions just right.

Chris shared these pics of an original, 40-year old, Ace balsa nose cone next to a PML plastic nose cone and gave me permission to share. Korey Kline made these balsa nose cones on a lathe in his garage, and there was a lot of variation in nose cone lengths. Chris's example is 17.75-inches long and has a 1.5-inch shoulder. The fiberglass extension is not original. Korey was a fan of long nose cones, and was known to make balsa nose cones with L/Ds as long as 5:1 and even 6:1. These were the early balsa nose cones that were in use before the advent of the famous ACE 4-inch plastic nose cone in the 1980s.

The one photo of an Ace Mongrel that one can easily find shows Chris standing next to Ace Mongrel kit #1. The black nose cone is all nose cone - long. It looks like a nose cone with a piece of body tube extention, but it isn't.

Mark Canepa's book, Large and Dangerous Rocket Ships, describes the Ace Mongrel kit in Chapter 3. He describes a rocket with 1/8" thick fins, an 18" nose cone, 4" diameter, that stood about 5-feet tall.

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-Wolfram v. Kiparski
NAR 28643 - TRA 15520
MTMA Section #606 President