05-18-2006, 11:31 PM
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BARCLONE Rocketry
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Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Mobile, Alabama
Posts: 5,357
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New Plan -- Alpha Ex
The classic Alpha was released to the public in late 1966 or early 1967, and has enjoyed the second-longest continuous-production life of any Estes kit. Through the years Estes has produced revisions, stretched versions, plastic-finned versions, already built versions, chromed versions, and fat versions. The Alpha has one notable ancestor (the K-16 Delta), and one semi-half-cousin (the #2011 Super Nova). But what it doesn't have is a true, obvious decendant. It is somewhat surprising that this very stable design was never taken any farther.
Enter the Alpha Ex...
This is a two-stage design using all of the parts from one full kit, plus a few additional parts to create the booster and payload sections. The RockSim file shows this to be every bit as stable using five combinations of motors. Sadly, the B6-0 is now OOP, but one can see from the table that it would produce deployment speeds less than 20 FPS in every case.
Length: 20.125"
Fin Span: 3.976"
Weight: 1.22 oz
B6-0 / A8-5.......895'......15 FPS
B6-0 / B6-6......1218'.......5 FPS
C6-0 / B6-6......1650'......15 FPS
B6-0 / C6-7......1844'......17 FPS
C6-0 / C6-7......2240'......13 FPS
All combinations launch from standard 36" rods, 1/8" dia.
Enjoy!
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