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Some Aerobee 300 data . . . Dave F. |
#2
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4-Finned Aerobee-300
Not what the original request was looking for, but the proverbial 'door' has been opened.
Some more 4-finned stuff. No colors but still nice pics. |
#3
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Question for everyone . . . If the AEROBEE 150A is the basis for the AEROBEE 300, where did the "AEROBEE-HI" - style fins come from on the Estes "Aerobee 300", as they are completely different from the AEROBEE 150A fins ? Dave F. |
#4
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The Aerobee 300 was originally an Aerobee Hi with a Sparrow upper stage. The Sparrow missile motor was modified with With a tail skirt that served as a transition adapter, a stabilizing cone, and as a high-altitude nozzle extension. When NASA started flying the Aerobee Hi, they changed the name to Aerobee 150, which looked pretty much like the Aerobee Hi, with the same fins. At that point, the Aerobee 300 would be a combination of Aerobee 150 plus Sparrow. The Aerobee 300 had too much range to safely fly at White Sands, so they could only fly it at Fort Churchill, Manitoba. NASA built a 4-rail tower at Wallops Island, so it could only handle the 4-finned Aerobee 150A variant. The Aerobee 300A was a 4-finned Aerobee 150 plus sparrow upper stage. So if you see a 4-finned Aerobee 300, like the ones in the diagrams a couple of posts back, it's actually an Aerobee 300A and would have been launched from Wallops Island. A three-finned Aerobee 300 would be properly called and Aerobee 300 without the A, and it would have flown from Fort Churchill. There is crappy photographic coverage of Fort Churchill, in part because photos had to be taken in close quarters indoors, and in part, I have been told, because there was also a fire at Fort Churchill that decimated their archives. On top of that, there was an early standard payload configuration, shown in the diagrams earlier, for an 8-inch diameter payload that matched the Sparrow motor. The later University of Michigan payloads, like in the pictures that Chris Timm posted, had been originally designed for the Nike-Cajun, so they had a smaller diameter (the University of Michigan eventually swithched those payloads to Nike Tomahawks, probably because they were cheaper than Aerobees). The Estes kit represented the original Aerobee 300-without-an-A that had three Aerobee Hi style fins. That aspect of the kit was correct. |
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Peter,
That was very interesting and helps clear up a lot of things for me . . . Thanks ! Dave F. |
#6
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Comrades:
I built one years ago using the drawings High-Viz Dave posted above which I found on the Internet way back. It's BT-50, so same scale as an Estes Aerobee 300 (about 1/15.4). The Sparrow conduit is kite string under glue. This rocket is my high-time article with just under 50 launches, mostly in support of my nephew's science fair projects with the Sparrow nose replaced with a payload bay and an altimeter. It's on it's second elastic and third mylar parachute. It's survived a core-sample (no easy feat in the desert) , multiple asphalt recoveries and some fairly rough handling from the little dude. It's going to get the paint freshened when I get out the airbrush. That cool color on the fins is Testors Model Masters Jet Exhaust which is a dead match for the color of the 300A fin can on display in the New Mexico Space Museum in Alamogordo. I have a 1/10 Semroc kit around here somewhere that I was going to convert to the four-fin A model and try and "accuratize" the Sparrow section. But that's deep long term . . . .
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NAR 79743 NARTrek Silver I miss being SAM 062 Awaiting First Launch: Too numerous to count Finishing: Zooch Saturn V; Alway/Nau BioArcas; Estes Expedition; TLP Standard Repair/Rescue: Cherokee-D (2); Centuri Nike-Smoke; MX-774 On the Bench: 2650; Dream Stage: 1/39.37 R-7 |
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