Yea, mine showed up today as well. Too busy with other stuff to do anything with it though.

Mole, as others have noted, there is no reason you need to put a big engine in it. It's really easy to put a smaller engine in a big engine mount - not so much the other way around. I have an Estes 1/35 Mercury Atlas that I built with a 29mm motor mount. I think it's awesomewith a G25W.

Meanwhile, they're still out of stock. Well, I still haven't cracked the seal yet on the F117, so I suppose there's no rush.

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Paul
If we weren't all crazy, we would go insane - Jimmy Buffett
NAR #87246 www.wooshrocketry.org

I hear you and it's common for people to judge others' intelligence by their proper use of grammar, spelling, and diction. The problem is, and it's quite apparent on forums with a large contingent of very technical and scientific people- there's "math-brained" people and "language-brained" people... and often despite being absolutely technically, scientifically, or mathematically brilliant (engineers or scientists), the spelling and other "language" errors are particularly egregious and make them appear quite inept. While their intelligence is OBVIOUS and not in question, their proficiencies lie in scientific, mathematical, and engineering disciplines and not in language, diction, grammar, spelling, etc.

That's where it pays to have a good proofreader!

Later! OL J R

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The X-87B Cruise Basselope-- THE Ultimate Weapon in the arsenal of Homeland Security and only $52 million per round!

And when you talk about Apogee Rockets, well, the owner has some *unusual* sales approaches to cultivating sales and customers. Some of the "sales tactics" in the description of some of his kits or merchandise is rather cringe-worthy IMHO... for instance, the "all your friends will think you're the coolest rocketeer in the world" type comments, which I couldn't see working on anyone past about sixth grade, personally. It just seems rather amateurish and comes across as "pandering" or trying to take advantage of people looking for popularity or approval and manipulating that to make a "quick sale". I'd bet at some point the owner paid big money to go to some "selling seminar" and was given some really bad advice that he took to heart LOL At any rate, I've found his approach to customer service to be laudable, but lacking at times. While Apogee "claims" to have the 'best service in the rocketry hobby', (a self-proclaimed honor which I think anyone with experience would disagree with-- it's well known that SEMROC had *the* best customer service bar none!), where the rubber meets the road I've found Apogee's customer service 'lacking'. Not bad, just 'lacking'. I had an issue with RockSim when I bought it years ago and contacted them about it, and after working with me for awhile trying to get it working, Tim told me, "That's why you should have bought a Mac", which was extremely annoying. I found myself thinking, "Well maybe you should tell your customers that RS is UNSTABLE on anything but Macs and QUIT OFFERING a version for Windows until you actually work the bugs out of it!" I thought it was just a p!ss-poor statement to make to a customer who just spent over $100 on a program from you...

BUT, that's just how it goes I guess... some people are just that way. I figure he's a "rocket nerd" and thus probably not the best with relating to people and being sales-saavy...

Later! OL J R

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The X-87B Cruise Basselope-- THE Ultimate Weapon in the arsenal of Homeland Security and only $52 million per round!

Which is why my Lockheed Martin engineer son can't spell cat.
(No, he isn't responsible for the F-35, unless you like it. Then it was all his idea.)

I personally blame his spelling squarely on the crazy "writing to read" program that started when he was in kindergarten. They were made to write stories and stuff on computers, grammar and spelling be darned. Their little programs didn't have spell check. They were never given spelling words to memorize, much less learn any phonics or other techniques that might help them spell anything. It royally screwed any chance for them to learn anything beyond hunt-and-peck typing too. This era was also responsible for the demise of cursive writing. Good thing he learned to understand Greek letters.

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I love sanding.

Luke, I have to say my experience with Apogee customer service has been nothing short of excellent (I never had reason to deal with Semroc customer service). When I was preparing to do my L3 cert, I needed a Rocksim file and simulation as part of the required pre-flight documentation. I hadn't used my Rocksim for a while, and when I tried to run it I was getting really strange answers. I contacted Apogee, and they sent me a link to download the newest version (which I did). That solved some of my issues, but my file for my big Saturn V L3 project still gave garbage answers (on an M1293W it was reaching an altitude of about 30 ft. ) . When I again contacted Apogee, they had me send them the rocket definition file. The looked at it, and about 30 minutes later came back that they'd found an error in my Apollo capsule definition - the nose didn't close at the top, leaving an undefined gap (in hindsight, I think I was going to put a small radius there to close the gap but then forgot to ever do it). They sent me back my file, with the error corrected - and it immediately ran properly - giving me the simulation results I need to submit my L3 preflight documentation.
All this was done at no charge (well, no charge in addition to what I'd originally spent on Rocksim), and done quickly. I was quite simply amazed at that level of support.

BTW, I've started my X-15, they've apparently been working the Apogee laser cutter overtime - not only lots of laser cut parts, but there are laser printed guidelines and such on the main body tube - very nice. One complaint - the laser cut engine mount centering rings were off - they fit perfectly into the main body tube, but the hole for the engine tube was several thou too large - the rings would simply fall down the engine tube. I was able to make it work - tacking the rings in place then applying generous glue fillets to make sure there was adequate strength - but I expect better, laser cut centering rings are usually right on the mark. I suspect they sized the rings for a different brand of engine mount tube, then for some reason ended up using a tube with a smaller od.
I've got some other stuff going on the next few weeks, so I doubt I'll be able to spend much more time on it until after Christmas.

I have had overly loose centering rings from BMS as well. What I typically do in such cases is glue a wrap of copy paper around the ring. If it's *really* loose I'll do a second wrap, or do a single wrap of cardstock instead. This usually fixes things right up. Sometimes, after applying the paper wrap, it'll be a bit too tight, which is fine because then I just sand to size.

This works great for the 1/8" thick light plywood rings that I usually use, and probably would be OK (albeit a bit trickier) with fiber rings too. If the rings are cardstock then it might call for a different strategy, but I never use cardstock rings so I don't know.

Ready for primer and paint.
First production run, there were some minor issues, details here:
https://www.rocketryforum.com/threa...ng-soon.162395/

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I like the unusual, the off beat, the avant-garde. No 3/4 FNC for me!

And regarding Apogee's shipping/pricing/marketing policies, let me tell you guys of a couple of my personal experiences.
I noticed some years ago that the price of the Space Monkeys V2 was significantly higher than the same product listed on the manufacturer's website. When I asked customer service about it they revised the price to match the lower one in a matter of a couple of days.
Also on a couple of occasions they have emailed me to notify me that the calculator overcharged on my shipping and my payment would be correspondingly adjusted. So yes, they do charge actual shipping, not an inflated figure.
As for marketing policies, if it doesn't appeal to you then don't buy their products.
The rest of us will continue to buy and fly their products with a big smile on our faces.

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I like the unusual, the off beat, the avant-garde. No 3/4 FNC for me!

I agree - it's not a significant problem - more of just an annoyance. It's just a little surprising since most of the parts in the kit fit perfectly.