RocketReviews.com - Estes - Skywinder (2077) [1993-2002]

Brief:
I'm going to be taking part in a rocket exhibition for some elementary aged kids next month and wanted to show a wide variety of types. In thinking about it, I realized that I have not built a true helicopter recovery model before. I began to look around to see if I had a really simple one and I found the Estes SkyWinder which seemed to fit the bill.

Construction:
The first step in construction is to locate the two halves of the plastic fin can. I found them and test fit them. They seemed to fit together fine but I did find some plastic flash I wanted to clear off using a razor knife. I then put the halves together using Plastuct instead of the tube type cement recommended.

Next up was the lower launch lug. It was found on a sprue which ostensibly contained the upper lug as well but the instructions said to discard the upper part since on this rocket the upper lug is molded into a different part. The lug was placed with Plastruct as well.

After the lug came the fins. There are four plastic fins to be attached. I test fit them and found 2 to be perfect fits and 2 to need a little trimming. The fins were then bonded into place with Plastruct.

The shoulder for the lower rotor hub was then located as was a cardboard centering ring that needed to be inserted within it. I sanded around the ring to smooth it up a bit and test fit it. That's when I noticed that there is a directional key slot. It will fit correctly only in the right orientation. For this step, the ring was bonded with Testor's tube style cement. The shoulder also required the insertion of a blue BT-5 sized insert. I assume that the cardboard hold up to the ejection charge better than the plastic but that's just a guess. It too was placed with the tube cement, and as per the instructions, every effort was made to clean up any excess at the end. With that, the aft shoulder was slid into place on the fin can. It is keyed so that it can fit only in the correct orientation. It was bonded into place with more Plastruct.

The rotor hub was easy to locate and identify because it is a white plastic piece in the midst of mostly black plastic. It was placed on the shoulder and checked to make sure it rotated freely. It did without any problem. The cap to hold it in place was then located. Its a short piece of red coupler tubing for BT-5. I test fit that and found there was no problem there either. The coupler was then pulled back off and given a dose of tube cement and then replaced, making sure that it did not interfere with the rotor.

The rotor hinges were the other bits of white plastic. They were located and, after careful examination of the illustrations in the instruction to ensure proper orientation, were snapped into place. They did not travel as freely as I expected but I suspect that the range of movement is adequate.

The actual body tube for this rocket is a white section of BT-5. It was located along with a plastic stop meant to fit into one end. As per instructions, the stop was installed with tube cement.

The upper slide is another plastic black component. It was located along with a black cardboard ring meant to be installed around the tongs of the slide to prevent them from opening too much. The ring was bonded with more of the tube cement and allowed to dry. The slide was then fit around the bottom of the BT and slid up into place.

With the upper body assembled and put onto the BT, the BT then had to be placed onto the red coupler just above the hub. The fit was too tight and the cement joint between the plastic and paper coupler sheared almost immediately. I did some sanding on the coupler and then reseated the BT using some thick CA as the adhesive this time. I also made sure not to get any onto the rotor.

The kit comes with four "butter pats" of clay to be used as a nose weight. From what I have read on The Rocketry Forum, that makes this rocket particularly heavy on prone to damage on landing. I've also read that failure to use it can lead to very unstable flights. The instruction method is to roll the clay into snakes and tamp it into the nose cone. I did not want to do that. Instead, I measured out an equivalent weight in BBs and poured those into the plastic nose cone. I then mixed some 15 minute epoxy and poured that in on top to keep it all in place.

Attachment of the rotors is probably the most difficult aspect of the build, but it is not particularly difficult. The rotors are clear plastic and have slots that fit over a protrusion on the hinges. The only real issue is trying to identify the correct orientation since the illustrations are not very clear. A little thought and the text pointing out that that rotors form a "tube" around the BT gave only one possible option, even though the result does not look much like a tube to me.

Finishing:
For the most part, this rocket is pre-finished. All the parts are colored and there are some stickers with which to decorate it. I chose to do some minimal painting though. The plastic nose cone had some pretty bad seams on it. I sanded them down but that left the black plastic looking awful. I decided to paint the NC. So it was that I sanded it a little more and then shot it with white primer. It got 2 coats of the primer.

After the primer, I decided to go with an orange nose cone instead of black and sprayed on 2 coats of Testor's Competition Orange. I happened to have it sitting out for another project it so grated on me less than most oranges do. I actually liked the result.

Since the nose cone would look pretty silly sitting on the bench while the rest of the rocket went flying, I used some tube cement to bond it into the upper slide. That just left the motor retainer to put into place before I could finish "finishing" my rocket with the stickers.

I detest stickers. I would much rather have waterslide decals and sometimes scan stickers to print my own waterslides. I would not do that with a kit like this so I was pleasantly surprised when I actually took a close look at the stickers. Most of the time, stickers are thick things that do not want to follow a curve too well. These were not. They are fairly thin, not much thicker than waterslides. I learned that they stick better than most stickers also.

The first to be applied were the stripe pattern on the rotor blades. Once in place, they greatly improved the look of the rocket and made the blades much more visible to boot.

One thing I did not consider when painting the NC orange was the placement of a bar pattern sticker on the cone. The oranges did not match up and the pattern would have been much more visible on the black, but it's not completely terrible.

Another group of stickers intended for the NC was a series of three long, orange triangles the length of the NC. I used only two of them and they did not show up all that well (although better than in the photo).

One of my common pet peeves with Estes is their inability to count compounded by their unwillingness to often provide enough stickers/decals for both sides of the fins. In this kit, they were guilty of both. In a perfect world, there would have been 8 stickers; this would handle both sides of 4 fins. In actuality, it came with three so that three fins have a single sticker and one is staying "nekkid".

Placement of the fin stickers completed my build but I wanted to try something first and make sure that the rotors would deploy. As such, I added the rubber bands, folded them against the BT, and set the slide in place to retain them. I pulled up the NC and the rotors deployed. I then got stupid and tried to fumble with the camera while manipulating the NC, fins and rotors and wound up with this short sequence.

Personally, I would not classify this kit as being an E2X. It is easy but it does take a little bit of building. Level 1 should be about right.

Flight and Recovery:
For the first flight I chose the B4-2, the recommended motor. I did this even though many on TRF said it was underpowered. They were right.

It took off and arced over. I was very thankful for just having a 2-second delay when I saw the blades pop out. The rotation was fine and, except for landing nose first in a fresh cow patty, it was fine.

For the second flight, I used a C6-3. This time everything went right and I had my first real heli-recovery rocket operational. A video can be seen here.

Summary:
This rocket is not a bad introduction to helicopter recovery. From what I understand, it is a piece of cake compared to other copters. Its probably not the most durable choice but its something just about anyone can build.

Persons interested in following the development of this rocket in photos and vids are invited to check here.

Flight Log

Date	Rocket Name	Motor(s)	Altitude	Notes
1999-03-27	David Fergus's Estes Skywinder	B4-2	-	OK, but vaseline lubricant is a little too viscous, blades not rotating very fast
1999-04-21	Eric Miller's Estes Skywinder	C6-3	-	Skywinder has a neat recovery after a long burn into the windy air over the field the ejection...
1999-08-14	David Fergus's Estes Skywinder	C6-3	-	suffered a nose cone separation, came down in two pieces OK. plastic model cement just doesn't...
1999-11-20	David Fergus's Estes Skywinder	C5-3	-	forgot to put on the rubber bands, still kind of auto rotated down
2000-01-01	MikeyR's Estes Skywinder	C6-3	-	helicopter Again a nice flight.
2000-01-07	MikeyR's Estes Skywinder	C6-3	-	helicopter Nice flight to end day.
2000-01-08	MikeyR's Estes Skywinder	C6-3	-	helicopter Nice flight, good rotation on descent.
2000-01-15	MikeyR's Estes Skywinder	C6-3	-	helicopter Nice flight yet again!
2000-02-05	Randy Powell's Estes Skywinder	C5-3/C6-5	-	lube the rotor. . i used wd-40 but a dry lube would be better. . . expoxy works good on the...
2000-02-16	MikeyR's Estes Skywinder	C6-3	-	helicopter Again a very nice flight.
2000-02-19	MikeyR's Estes Skywinder	C6-3	-	helicopter Nice flight. Good deployment and recovery.
2000-02-21	MikeyR's Estes Skywinder	B6-2	-	helicopter Nice, low flight. Close landing
2000-02-21	MikeyR's Estes Skywinder	C6-5	-	helicopter Nice flight into breeze.
2000-03-18	MikeyR's Estes Skywinder	C6-3	-	helicopter Nicely into the wind.
2000-03-19	MikeyR's Estes Skywinder	C6-3	-	helicopter Jerked into the wind over the Convent. Landed hard in the parking lot, cracked the base...
2000-04-04	Scott Shaw's Estes Skywinder	C5-3	-	Nice high flight. At ejection the rotor blades extended but the rocket gyrated wildly on the way...
2000-04-04	Scott Shaw's Estes Skywinder	B6-2	-	Engine problems! Rocket sort of fizzled as it rose ~15 feet up and arced over pointing sideways....
2000-05-20	Randy Powell's Estes Skywinder	C6-3	-	Rocket flew good and rotors worked perfectly. . . landed close to pad
2000-08-26	David Fergus's Estes Skywinder	C6-3	-	suffered and engine compartment separation this time, came down in two pieces, definitely need a...
2000-11-11	Chuck Pierce's Estes Skywinder	C6-7	-	One of rotors popped out of its socket, so the recovery was sloppy, but the rocket sustained no...
2001-03-31	Brandon Mickel's Estes Skywinder	B4-2	-	another perfect flight. Noticed tips of rotors slightly burned
2001-04-01	Larry Zeilmann's Estes Skywinder	C6-3	-	Notes
2001-04-08	MikeyR's Estes Skywinder	C6-3	-	Sailed over trees. Broke base again.
2001-04-09	Brandon Mickel's Estes Skywinder	C6-3	-	Replaced rod and blast deflector on pad and got a nice high launch - however, rocket pranged on a...
2001-05-05	Larry Zeilmann's Estes Skywinder	C6-3	-
2001-05-06	Larry Zeilmann's Estes Skywinder	C6-3	-	Perfect always a great performer
2001-05-12	Donald Besaw's Estes Skywinder	C6-3	-	Rocket made its 22nd 23rd and 24th flights. All flights were perfect.
2001-05-19	Donald Besaw's Estes Skywinder	C6-3	-	Rocket made its 25th flight. Still coming back for more.
2001-06-16	Larry Zeilmann's Estes Skywinder	B4-2	-	Low altitude
2001-06-27	Larry Zeilmann's Estes Skywinder	B4-2	-	Perfect flight
2001-06-27	Larry Zeilmann's Estes Skywinder	C6-3	-	Another perfect flight
2001-07-14	Larry Zeilmann's Estes Skywinder	C6-3	-	Another great flight.
2001-07-14	Donald Besaw's Estes Skywinder	C6-3	-	Nice flight totalling 30 to date. Nice close recovery. Ready for more action.
2001-08-11	Larry Zeilmann's Estes Skywinder	C6-3	-	good flight, totaling 12 to date
2001-08-25	Donald Besaw's Estes Skywinder	C6-3	-	Nice flight totalling 29 to date. Two blades failed to extend outward making the rocket come in...
2001-11-10	Larry Zeilmann's Estes Skywinder	C6-3	-	AGF
2001-12-17	Donald Besaw's Estes Skywinder	C6-3	-	Another nice flight totalling 32 to date.
2001-12-30	Donald Besaw's Estes Skywinder	C6-3	-	Nice way to end the day. Nice 34th flight. Good recovery.
2002-02-09	MikeyR's Estes Skywinder	C6-5	-	Again nice.
2002-02-09	MikeyR's Estes Skywinder	C6-3	-	OK flight.
2002-02-24	Donald Besaw's Estes Skywinder	C6-3	-	34th flight, only to suffer a crippling blow this time. New body tube on order. Will fly again.
2002-03-10	Donald Besaw's Estes Skywinder	C6-3	-	36th flight with new body tube. Body assembly ejected again. Found rotor after extensive search....
2002-04-13	Donald Besaw's Estes Skywinder	C6-3	-	Finially, a perfect 37th flight after two failures. Recovered close to pad.
2002-04-23	Larry Zeilmann's Estes Skywinder	C6-3	-	AGF
2002-04-27	David Logan's Estes Skywinder	C6-3	-
2002-05-11	Larry Zeilmann's Estes Skywinder	C6-3	-	AGF
2002-05-20	Donald Besaw's Estes Skywinder	C6-3	-	38th flight. Still going.
2002-08-01	MikeyR's Estes Skywinder	C6-5	-	This was in Sport Rocketry, too!
2002-08-04	MikeyR's Estes Skywinder	C6-3	-
2002-08-10	Larry Zeilmann's Estes Skywinder	C6-3	-	AGF #21
2002-11-28	Donald Besaw's Estes Skywinder	C6-3	-	Great flight. Long walk for recovery. No damage.
2003-03-09	Will Borkowski's Estes Skywinder	C5-6	-	Perfect flight up, ejection right at apogee, very short recovery walk
2003-03-09	Will Borkowski's Estes Skywinder	B6-4	-	Nice flight up, low powered engine, nose cone came off but helicoptered back. All pieces recovered.
2003-03-16	Will Borkowski's Estes Skywinder	C6-5	-	Nice power for this rocket, Delay was way too long for ejection. Needs max of 3 seconds.
2003-04-06	Donald Besaw's Estes Skywinder	C6-3	-	Nice flight. Broke a rotor blade during deployment, rocket landed on it's side, no damage.
2003-04-26	Larry Zeilmann's Estes Skywinder	C6-3	-	AGF
2003-06-07	Donald Besaw's Estes Skywinder	C6-3	-	Great flight, great rotor deployment, came down rather slowly. No damage.
2003-06-23	Jeremy Mikkola's Estes Skywinder	C6-6	-	rocket was launched on small (1.75 acre) field, and went out of sightwas found in next door down...
2003-07-18	Donald Besaw's Estes Skywinder	C6-3	-	Nice flight and recovery. No damage.
2003-10-01	Fred Jones's Estes Skywinder	D21-4	-	Rocket screemed off the pad to a nice ejection. Alas, as it began to rotor down the joint between...
2003-10-02	Donald Besaw's Estes Skywinder	C6-3	-	Nice flight. No damage.
2003-10-04	Larry Zeilmann's Estes Skywinder	C6-5	-	AGF Endurance
2003-10-04	Larry Zeilmann's Estes Skywinder	C6-3	-	AGF Endurance
2003-10-04	Larry Zeilmann's Estes Skywinder	B6-4	-	AGF Endurance kicked motor
2003-10-11	Donald Besaw's Estes Skywinder	C6-3	-	Very nice flight. Great recovery within feet of the pad. No damage
2003-10-12	Bob Cox's Estes Skywinder	B4-2	-	S-L-O-W boost, only about 75 feet high. Popped at apogee and rotored down perfectly, landing about...
2003-10-12	Bob Cox's Estes Skywinder	C6-3	-	Good boost with some weathercocking. Ejected at apogee and spun nicely down. Good landing. This is...
2003-11-08	Bob Cox's Estes Skywinder	C6-3	-	Slow arcing boost. Perfect ejection. All blades opened, and it rotored down nicely, with a bit of...
2004-01-24	Larry Zeilmann's Estes Skywinder	C6-3	-	Nose cone seperated
2004-02-12	Donald Besaw's Estes Skywinder	C6-3	-	Very nice flight. This rocket is about 10 years old and has 50+ flights on it and it's still...
2004-03-21	Donald Besaw's Estes Skywinder	C6-3	-	Another great flight of the Skywinder. Nice straight boost, rotor blade deployment and landed...
2004-04-04	Bob Cox's Estes Skywinder	C6-3	-	Long slow boost, with slight arc into wind. Helicopter blades opened properly and started spinning...
2004-04-11	Donald Besaw's Estes Skywinder	C6-3	-	Nice flight with a lot of arcing. Recovered without incident. I think I'll only fly this one in...
2004-05-01	David Logan's Estes Skywinder	C6-3	-	Night Flight. I got some glow stick bracelets, and taped a glow stick to each rotor blade....
2004-06-26	David Logan's Estes Skywinder	C6-3	-	Nice flight, landed 20 feet from pads
2004-06-27	David Logan's Estes Skywinder	C6-3	-	Good demonstration flier. Close recoveries.
2004-09-05	Bob Cox's Estes Skywinder	C6-3	-	Good boost, ejected just past apogee. Good rotor deployment using rubber bands from Cosmic Cobra,...
2004-09-05	Geoffrey Kerbel's Estes Skywinder	B6-4	-	Nice first flight. Not sure what delay to use but it all worked fine. This is a fun rocket!
2004-09-25	David Logan's Estes Skywinder	C6-3	-	Perfect flight and recovery. Landed about 50 yards from pads.
2004-10-09	Bob Cox's Estes Skywinder	C6-3	-	Perfect flight. Helicopter action worked exactly as designed, and landed exactly 3 feet from pad.
2004-10-25	Patrick Chase's Estes Skywinder	C6-5	-	with minor repairs this has performed well my blades dont spin at all now that they are glued so...
2004-11-08	Donald Besaw's Estes Skywinder	C6-3	-	Very nice flight, slight weathercock. Perfect rotor blade deployment and recovery. No damage.
2004-11-13	Bob Cox's Estes Skywinder	C6-3	-	Nice gentle arcing boost. Rotor blades opened up nicely at ejection. Rotored down to soft landing...
2004-12-11	Geoffrey Kerbel's Estes Skywinder	B6-4	-	Still a good motor choice for this small park. Landed almost back at pad!
2004-12-11	Geoffrey Kerbel's Estes Skywinder	C6-3	-	Winds died so tried large motor. Man, it was high up there! Everything worked as planned and the...
2005-01-09	Geoffrey Kerbel's Estes Skywinder	C6-3	-	Only had the short delay this time. Still works great. This is a fun rocket! But it could eat up a...
2005-01-09	Geoffrey Kerbel's Estes Skywinder	C6-5	-	The delay time doesn't seem to matter to this rocket. Actually works better with a longer delay!...
2006-02-10	Donald Besaw's Estes Skywinder	C6-3	-	Haven't flown this one in awhile. Great flight and recovery. No damage.
2006-03-30	Richie Brunjes's Estes Skywinder	B6-4	-	Straight up/Straight down .
2006-08-20	Bob Cox's Estes Skywinder	C6-3	-	Arced into wind shortly after leaving rod. Good rotor deployment. Axial coning during descent. ...
2006-09-24	Bob Cox's Estes Skywinder	C6-3	-	Slow straight boost, leaning over flat at apogee. Clean rotor deployment. Gentle landing on...
2007-02-10	Richard Stephens's Estes Skywinder	C6-5	-	Two identical flights: Straight ascents with gradual arc. Perfect blade deployments with gradual...
2007-02-24	Geoffrey Kerbel's Estes Skywinder	C5-3	-	Good engine for this one. Straight flight considering the wind. Came down within 200' of the pad.
2007-06-15	Matt Gillard's Estes Skywinder	B4-2	-	another good flight, a B is a little under power, will stick with c6-3 from now on
2007-06-15	Matt Gillard's Estes Skywinder	C6-3	-	great flight - really nice slow decent.
2007-06-16	Matt Gillard's Estes Skywinder	B4-2	-	good rotation.
2007-09-02	Matt Gillard's Estes Skywinder	C6-3	-	arched boost into winds, hard landing, some repairs needed.
2007-09-02	Matt Gillard's Estes Skywinder	C6-3	-	squirrel boost, caught it before in landed, a good 80m drift due to winds
2007-09-02	Matt Gillard's Estes Skywinder	C6-3	-	strong winds but performed well.
2007-11-04	Ron Mahinske's Estes Skywinder	D21-7	-	Went up about 700'. Ejection charge blew the nose cone and sliding piece off the body tube. Fell...
2007-11-23	Geoffrey Kerbel's Estes Skywinder	C6-3	-	This seems to be the best engine for this rocket. Good height but not enough to overfly a small...
2009-02-15	Todd Mullin's Estes Skywinder	C6-5	-	Nose cone came loose. Airframe and cone hit hard, no auto-rotation. Need to replace bodytube.
2009-02-15	Howard Smart's Estes Skywinder	C6-3	-
2009-02-28	Howard Smart's Estes Skywinder	C6-3	-	Major weather cocking. This worked well for the helicopter recovery.
2009-02-28	Howard Smart's Estes Skywinder	C6-3	-	Straight flight. Crowd pleaser.
2009-05-23	Bob Cox's Estes Skywinder	C6-3	-	New Chinese Quest motors give long hissing boost. Rotors deployed just past apogee. Safe landing...
2009-06-13	John Lee's Estes Skywinder	B4-2	-	Underpowered. Blades deployed in the nick of time and recovered safely.
2009-06-13	John Lee's Estes Skywinder	C6-3	-	Great flight
2009-07-19	John Lee's Estes Skywinder	C6-3	-	Good demo flight
2009-11-28	Matthew Bond's Estes Skywinder	C6-3	-	First Flight! Nice smooth boost, just past apogee, nose down at ejection. Good deployment of all...
2010-09-19	Tim Fischer's Estes Skywinder	C6-3	-	This rocket never fails to impress. Perfect flight today, hitting some bleachers on the landing...

Estes - Skywinder (2077) [1993-2002]

Flight Log

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