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Contributed by Dick Stafford
(Contributed - by Dick Stafford - 04/19/08)
 Brief:
When one of my rocketry buddies decided to hold a building session, I was scrambling to decide what to work on. I
decided to use a 50% off Michael's coupon to grab an Estes SS1 kit for bashing. I turned it into a retro-styled
spaceship with more conventional fins and wing-tip pods. I also converted it for 24mm motors.
Modifications:
The two major mods are the conversion to 24mm and the replacement of the stock wing with fins/pods. The SS1 comes
with a plastic tail cone. One of the first steps on the stock kit is to cut the end of this off, leaving the scale
engine bell. I wasn't sure how much of the stock bell would remain after I added the larger motor tube, so I left this
on. That was a good call since there isn't much of the bell section left after it was modified. I started by cutting
the tail cone at its thinnest part and then expanding each piece until the motor tube fit. When I was done, I left the
back most part of the tail cone, which is a ~1/8” tubular section. This can be better understood my looking at the
photos.
 I expanded the provided centering "rings" and mounted the motor mount pretty much
as in the stock kit.
I came upon a set of unused Fat Boy fins in my junk box and decided these would work just fine. I slotted the
tail cone in between the centering rings and modified the through-the-wall tabs on the fins pretty much by trial and
error. The positions were such that there are two side "wings" and a "stabilizer fin". Since the
tail cone is not ovate, these sit at different heights.
Construction:
Parts list:
- One Estes SS1 (the original, smaller version)
- Fin set from an Estes Fat Boy kit
- 24mm motor tube
- Kevlar®
twine
- Three and a half plastic Christmas ornaments
- Lead shot
- 3/16” launch lug
 Flight:
I flew the 'Sqrt(-1)' on a D12-5 at MDRA's Red Glare IV. It flew great and the delay appeared right. Prep consisted
of packing dog barf in the tail cone and clipping on a 12" nylon chute. The motor was friction fit.
Summary:
The SS1 provided the basis of a nice retro-styled spaceship. It flies so much better than the stock kit, for fairly
obvious reasons (hint: it's basically a 3FNC rocket). Yeah, the some of the big dawgs of MDRA liked it...but thought it
need to be upscaled. - Post a Comment -
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