Estes - Stretched Blue Ninja
Contributed by Jarrett Gorin (Contributed - by Jarrett Gorin - 05/19/08) Brief: Modifications: Toss out the body tubes that come with the standard Blue Ninja kit (or save for another project), and use two 2 Estes BT-60 tubes uncut, which are 18" long each. You can then just assemble the kit using the instructions that come with it but using these parts instead. Additional modifications we made were to ditch the "rubber band" shock cord in favor of a Kevlar® cord with about eight feet of Aerotech 3/8 inch elastic tied to it. We also substituted a 22" nylon parachute instead of the Estes chute. This attaches to the excellent shock cord mount provided on the tube coupler from the stock kit. We used a 6" x 6" chute protector instead of recovery wadding. Construction: The instructions that come with the Estes Blue Ninja kit are well written and easy to follow/understand. As noted above, you can use these to assemble the Stretched Blue Ninja modified kit as well. The build is very easy. I recommend that you paint/finish the BT-60 body tubes prior to assembly. Also, we decided to fillet the fins and paint our fin assembly, and nose cone for a better finish, but this is not required. We painted our body tubes with a cool blue metal flake paint to try and preserve a little of the original Estes design. Interestingly, the Stretched Blue Ninja does not weigh much more than the unmodified kit due to the fact that the painted body tubes, even though they are longer than the originals, weigh about the same as the tubes in the stock kit, which have a relatively heavy adhesive decorative film on them. Another thing to make sure you are careful doing is to get the launch lugs aligned properly during assembly. They are integrated into the fin assembly, and the tube coupler, and if you don't get them set up correctly, you probably won't be able to do it later without having to rip apart your rocket. In general, the assembly is very easy, just like the unmodified Blue Ninja kit, and the result is a very sturdy rocket. Flight:
Recovery: Summary: A downside to the rocket is that you may have trouble moving it around if you drive a small car. Also, I am a little worried that the airframe will bend if it takes a hard landing at just the right (or I should say, wrong) angle. However, if you use the correctly sized chute, this is very unlikely. Flight Log
What You Can Do
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