Rick Barnes's EAC Firecat 70

This Super Firecat is an upscale of the little-known EAC Firecat from the 1973-'74 timeframe.  If you were a member of the Estes Aerospace Club at the time, you could order the Firecat - a kitbash of the coldpower Honest John and the Bandit.  All the components came out of the HoJo kit, the decals from the Bandit, and with some creative reuse of the parts you put it together in a completely different fashion. 


After building a clone, I decided an upscale was in order.  The nose cone and decals came courtesy of Sandman.  The rest was modeled in Rocksim to make sure it would all work together.  The wings/fins are 3/16" light ply, and the rudders and tip winglets are finger tabbed together (like a drawer) to improve the joint strength.  The dorsal raceway is 3/16" basswood, and the "faux" engine pod is a #200 tube on a tabbed 3/16" ply pylon.  It has a 29mm mount and uses an Estes screw-on motor retainer.  Recovery is 3/8" flat elastic on a kevlar leader, with a 30" Topflight parachute.

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Flights

 

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