Saturday, February 21, 2015

Centuri Payloader II, Background Part 1


I just purchased two Estes (Centuri) PAYLOADER II kits from Ebay.
I had always like this design since first seeing it in the Centuri Catalogs.
These models were not in the most recent Estes clearance sale and are out of stock from some vendors.
The EBAY buy it now price of $9.99 each was a good incentive considering the Estes retail price is $21.79!

The first Payloader was introduced in 1964 and was 15" tall.
It was a ST-7 based diameter model with three fins.

In 1966 the newly designed Centuri Payloader II is now 18.5" tall. The Estes re-issue is 17.0" tall.
The Centuri kit used a ST-10 tube. (1.04" dia.) The Estes kit includes the thinner walled BT-50 tube (.976" dia.)
If this were a true (slight) downscale, the BT-50 sized Payloader II should have been 17.45" tall. But it's close enough. The balsa nose cone in the Estes kit looks to be shorter, like an Alpha BNC-50K style. I have a longer BMS replacement.
My version will be a close to catalog build and including the Centuri logo and PAYLOADER II decal, plus the vertical black stripes between the fins as shown in the Centuri instructions. Estes includes the stripes but doesn't mention where they should go.
The thin walled BT-50 will probably be replaced with a thick walled BT-50.

2 comments:

  1. I look forward to following this one, as I am long overdue replacing my lost payloader.

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  2. Hi Lonnie,
    This one was on my list, even in the 1970s. I finally got to build it.

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