Friday, October 7, 2016

Future Scale Kits From Estes?

On TRF, John Boren asked for scale rocket suggestions for possible Estes kits.
Mark B posted all the suggested names:

Comrades:
Thus far we've mentioned (in no particular order)

NEW
R-7, Rapier, Terrier, Talos, Typhoon, Standard, Nike -Cajun, Hercules and Zeus, N-1, 
Proton, HII A/B, Titan III and IV, Ariane 4 and 5, CZ-7, LVM, Vanguard, X-17, Atlas Able, V, Diamant, Thor, Delta (any), AMRAAM, Maverick, SA-2, SA-3, SA-11, Little Joe 1, WAC Corporal (2"+), Antares

GSLV, PAC-3, Pegasus

RE-RELEASE
LTV Scout, Saturn Ib, Gemini Titan, Sandhawk, Black Brant, Nike Ajax, Mercury Atlas, Scud, Bomarc, Pershing
And John said he'd done three of these in such a way that I'm guessing they are in the NEW list.
Cool. Some of these are pretty obscure (Typhoon? Really?), but I'd be thrilled with pretty much any of them.
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NAR 79743, SAM 062
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My response:
I bet you could add the (smaller) 1/100th scale Apollo Little Joe II to the re-release list. You know, the old Centuri Little Joe II, Estes brought that one back before. CLICK HERE
I'm hoping for the Saturn 1B 1/100 scale, LTV Scout and AMRAAM.

4 comments:

  1. The Semroc Little Joe II is in stock at many vendors: plastic capsule, cardstock fins with balsa skeleton, corrugated body wrap.
    The plans for the LTV Scout are at Jimmy Z's at spacemodeling.org: I was initially reticent to clone this because of the plastic parts, which are not available. Fast forward a few months and I stumbled on a balsa equivalent of the nose cone at erockets. Replaced the plastic fins with balsa, now I have a nice, big clone of the LTV Scout ( use enough clay nose weight and check for stability: the fins are tiny).
    As far as which kits Mr. Boren will be coming out with, my guess is that one will be the big Mercury Atlas. A few months ago I was attempting to clone this from old plans but the Body tube is a special size: 3.42 ". I noticed that the new Estes Little Joe II used the same size tube, so I e-mailed their customer service. Response was that they no longer have a dedicated parts dept. but "you may want to hold off on the scratch build until the fall". Interesting!

    BAR Geezer

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    1. Hi BAR,
      I'm aware about the Semroc Little Joe II, I've built a few of them over the years. The one pictured above is one that Centuri (and later Estes) released. Half the work is done now that the capsule and tower are being produced again.
      Interesting response from Estes about the Mercury Atlas. I can't do a regular blog post about it until it is announced. Fingers crossed -

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  2. Anything that uses the Mercury capsule is probably a good bet. Little Joe 1 is high on my list.

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    Replies
    1. Hi Openroad,
      I would think the Little Joe I could be on the way. On the Enerjet MR LJI I built on the blog, the body tube is longer than scale to allow enough room for the parachutes and slight increase in stability.

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