Showing posts with label EAC. Show all posts
Showing posts with label EAC. Show all posts

Wednesday, March 18, 2020

Estes Honest John to EAC Firecat?

After looking closer at the Estes E.A.C. Firecat kit, I thought at first the fins might be from the old K-27 Honest John kit.
The instructions have you cut up the HoJo die-cut balsa to make the unusual Firecat fins. The raceway and pod standoff pieces were cut by hand from the leftover balsa.
The nose cone was not from the earlier Honest John kit, the Firecat part number was BNC-50BD. It was all balsa, not a combination of a card stock shroud and upper balsa nose cone from the original K-27 HoJo. 

This was probably the one-piece balsa cone from the "Cold Power" Honest John rocket. The parts choices make me think this might have been a S.P.E.V. 
The Cold Power Honest John kit made one appearance in the 1973 Estes catalog and was discontinued. The EAC Firecat was introduced in 1974.

The decals are (of course) from the Estes Bandit.
The Firecat was the second Estes Aerospace Club "members only" kit. The first kit was the Viper, included in the EAC membership package. 

The beautiful build shown above is from Bill Cookes blog:  http://billsrockets.blogspot.com
Here's the Firecat instructions: http://www.spacemodeling.org/jimz/estes/est0821.pdf