The Mini Honest John parts are all pretty standard, except for the blow molded nose cone which is as long as the main airframe tube.
The laser cut fins seem very small. Some TRF posts have talked about the rocket being unstable so .20 - .25 oz. of clay nose weight will be added to the nose cone.The rubber shock cord is 24" long, a positive change in the newer kits.
The adapter rings are thick! There is no engine hook so the engine will be a friction fit.
The yellow spacer tube is for setting the engine block. The engine block is not shown in the second picture.
The decals are all white and surrounded by a dashed black line for cutting.
I might do some cutting so the rocket will read U.S. ARMY instead of the generic U.S. MILITARY.
It looks like that kit mimics the M50 HoJo rather than the M31, which was longer and had the larger fins.
ReplyDeleteFrom wikipedia:
MGR-1A (M31) was 27 ft 3in long, had an engine diameter of 22.875in, a warhead diameter of 30in (762mm), a span of 104in, weighed 5820 pounds (nuclear), and had a maximum range of 15.4 miles. The Hercules Powder Company X-202 rocket motor was 197.44in long, weighed 3937 pounds, and had 90,325 pounds average thrust.
MGR-1B (M50) was 24 ft 10.53in long, had an engine diameter of 22.8in, a warhead diameter of 30in, a span of 56in, weighed 4332 pounds (nuclear), and had twice the range of the M31. The Thiokol composite propellant solid rocket motor had 150,000 pounds thrust.
Hi Phillip,
ReplyDeleteYou are right, I should have said this was the M-50 Honest John.
I checked your specs against the Peter Alway drawing. His measurements are slightly different, but only by a few 10ths of an inch.
I'm not saying somebody is wrong, I just found it interesting.
Just got a new one, and clay noseweight is now included.
ReplyDeleteThat's a good thing! It needs the nose weight.
DeleteAfter some unstable reports on TRF, Estes said they might include the clay weight in the next run of kits.
Looks like I have the next run of the Mini Honest John. My directions and decals are laid out differently, I also have clay weight, and I'm going to say my fins a slightly different... Less overall width, length about the same.
ReplyDelete