Robert Stott's Firecat Kitbash

Here's a great "workaround" kitbash posted by Robert Stott on the Facebook Estes Model Rocket page.

And a link to the original EAC Firecat instructions (#0821) on the JimZs site: CLICK HERE

"So, here we are, a bunch of us now have a bunch of cheap (and I have no idea how they're doing this) Walmart Mini Honest Johns... what to do... what to do...

KITBASH!!

Now oddly, the 'Mini' HJ is nearly the same scale size as the vintage K-27 Estes Honest John from the 1960s, so of course I plan on converting one of these to one of those, which is based on the original first generation of the HJ (AKA the BIG Finned one with the HUGE Spin Motors up top). I might even give it a proper boat tail! But, for my first trick...

I have cobbled together the nose cone and parachute kit out of one, and cobbled together a bunch of parts very much in the same way that Estes did back in the early days of the EAC - the Estes Aerospace Club. Back then, they had the Viper, which was the exclusive kit you got when you joined and got their starter set. but then they made a single 'exclusive' kit, packaged very like their notorious SPEV kit, a Frankenstein rocket made up of old extra parts from discontinued models. In the case of the EAC, they decided on using a nose cone they had created, or possibly brought over from the acquisition of Vashon Industries, for the ColdPower version of the Honest John. Unlike the K-27's version, where the nose cone was only the top half of the bulbus head of the rocket, the ColdPowered one was a complete balsa head, much like the Centuri one. Since the Mini HJ's nose cone is the same size as the balsa one (or at least reasonably so), creating a clone is easily possible. That is, until you try and find ONE part... another oddity, and I'm not quite sure which kit it came from back then, but there is a surprising replacement.

This is the EAC FIRECAT (est0821), an experimental recon drone. Not only did they readily admit to using spare parts, right down to snitching the decals out of an Astron Bandit's kit, but somewhere they had a pile of BT-48BE tubes lying around, so someone decided the Firecat needed a ram-air tube fin. Neat! But now, where to find a proper replacement? Well...

Now most may say, just cut a section of BT-50 and be done with it, but oddly, there is a modern equivalent of a BT-48 - which, according to the 1974 Estes Custom Parts Catalog, has an OD of .928". When you measure that to millimeters, you get 24mm, and you get the same size as one of those yellow D or E dummy engine spacer tubes you throw out after you built your latest rocket - silly rocket fiend! Don't you know we don't throw out anything? (I haven't seen my floor in years...)

SO, here are the consumables to make yourself a Firecat! Have at it!"