The original Mars Snooper was introduced in the 1966 Estes Catalog.
At the time it was one of the more challenging builds.
Plenty of multi piece fins, seven balsa nose cones and adapter, three cardstock shrouds and eight balsa vanes. Fitting that long launch lug through three shrouds was difficult!
The original Mars Snooper continued in production for nine years until 1974.
The Mars Snooper II made it's debut in 1975.
The three nozzle shrouds were reduced to two. The upper fins were now one piece and glued on the lower tube. The two pieces of the lower fins are close in shape to the original design. The eight engine vanes remained but were now die-cut from thick cardstock.
Three BT-5 fuel pods were topped with ramjet nose cones from the Mini Bomarc kit. The rear nose cones are replaced with simulated landing legs.
The paint was simplified with no difficult masking. The entire model is painted gloss red except for the white dowel legs. All decals are printed in white.
The Mars Snooper II was an easier build than the previous version. Fewer nose cones, and no balsa vanes to fill.
It stayed in production for five years until 1980.
The build starts tomorrow!
The Mars Snooper as presented in plan form back in 1964 is also interesting. The most apparent difference between the plan and the kit would be the fin pods..
ReplyDeletehttp://www.spacemodeling.org/jimz/eirp_25.htm
Hi Naoto,
DeleteYep, the original used carved dowels for the pods. Carved dowels are used for the fuel tanks on my Odd'l Rockets F-104 Starfighter kit.
On step 11 you are told to split the NCS-1 (1"x1"x6" block of balsa) lengthwise into quarters, then three of these pieces are carved into the pods. The resulting pods would end up being 1/4" in diameter -- which would make them about half the diameter of BT-5.pods of the kit. It's nice they include a circle gauge on the plans.
DeleteHi Naoto,
DeleteYou are right! It's been years since I looked at the original instructions for the Snooper. The pods were balsa, and probably fragile.
also of potential interest
ReplyDeletehttps://retro-futurism.livejournal.com/29833.html
A number of years ago I picked up the Collector's Series Mars Snooper kit at one of the hobby shops I would frequent. The guys at the shop commented "we were wondering when you were going to buy it" (probably because I had been eyeing it for a couple months).
ReplyDeleteHi Naoto,
DeleteI remember seeing the Collector's Series boxed kit at my local hobby store. I was tempted but didn't pick it up.