Rob Caswell's Goony - Inspiration

Some builder's get their scratch build design ideas from places you wouldn't expect.

Rob Caswell shows how it's done! 

"My long range build plans were snafued by once again (obsessively) catching the Goony Bug. Like my v-1/2 (aka “Missile Toe”) built earlier in the year, this takes its inspiration from the original Estes concept sketches of the Goonybirds from the early 70’s, where they were all “chibi” interpretations of WW1 and WW2 aircraft… perhaps to follow up on the popular success of the relatively recently released Der Red Max."

The original Estes Design Concept - Note the small red rocket in the upper right

I call this one “Baron von Liftoffen” and it capitalizes on the sketch done for what would become the Sky Shriek. There are TWO vehicles in the original sketch. It the foreground a British biplane inspired work, but in the background a “design twin” that was clearly aiming at the Fokker triplane. Since the release version of that Goony featured the scalloped trailing fin edges, it seems like it must have come from details for the background bird, so that’s the direction I went… though it could be fun to try the Brit version at a later date!

With Bad Boy Rocketry’s recent Goonybird clone releases, I asked to by a laser cut fin set from James as trimming those scalloped edges would be a pain… and I’m all about The Lazy. I mashed that with an Estes Mini Fat Boy. I did cut down the main body tube to the originally spec’d 5” length, but I threw a quarter ounce of nose weight just for good measure.

The guns are off an old Cox gas powered Fokker triplane. They worked perfectly, as far as the scale I wanted. I was lucky enough to find someone selling it – JUST the guns – on ebay. The rocket fates were smiling on me!

The decals were my own design and production, using an inkjet and decal stock from Micro Mark. I made a decal for the brass data plate that would have been on the Fokker’s engine cowl and placed it atop a small rectangle of gold Monokote Trim Sheet… but I should have doubled the size as it’s illegible. I’ve included a better view of the decal in the pics. The brushed silver ring behind the nose is also Monokote trim.

I’ll also call attention to the aft text string. The original Fokker DR-1 carried the string “Fok. DRI 425/17”. I mutated it to “Est. (for Estes instead of Fokker) GRI (“G” for Goony) 812/40 (Estes’ Penrose zipcode)”. And of course I HAD to include Snoopy head kill marks!

von Liftoffen’s maiden flight is next weekend at the CMASS launch in Amesbury, MA."