Estes EAC VIPER BT-55 Upscale, Part 1, The Logo & Fixing The Name

In April of 2022, I built the second (and final) model available only to the members of the Estes Aerospace Club - the E.A.C. Firecat. 

To see that build: CLICK HERE

In the 1970s, I was a member of the Estes Aerospace Club or E.A.C. I built the first "club exclusive" VIPER rocket.

It was around 15" tall, a BT-50 model flown with 13mm motors.

I remember not being able to find paint that matched the purple and yellow-orange ink on the stickers. 

More on that coming up.

I decided to do a BT-55 based, slight upscale.

Chart by Jim "K'Tesh" from the Rocketry Forum

To get the scale factor - 

Divide the diameter of the upscale size BT-55 (1.325") by the diameter of the original BT-50 (.976) to get the Scale Factor of 1.357. I rounded up to 1.36.

Every dimension of the original kit parts is multiplied by 1.36 to get the new larger part  lengths.

The original kit BT-50 body tube was 9.5" long. The upscale BT-55 tube ends up at a length of 12.92"

The original BNC-50Y nose cone will eventually be replaced with a (very close) BNC55061.

Onto that weird font - 

Take a look at the original Estes Aerospace Club logo. It's a combination of mostly lower case letters. But, the "T", "P", "L" and "B" are reduced capital letters.

Shrinking those capital letters to the height of the lower case letters also reduced the 

weight or boldness of those upper case letters. 

I re-set the logo letters and made those small capital letters a bit bolder. (See "Fixed") 

The original balsa fin stock (BFS-20, 1/16" thick) will be replaced with 3/32" thick balsa.

The parachute will stay at 12" diameter, maybe 15".