Cracker Barrel Find!

It's the first sign of the apocalypse!

Estes rubber band prop airplanes at the Cracker Barrel, right next to the Guillow's planes.

Roger Smith spotted this one after a post launch dinner.

Tampa TTRA Launch Pics Jan. 19, 2013

Roger Smith has posted great pictures from the Tampa TTRA launch from January 19, 2013.
You can see them at:
http://www.rocketreviews.com/january-2013-8172.html

On the left is the Quest Aerospace One (the same one I'm building now on this blog) launched with an Estes D12-5.

Quest Aerospace One Part 3 Steps 9 - 10 Spine Fin

Step 9 has you remove the laser cut fins from the sheet and sand the edges.
I sanded enough to remove the hold down tabs and remove the burned edges.

The antenna tabs are glued onto the spine.
TIP: Looking back on this part of the build, I should have glued the antennas on AFTER the wings were glued to the spine.
After gluing the wings on each side of the spine, it's just easier to sand the wing and spine joints without the antennas getting in the way.

Step 10 is vague about where to glue the antennas - 1" from either end.
I decided to glue them 1" from the top surface after the angle cut on the ends. The face card picture shows the front antenna about 2" from the front of the spine.

I wasn't thinking ahead and glued the antennas on, 1" from each end.
For an even pressure, a ruler was balanced on top of the glued antennas and a weight applied.

Quest Aerospace One Part 2 Engine Mount Steps 1 - 6

To convert this mount from 18mm to 24mm engines:

A 24mm engine casing was stood up and centered on the rings included in the kit.
Trace around the base of the engine with a fine point pencil.

Tracing around the smaller diameter engine casing (instead of a slightly larger BT-50 sized tube) gives you a tighter trim-to-fit interior diameter.

Check to make sure the drawn circle is centered on the ring.
Erase and redraw if needed.

It'll take a few passes to cut through the rings. Take your time.

The rings were stacked and sanded with some 100 grit paper around a finger.
Sand for a bit, check the fit and sand more.

As you get closer to the correct diameter, switch over to some finer 220 grit sandpaper.

The finished 24mm engine mount.

The BT-50 (24mm) tube is 4" long.
The rings were glued 3/4" from each end.
135 lb. Kevlar was tied on and slipped through a small hole in the front ring.
The engine hook is long enough for a 3 3/4" long E engine. A 1" coupler will be slid in for a "D".
An 1/4" long engine block was cut from a used E engine casing.

Launch! Tampa TTRA January 19, 2013

I had great success yesterday at the Tampa TTRA launch.
Nobody knew what to expect weather wise, we knew there would be wind. Throughout the day there were wind gusts, up to 20 m.p.h.

PIGASUS! flew well with a C6-5 under it's tail.
Perfect straight boost even with the wind.






That's Andy Green connecting up his Estes Argent for two flawless flights with G40 engines.



The first flight of the Quest AEROSPACE ONE.
(I know, it's being put together on the blog, but I build far ahead)

The 18mm mount was changed out for 24mm engines and 1/2 oz. of nose weight added.
I was nervous, with that much "wing" area I thought it might go horizontal into the wind.

A D12-5 was picked for the first flight. A second 12" parachute was clipped on.
Perfect boost, vertical with no roll. No damage on recovery.



The most impressive flight of the afternoon went to Brent Rubinow with his Cerebus. A beautiful build, reminiscent of the old NASA prototype drawings.
The Cerebus is a 3 engine parallel cluster with two Aerotech H250s outboards around a Cessoroni J360 skidmark.
Check out the inset picture - 

Amazing boost - lots of sparks from the Skidmark!



My SCAVENGER flew with an Estes E9-6.
This model has that champagne glass nose cone from the Dollar Tree store. Those should be on sale again through Valentine's Day. It fits the Quest 50mm tube.

My also flowns:
CD SPOOL with a C6-3.
Quest COBALT with a Quest A6-4

Roger Smith should be posting the launch and flight pictures soon!
Stop by rocketreviews.com go to "Features" and look under "photo albums".

Quest Aerospace One Build Part 1 Parts

Here's the parts layout from the kit.

This model was designed by Shrox when he was working for Quest. It was featured on the 2010 Quest Catalog cover with two ES-1 Escort models.

It's a larger model to be flown with 18mm engines.
On any larger model over two feet tall, I usually convert them for 24mm engines.
This model is 23" long with large wing fins and many details.

The motor mount, shock cords and dowel details are in a single bag.

Parts of interest:
The large Intake Tube was out of round. This probably happened during storage or shipping. It's almost two inches in diameter and shouldn't be hard to reshape.

The seams (see inset) are another story. The seams are wide and deep.

From the Quest website:
"The future of Presidential transport! Another visionary design by SHROX. Two big decal sheets (we couldn't fit them all on one!) really make this rocket a visual dazzler! Slow impressive lift-offs with B6-4 and C6-3 motors."

I was a little disappointed, expecting water slide decals. But, I understand the reasons behind the stick-ons. The big blue trim decals would be very hard to use if they were water slides.
The two sheets have a few wrinkles. I might scan these and print out some water slide decals.

Quest Cobalt Build Finished!

It's a cute little model, should be a good one for the Quest A6-4 engines I have.
I'm looking forward to flying it at the small, schoolyard field.

A little nose weight (a forum post recommended 10 grams) and it might be stable with B6 engines. I probably wouldn't fly it with a C.

The forum comments are right, there is little room for the wadding and streamer if built stock. I did remove most of the nose cone shoulder base and will pack the streamer there. Hopefully it'll pull out of the nose at ejection. More on that in the previous blog post.

The nose cone sticker with the wrinkles at the top.
The stickers look pretty good cut tight, right on the edges.
On the fin stickers, be sure the base is straight when the model is standing up!