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Old 01-20-2012, 09:36 PM
luke strawwalker's Avatar
luke strawwalker luke strawwalker is offline
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Join Date: Mar 2011
Location: Needville and Shiner, TEXAS
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Quote:
Originally Posted by closet astronaut View Post
What...no pics of the launch? Fire! Smoke!

Nice launch pad, alot better than the plastic tri-pod and metal blast disk. I built one of these years ago, crashed and burned on its maiden flight, it's launch and crash looked just like one of the vintage film footage of one of the Atlas crashes. Here's a link, it's from the movie (The right stuff) the third one in the clip, the atlas goes tial up, this is what mine did.

NASA Failures - YouTube
Nope, no launch today... too windy! Maybe at the club launch next month...

Agree with you on the pad thing... those dinky Estes pads leave a lot to be desired... This is actually a copy of Dr. Zooch's pad that he uses to launch his rockets, built from a 2x12 base, 2x2 "pillars", and a 5/4 deck board piece for the "launch platform deck"... the instructions for it are posted over on TRF... the blast deflector is actually a green bean can with both ends cut out, snipped down one side with tin snips, and screwed down to the base with deck screws, after being dipped in yellow paint and allowed to dry thoroughly. Has an adjustable "lever" to hold the launch rod that allows it to be swung closer or further away from the "flame hole" in the deck, depending on the size of the rocket...

Looks like the Estes Mercury Atlas you have there... about 3 inches in diameter... This one is based on the BT-60 tube, which is 1.637 in diameter, so quite a bit smaller... Dr. Zooch also has a "Freedom 7" Mercury Redstone based on the BT-50 tube (0.976 inch diameter) which is in identical scale with this one...

That's still a nice Atlas you have there... you should fix it up and fly it again! (Build a new tower out of paper, wood, or wire... )

Later and thanks!
OL JR
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