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  #11  
Old 04-13-2012, 10:13 PM
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Swillie Swillie is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Gus
I presume you are talking about Great Lakes Train & Hobby. Best general hobby store, bar none, in the Detroit metro area. They consistently carry everything in the Estes and Quest lineup and often buy closeout lots of Estes stuff. they recently had a horde of Estes E-powered Spaceship Ones for $30 each.

The MRC kits, of which the Thermal Hawks are the last remainders, showed up about 4 years ago when GLT&H purchased a huge amount of 20 year old MRC and Estes stuff found in a warehouse somewhere. Last time I was in they still had an Estes S.W.A.T. or two and a couple of Greyhawks on the shelf.

Great, great, hobby store and like you found out, the owner is very approachable and reasonable. Wonderful store.



Thats the place! I love that store, great selection of all different things. I bought my Saturn V kit there last fall at a great price. They have all four of the Estes Pro Series kits, the new fin marking guide and tube cutting guides, 29mm motor retainers and pro Series motors, ect. I Also bought the new Estes Tercel today. Pretty sure I saw the Spaceship One kit.
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  #12  
Old 04-13-2012, 10:15 PM
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mojo1986 mojo1986 is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Swillie
Ah...., I haven't opened the kit yet. So I might have the opposite problem, the stickers not being sticky enough after 22 years. We'll see, hopefully they are still useable, or I suppose I could spray the design if I had to.

I'll take your advice and use epoxy on the fuselage. Sparingly I would guess so she isn't too front heavy. I have to dig out the instructions tonight and read up on how to trim it and all as this is new for me.


You might still be able to use the original stickers, even if they have dried out, by spraying the back of them with adhesive. Just a thought..........
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  #13  
Old 04-13-2012, 10:23 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mojo1986
You might still be able to use the original stickers, even if they have dried out, by spraying the back of them with adhesive. Just a thought..........


That is a good idea, i have spray glue I could use. I inspected the kit a few minutes ago, everything looks to be in great shape still and the sticker sheets still look bright and shiney and perfect which surprised me for a 22 year old kit. It almost felt wrong to tear into the package after all those years and I considered putting it away for just a moment, but I really want to build a boost glider and this kit deserves it's day in the sun....
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  #14  
Old 04-13-2012, 10:26 PM
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mwtoelle mwtoelle is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Swillie
Ah...., I haven't opened the kit yet. So I might have the opposite problem, the stickers not being sticky enough after 22 years. We'll see, hopefully they are still useable, or I suppose I could spray the design if I had to.

I did not use the decals. My Thermal Hawk is mostly unfinished. There may be some sanding sealer on the wings, but the boom and empennage are unfinished.
Quote:
I'll take your advice and use epoxy on the fuselage. Sparingly I would guess so she isn't too front heavy. I have to dig out the instructions tonight and read up on how to trim it and all as this is new for me.

Mine needed a bit of clay on the nose before it would glide. The only boost glider that I have built that was nose-heavy was the Estes Falcon (K-13). All of the front-motored pop pod B/Gs that I have built have been tail heavy.
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  #15  
Old 04-16-2012, 03:50 AM
jetlag jetlag is offline
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My experience is that tail heavy gliders fly very badly. They should be slightly nose heavy to work properly.
I hang my aircraft at their center of gravity (CG) with a string (or cable); doing so shows whether you need nose or tail weight and helps you balance laterally also.

Works every time!

Hope this helps!

Allen
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  #16  
Old 04-16-2012, 11:23 AM
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When I am referring to whether the glider is tail heavy or nose heavy, I am referring to the glider when assembly has been completed but before the necessary weight has been added. Even those balsa gliders that were sold almost everywhere had a metal clip on the nose to properly balance them for flight.

There was a review of the Thermal Hawk along with the Estes Tomcat, M2F2 Space Camel, and the NCR E-Z Glider B in the May/June issue of American Spacemodelling. The article had some good pointers on building and flying each of the above models. The nice thing about the Thermal Hawk is that the plastic fuselage makes it much easier to get wing and empennage aligned correctly.

I have found B/Gs and R/Gs some of the most challenging model rockets to build and fly. Glide recovered rockets are very rewarding when they work correctly.
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  #17  
Old 04-16-2012, 06:45 PM
snuggles snuggles is offline
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Does Great Lakes do mail order????
Sounds like a neat place.
Mark T
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  #18  
Old 04-16-2012, 07:18 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by snuggles
Does Great Lakes do mail order????
Sounds like a neat place.
Mark T


https://www.greatlakeshobby.com/index.php

Site not up to date from what I see but they have all the newest offerings from Estes.
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  #19  
Old 04-16-2012, 09:49 PM
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Finished the Thermal Hawk. I opted to finish with paint and stickers. With no trimming it seemed to test well unfinished. Now we will have to see in a day or so if it needs trimming after adding all that weight to it. Glide times will be shorter but im not entering it in a contest so what the heck. I really like this kit, went together fairly easy. I hope I can get it to fly well.
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  #20  
Old 04-30-2012, 09:27 AM
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Well i flew the Hawk twice...both times it hooked sideways about 15 in the air and than leveled off flying parallel to the ground for the entire boost. Than the ejection sent the glider on a nice maybe 20 foot radius right turn which unfortunately ends after 2 revolutions. Any ideas would be welcome on how to get the boost to go straighter upper.
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