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-   -   Original Estes K-44 Birdie (http://www.oldrocketforum.com/showthread.php?t=17639)

tlainhart 12-26-2018 08:48 AM

Quote:
Originally Posted by dwmzmm
I ordered and received my Birdie from the 1969 Estes catalog (page 128) and still have that model.


Ditto here, except that I no longer have the model. That was the only "rocket" that I could fly in my yard, with shorty motors.

ghrocketman 11-20-2019 04:40 PM

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This is the Birdie kit I would like to find for a realistic price.
Much rarer than the K44.

A Fish Named Wallyum 11-21-2019 05:11 AM

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I flew one. Once. Found the shuttlecock in the back yard and just happened to have the tube laying around. I didn't bother with anything fancy like centering rings, just glued the tube right to the back of the nose. It flew fine, but the ejection charge was a little robust for an unsupported tube and it never flew again. Now I'm getting the urge...... :rolleyes:

tbzep 11-21-2019 07:32 AM

Quote:
Originally Posted by A Fish Named Wallyum
I flew one. Once. Found the shuttlecock in the back yard and just happened to have the tube laying around. I didn't bother with anything fancy like centering rings, just glued the tube right to the back of the nose. It flew fine, but the ejection charge was a little robust for an unsupported tube and it never flew again. Now I'm getting the urge...... :rolleyes:

You look a lot younger and skinnier than I remember. :D

A Fish Named Wallyum 11-21-2019 07:24 PM

Quote:
Originally Posted by tbzep
You look a lot younger and skinnier than I remember. :D

I was young, but never that skinny. ;)

Scott6060842 11-23-2019 06:54 AM

Shorty motor Birdies and Mini Motor Birdies are easy to clone yourself. I buy 6 packs of shuttlecocks at the flea market for a buck.

I ended up with a bunch of plugged 13mm motors in an Ebay lot and that was a good way to use them up. I do like the way an ejection charge sends them flying though.

Gus 11-23-2019 07:34 PM

Real RSL shuttlecocks available here.

blackshire 12-01-2019 06:11 AM

Quote:
Originally Posted by Scott6060842
Shorty motor Birdies and Mini Motor Birdies are easy to clone yourself. I buy 6 packs of shuttlecocks at the flea market for a buck.

I ended up with a bunch of plugged 13mm motors in an Ebay lot and that was a good way to use them up. I do like the way an ejection charge sends them flying though.
Indeed--you can even make your own 18 mm, Series III "Shorty" motors, with 1/2A6-2 motors (and 1/2A6-4s and/or 1/2A6-0s, if you can find any) and a saw... For making a batch of them, I'd get a length of a hardwood 2 x 4 and drill a row of appropriately-deep (and wide) holes in it, then slide the 2.75" motors down into the holes--nozzles-down, of course--and saw off the empty upper 1" of their motor cases. Also:

Having built and flown a few Estes Birdie clones (powered by 13 mm motors), I can vouch for their "fun factor." They flew fine even in windy conditions (they didn't weathercock too much; sorry, I couldn't resist :-) [but it's true]). Even using the cheapest, junkiest, can-packed shuttlecocks, they weren't troubled even by asphalt surfaces (at the Old Tamiami Airport runway in Miami--now used by model airplane fliers--at Tamiami Park, site of the Dade County Youth Fair and Florida International University), bouncing up to thirty feet back into the air after landing on their rubber nose tips.

blackshire 12-01-2019 06:16 AM

Quote:
Originally Posted by A Fish Named Wallyum
I was young, but never that skinny. ;)
If the ancient Greeks and Romans had had cameras, they too would likely have had "stand-in servants" (even if they were their own younger and more photogenic children, or their neighbors or their children). :-)

blackshire 12-01-2019 06:30 AM

Quote:
Originally Posted by Gus
Real RSL shuttlecocks available here.
Someone could make a pretty penny 3D printing, in a softer plastic (or otherwise replicating, perhaps using one of the softer, more flexible polyurethane casting resins in RTV [Room Temperature-Vulcanizing] rubber molds [the platinum-cure ones are better and longer-lasting than the tin-cure molds]) those RSL shuttlecocks, because:

[1] They are long out of production, and so will eventually become unavailable;
[2] They're the authentic Estes-used ones, and;
[3] Their spiraled ribs did give them some stability-increasing spin, as the seller on eBay wrote (this feature isn't necessary, but it adds to their authenticity as *THE* "official" Estes Birdie shuttlecock.


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