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-   -   Estes Little Joe I (http://www.oldrocketforum.com/showthread.php?t=17340)

A Fish Named Wallyum 06-26-2018 04:15 PM

Quote:
Originally Posted by ghrocketman
Is there a date when supposedly available ??

Nothing in the Facebox post. I'll keep and eye out, but John might be our best source for that info.

JediBoss 06-26-2018 07:16 PM

The catalog says to watch the website for the release date.

georgegassaway 06-26-2018 08:20 PM

Quote:
Originally Posted by BARGeezer
Enerjet had plans for a Mercury Little Joe (Little Joe I) in their Jan., 1973 newsletter. You can read about it in Chris Michealsson's blog here:

http://modelrocketbuilding.blogspot...ttle-joe-i.html

It used the same Mercury capsule currently being sold separately by Estes. With the parts list, templates, and instructions from the newsletter, it was easy to build a clone. It had nozzles made from cut off golf tees, but I left those off. And it was semi-scale, not true to scale, with the body lengthened a bit for stability.


FYI - That Centuri design fibbed on the diameter. The Redstone rocket was 70" in Diameter. The Little Joe I was 80" in diameter. There was a short conical adapted between the Mercury and Little Joe main body to go from 70" to 80".

At 1/35 scale, that would be a 2.28" body: BT-70 would be "close enough".

So one question that arises is if the adapter will be a paper transition (requiring some ST-20 2.04" tubing inside to hold the existing Mercury) or a molded piece.



ghrocketman 06-26-2018 08:24 PM

Thanks for the drawings showing each round, George !!

A Fish Named Wallyum 06-26-2018 08:26 PM

Quote:
Originally Posted by georgegassaway
FYI - That Centuri design fibbed on the diameter. The Redstone rocket was 70" in Diameter. The Little Joe I was 80" in diameter. There was a short conical adapted between the Mercury and Little Joe main body to go from 70" to 80".

At 1/35 scale, that would be a 2.28" body: BT-70 would be "close enough".

So one question that arises is if the adapter will be a paper transition (requiring some ST-20 2.04" tubing inside to hold the existing Mercury) or a molded piece.



:cool: Excellent info. Thanks, George!

rocket.aero 06-26-2018 08:47 PM

Quote:
Originally Posted by georgegassaway
At 1/35 scale, that would be a 2.28" body: BT-70 would be "close enough".

So one question that arises is if the adapter will be a paper transition (requiring some ST-20 2.04" tubing inside to hold the existing Mercury) or a molded piece.


The prototype that John Boren sent for (stealth) display at NARCON was constructed from ST-20 and BT-70 with a paper transition. I have a photo that I could share, but I have no idea how to post photos to this forum. Clicking on the Photo button simply adds an IMG tag, which probably means that the photo needs to be hosted elsewhere. If I'm doing something wrong, please let me know.

James

rocket.aero 06-26-2018 08:53 PM

Found a photo of me holding John's prototype on the web:

http://billsrockets.blogspot.com/20...-to-narcon.html

No one - not a single soul - asked me where this model came from. Several people picked it up and examined it, but no one guessed that it was a genuine Estes pre-production model.

James

tbzep 06-26-2018 08:59 PM

Quote:
Originally Posted by rocket.aero
Found a photo of me holding John's prototype on the web:

http://billsrockets.blogspot.com/20...-to-narcon.html

No one - not a single soul - asked me where this model came from. Several people picked it up and examined it, but no one guessed that it was a genuine Estes pre-production model.

James

If I saw it being used in a scratch building presentation, I wouldn't ask where it came from either. I'd assume it was scratch built. ;)

Chas Russell 06-26-2018 09:00 PM

I did wonder, James, when you said that the base plate was a molded plastic part.

Chas

LeeR 06-27-2018 12:07 AM

Quote:
Originally Posted by A Fish Named Wallyum
Am I the only one who had no idea about this?

https://www.facebook.com/estesrocke...?type=3&theater

"SNEAK PEEK! 👉 Product Development Director, Mike Fritz, loads a production model of the NEW Little Joe 1 kit due to be released soon. Witnessing the launch are Estes team members (left to right) Dave DelVecchio, Mary Roberts, Chandra Serfoss, and Angela Everhart.
We test fly a lot of rockets in Penrose! Did you know that every rocket kit sold by Estes has been flight tested many times during the course of product development? A minimum of three flight test models are built and flown multiple times with every recommended rocket engine. These flights are witnessed and the flight data is recorded."


I sure was surprised! I immediately went to the What’s New section of their website. I guess it needs to pass all the flight testing before it goes onto that page, but the “... kit due to be released soon” was what surprised me.


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