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Old 03-13-2019, 10:07 AM
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blackshire blackshire is offline
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Join Date: Jan 2009
Location: Fairbanks, Alaska
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Quote:
Originally Posted by BEC
Your older one will have a cutaway engine of sorts....a vacuformed part and half of an engine casing (some assembly required).

I’m really looking forward to the new release in part to see how the new cutaway engine is done (hopefully better). I’m also more than a little curious of that nose cone in the picture - it looks to be a different shape than the prior one (which is just an Alpha III/IV/VΙ nose cone molded in clear plastic).

I’d love to know when they will be available even though I have three of the older ones - two built up and one in the bag. The built ones both had one fin broken off some time before I got them (as kits), but CA at least gets ‘em back on easily enough. I also replaced the supplied 4-inch lengths of PST-50 with 5.5-inch ones so that they're the same size as an Alpha III instead of being so stubby. Nice to see the new 1207 has also adopted that approach, it appears.
At the risk of possibly involving you in another "intellectually-addictive, Sisyphean task" :-) , I wonder if this second, "Alpha III-like," BT-50 size Phantom (the original Astron Phantom used the 0.736" diameter [BT-20 size] clear plastic payload tubing) used the same fin unit (or fin planform) as the Alpha III, or a different one. BUT:

(NOTE: As Miss Emily Latella [spelling?], Gilda Radner's character on "Saturday Night Live," was famous for saying [after giving disjointed editorial comments], "Never mind." :-) The 1974 Estes Custom Parts Catalog lists the Quasar, Alpha III, and Phantom plastic fin units *here* http://www.ninfinger.org/rockets/cu...tnose.html#fins , and the Alpha III and Phantom ones have identical dimensions. [The listings also indicate how much of the trailing tip--a triangular-cut piece--should be cut off to recreate a Quasar fin unit from an Alpha III one, if desired; a 0.313" triangular piece should be cut from each fin's trailing tip to make a Quasar one.])
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