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24mm Skywinder - Lost and Found and Repaired
On Sept 13, 2013, the weather in the morning was predicted to be 1 MPH. It was possible to fly very high and not outfly the park. In the picture that pole is a huge flagpole, you can see there is no wind. I got a few rockets together. One was an Estes Skywinder, modified to take a 24 mm motor. It had flown a bunch of times, landing pretty close.
The Skywinder was modified to fly on 24 mm and flies on a D12-5 but has 1/8" launch lugs. It took off at a slight angle toward the bushy area in just to the left of the pole. My heart sank as it spun and spun toward the undergrowth and disappeared. I searched for about an hour on the back side and then again later walking straight in but the bushes and small trees were too thick, I even flushed a deer. I figured I would wait until fall came and try again when the leaves were down, but there never seemed to be a good day until March, six months later. |
#2
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I brought a compass and found my original launch location and took a bearing on the line where it went down. I was able to keep the flag pole in view with the leaves down so I was able to keep on bearing pretty well ducking around sticker bushes and trees. About 75 feet in, it appeared about 15 feet to my left-tada! I must have been a few feet away in my original search but that area had grass so it was tall back in Sept.
I picked it up and the tube was like a wet noodle, but I really wanted to get the other parts especially the heavily modifed engine mount. The motor was very swollen in the mount, I was afraid it was damaged. |
#3
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I got it home and peeled out the motor, the mount looked ok.
Next I started in the middle and unwound the wet tube, freeing it from the mounting points on the ends. The rotor decals are a little faded but this should be an easy fix with a new tube. I was very happy to get this back! Last edited by 5x7 : 06-02-2020 at 06:27 AM. |
#4
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A few years later a Skywinder repair thread here identified that a bt-20 tube nested inside a TT-20+ tube from ereockets/totally tubular would create a perfect replacement for the Skywinder thick main tube. I got them from eRockets a while back and got around to replacing the tube as I posted before.
Last edited by 5x7 : 06-02-2020 at 06:27 AM. |
#5
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I went to fly it last weekend and test fit a qjet in an Estes adapter into it. It would not come out! I had put the qjet in backwards (didn’t care since it was a test fit). I ended up using a vice to brace the end of the mount and pulled on the ejection bousing of the qjet to pull the adapter out. In the process the engine mount became loose. The engine hook was already rusted so with great difficulty pulled the mount out all the way. My repaired ready to fly rocket was back on the bench again.
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#6
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The water damage from six moths outside had swelled the mount so some motors fit and others not so I cut a new tube and installed a new hook. Since this one was retrofitted, with very little clearance, I did a slim motor hook restraint of a piece of tape and a paper cover glued on. The hook movement is already constrained by the fincan but this will help keep the hook from tearing aft in the mount. So 7 years later it is ready to fly again.
Last edited by 5x7 : 06-02-2020 at 06:33 AM. |
#7
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Well done! I love rescue rocket stories!
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#8
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Really nice job! The Skywinder is definitely a model worth repairing. Great, fun rocket.
And worth noting that it was designed by Tim VanMilligan of Apogee when he worked for Estes in the early 90's. Tim is a truly great helicopter guy. Apogee currently sells 5 of his helicopter designs and if you haven't built one of his internal blade helicopters you've really missed out. Apogee Helicopter Models Again, great job on repairing the SkyWinder! Steve |
#9
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Sounds like an interesting flight profile.
__________________
When in doubt, WHACK the GAS and DITCH the brake !!! Yes, there is such a thing as NORMAL, if you have to ask what is "NORMAL" , you probably aren't ! Failure may not be an OPTION, but it is ALWAYS a POSSIBILITY. ALL systems are GO for MAYHEM, CHAOS, and HAVOC ! |
#10
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Thanks all, I am planning on flying it in the same park, hopefully with better results. I have also made progress on repairing my original version 1 Skywinder which unfortunately has more fragile original parts that Estes beefed up in a later run. I lost the nosecone and tube from that one also, but found it after ONLY one month in the field. I would take these Skywinders to many launches and fly them often as a quick launch at the end of the day and often had a lot of folks ask about them. They have over 50 flights between them. Although it could have been improved greatly with a slimmer nosecone and fincan, it is a lot of fun and the improved second release version is pretty durable.
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