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  #11  
Old 07-02-2021, 01:29 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Neal Miller
The Main BT is: 10-3/3" Long, and the short section is 1-1/4".
this is a great flying little model, fly's super on an 1/2 A.
Neal--THANK YOU for preserving this kit's plans for us, and for posterity! I know you had to dig it out from all of your stuff after moving.
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  #12  
Old 07-02-2021, 01:38 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Earl
Measured off an unbuilt kit.

The thing I don't have are the decals. I have one opened kit and two sealed. This particular mini roc is one of the harder to come by.

Earl
Remember, MPC kits--including their Miniroc kits that were made with the 15 mm tubing (Quest has it) and used their 13 mm Minijet motors--often had "nominal length" body tubes, varying by 3/16" or so above or below the listed length. It's no big deal for non-scale sport models, but it *does* matter for Sport Scale--and especially measured Scale--models, of course.
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  #13  
Old 07-02-2021, 01:56 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Ez2cDave
Some Scale Data . . .

Dave F.
Thank you--some of those may be ones Aerojet sent to me years ago; regardless of how they got to you, though, thank you for posting them here! Also:

A few Orion sounding rockets flew with Astrobee-D nose cones and payload cylinders (here's a picture of one: https://www.alamy.com/stock-image-o...p%3d0%26pl %3d ). The University of Alaska Fairbanks's Student Rocket Program also flew one of those Orion-with-Astrobee-D-payload vehicles, several years ago. But:

I take that back, about the UAF's Orion; it had a custom-made (by the Student Rocket Program), fiberglass conical nose cone that looked like a Black Brant III nose cone, but its--and its payload cylinder's--diameter looked the same as that of the Astrobee-D (6 inches, or else quite close to that). I have, however, seen a photograph of an Orion with a very long (about as long as, or even longer than, the Orion's HAWK rocket motor), 6" diameter payload cylinder, topped by an Astrobee-D 5:1 tangent ogive nose. (I don't think it flew at Poker Flat, but at Wallops, Esrange in Sweden, or Andøya in Norway; unfortunately, pictures of such "chimera" sounding rockets aren't indexed by "Orion sounding rocket with Astrobee-D payload section" online--one comes across them by chance.)
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http://www.lulu.com/product/cd/what...of-2%29/6122050
http://www.lulu.com/product/cd/what...of-2%29/6126511
All of my book proceeds go to the Northcote Heavy Horse Centre www.northcotehorses.com.
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Last edited by blackshire : 07-02-2021 at 06:20 AM.
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  #14  
Old 07-02-2021, 05:37 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Ltvscout
Thanks to Neal Miller we now have instructions and templates for the MPC Astrobee-D. You'll find the fin template with measurements on the last page of the instructions.

https://www.oldrocketplans.com/mpc/..._Astrobee-D.pdf
If "Raygun" (see: https://www.oldrocketforum.com/member.php?u=5483 ), who sells 3D printed model rocket parts on his Aerobotix store page on Shapeways https://www.shapeways.com/shops/cespedesign-multimedia (I've bought several of Kevin's parts, and they are of excellent quality!), offered 3D printed duplicates of the balsa 15 mm diameter 5:1 tangent ogive and elliptical noses (all of the MPC Miniroc kits except the Pipsqueak used the 5:1 ogive), all of the Miniroc kits could easily be "cloned." Quest Aerospace, and possibly also Semroc and/or BMS, carry the 15 mm body tubes (Semroc or BMS could also make "Retro-Repro" Miniroc kits...). Also:

It may not look like it, but that slight increase in internal diameter between BT-5/ST-5/#5 tubing and the MPC/AVI/Quest T15 tubing makes a considerable difference in how streamers and parachutes fit inside. The 8" MPC parachutes easily fit inside the Miniroc kits' 15 mm (outside diameter) T15 body tubes, and even quite long streamers fit inside these body tubes, and are easy to pack. The Estes streamers, 6" diameter parachutes, and--probably also--the 9" parachutes will fit inside the Astrobee-D and other MPC Miniroc kits (or "clones" of them) with no difficulty, and:

If the Estes 9" parachutes are a bit of a tight fit, their canopies could be cut into a six-point star shape (with the shroud line "tie points" in the star's points), so that the rest of the canopy is ~7-1/2" - 8" in diameter. The thin-gauge, aluminized Mylar parachutes, of the same or similar size (to the MPC 8" parachutes), which are made by other model rocket companies (such as ASP, and other manufacturers of competition model rocket kits), would fit in the T15 body tubes with ample room to spare. Plus:

The MPC Miniroc kits, with their glued-in internal BT-5 motor mount "sleeve" tubes, have sturdy motor mounts, and the BT-5 sleeve tubes--if *not* glued in--enable rear-ejection models to be built (with a Kevlar shock cord connecting the motor mount to the rocket). In both cases, a BT-5 thrust ring, glued into the front of the sleeve tube, would be used, but for rear-ejection motor mounts, no T15 thrust ring would be needed to keep the motor mount from moving forward under thrust. A couple of layers of 1/4" wide masking tape, wrapped around the slightly rear-protruding 13 mm mini motor, would prevent the motor mount--with the motor in it--from sliding forward inside the rocket's T15 body tube during powered ascent.
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Black Shire--Draft horse in human form, model rocketeer, occasional mystic, and writer, see:
http://www.lulu.com/content/paperba...an-form/8075185
http://www.lulu.com/product/cd/what...of-2%29/6122050
http://www.lulu.com/product/cd/what...of-2%29/6126511
All of my book proceeds go to the Northcote Heavy Horse Centre www.northcotehorses.com.
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Last edited by blackshire : 07-02-2021 at 07:42 AM.
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  #15  
Old 07-02-2021, 06:03 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Earl
Main tube 10 and 7/8ths. Payload tube is 1 and 3/16ths.

Earl
The AVI sale catalog lists the MPC Miniroc Astrobee-D (see: http://www.ninfinger.org/rockets/nostalgia/74avi07.html ) kit's scale as being 1:10.152, with a total length of 15.8" (*or* 15.6"--the small descriptive text is a bit 'grainy,' but it looks like 15.6" to me).
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http://www.lulu.com/content/paperba...an-form/8075185
http://www.lulu.com/product/cd/what...of-2%29/6122050
http://www.lulu.com/product/cd/what...of-2%29/6126511
All of my book proceeds go to the Northcote Heavy Horse Centre www.northcotehorses.com.
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  #16  
Old 07-02-2021, 11:13 AM
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I recently opened a sealed kit. Here are scans of the face card, decals, and fins. The screen printing on the blue colors on the decals sheet leave a bit to be desired.

Earl
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  #17  
Old 07-03-2021, 09:11 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Earl
I recently opened a sealed kit. Here are scans of the face card, decals, and fins. The screen printing on the blue colors on the decals sheet leave a bit to be desired.

Earl
Thank you for scanning and posting those. Bare Metal-Foil carries the "Experts Choice" water-transfer decal film (see: https://www.google.com/search?q=bar...Q4dUDCA8&uact=5 ), which enables modelers to print decals on ordinary computer printers. To avoid the problem with white decals, the decal film is available in clear and in white. The Astrobee-D decal sheet could be scanned, and the blue portions could be color-corrected before saving and printing the file on the appropriate decal film (if any of the characters or logos are--or contain--white, the white decal film could be used). Also:

If different portions of the decor scheme (on the full-scale rocket) had white (paint) backgrounds, but other parts of the decor scheme would--on the model--call for a clear-background decal, the file could be split up into two files, one for white-background decals, and another for clear-background decals. (I would do this myself, except that my HP Photosmart 7520 printer/scanner/copier has numerous--but very small--colored ink cartridges [imagine the minuscule quantities of ink that a newspaper or magazine in Lilliput would need; it prints only a few 8-1/2" x 11" or A4 color pages--at our scale--and I found that the cheaper refilled or generic cartridges don't work].)
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Black Shire--Draft horse in human form, model rocketeer, occasional mystic, and writer, see:
http://www.lulu.com/content/paperba...an-form/8075185
http://www.lulu.com/product/cd/what...of-2%29/6122050
http://www.lulu.com/product/cd/what...of-2%29/6126511
All of my book proceeds go to the Northcote Heavy Horse Centre www.northcotehorses.com.
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  #18  
Old 07-03-2021, 11:43 PM
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Some additional data . . .

Dave F.
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