Scott_650
Well-Known Member
Probably not the best time to bring this up - we’re all at least a bit salty over Estes and their move to MAP - but they announced a 65th anniversary rocket on the company FB page this morning.
It doesn’t look like any past model to me, the body tube resembles the pre-finished pearl white tube from the last anniversary Alpha III, the decal is definitely an updated, redone version of the prior anniversary decal, obviously it looks like a two-staged rocket and the nose cone is either the PNC-50BB used on the Black Brant III, Skywriter and Crossfire ISX or the PNC-55BB from the #1958 Black Brant II - I’d lean towards the 50BB cone. The fins look a lot like the #2452 Athena’s fins. And it looks like the “booster” (if it is a two-stager) has a faux nozzle or screw on retainer. My guess? It’s a mashup of the anniversary Alpha pre-finished BT-50 body tube, the PNC-50BB cone, Athena-style fins with a new design BT-50 booster unit similar to the OOP BT-60/BT-55 E2X Boosters . Probably going be an E2X kit, roughly the size of the Crossfire plus the booster unit, 18mm powered, overall length around 18”. But that’s just a guess based on some quick clicking around so we’ll have to wait and see.
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It doesn’t look like any past model to me, the body tube resembles the pre-finished pearl white tube from the last anniversary Alpha III, the decal is definitely an updated, redone version of the prior anniversary decal, obviously it looks like a two-staged rocket and the nose cone is either the PNC-50BB used on the Black Brant III, Skywriter and Crossfire ISX or the PNC-55BB from the #1958 Black Brant II - I’d lean towards the 50BB cone. The fins look a lot like the #2452 Athena’s fins. And it looks like the “booster” (if it is a two-stager) has a faux nozzle or screw on retainer. My guess? It’s a mashup of the anniversary Alpha pre-finished BT-50 body tube, the PNC-50BB cone, Athena-style fins with a new design BT-50 booster unit similar to the OOP BT-60/BT-55 E2X Boosters . Probably going be an E2X kit, roughly the size of the Crossfire plus the booster unit, 18mm powered, overall length around 18”. But that’s just a guess based on some quick clicking around so we’ll have to wait and see.
Attached Thumbnails