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irishwebber01

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Anyone have any experience with the Nike smoke 5.5" or the Pershing II 5.5" from Polecat Aerospace? I'm POSSIBLY thinking about one with electronics.....help comments appreciated....
 
At the ROC launch yesterday, there were a couple 5.5 inch Nike Smokes and they looked NICE!!! Also, all the body tubes are pre-fiberglassed. The NC's are also all fiberglass. I doubt anyone has broken a Polecat kit. They're great!
 
I'm pretty sure they do not come with ebays, but Andy will sell you an ebay add-on for $30. He's sending me one (hopefully on Monday) for my Thumper 5.5inch Junior, and if you want, I will post pics of it.
 
First off--the Nike Smoke is near the top of my -most favorite rockets- list!

I used the Polecat Nike Smoke for my L2 flight at Manchester. I have the earlier kit before laser-cutting and such. It is of good quality and a good value. I added an e-bay and replaced the Polecat NC with a PR version as it was more 'scale'. There was not alot of room for a main chute in the 'smoke as designed so I added a 3" tube inside the NC. I used a PF MAWD and everything worked well. The main chute was a tight fit inside the 3" tube, but deployment was perfect. Here's a picture of my flight...AMW J-365SK. Love those skids!

Nike Smoke AMW J365-SK

I have enough pics to actually do a build thread, so if you want to see specific parts of mine, let me know.
 
Kevin,
So you had the 4" Nike Smoke? I didn't know if I needed to add an ebay kit from andy or if I had to try an order direct from PAS,
 
Kevin,
So you had the 4" Nike Smoke? I didn't know if I needed to add an ebay kit from andy or if I had to try an order direct from PAS,

Sorry I didn't specify, but mine is the 5.5" version. When I bought mine, an e-bay kit was available for the Smoke. I don't know if its -standard equipment- or an option these days, but if this to be your first DD rocket I recommend you pay the extra for the e-bay. It'll save you some time in the long run.
 
This will be my first foray into DD. I have a basic working knwoledge of the stuff but could use help with specifics, i'll be scanning threads as time goes by for input.
 
I have a 5.5" Nike, dual deploy version. L3d with it on an M1297. Liked the kit in general with the exception of the glassing job on the tubes -- but I land my rockets hard on lakebeds and tend to push them pretty hard, so it's no big deal, and makes a good rocket for everyday flying.

I'm working on rebuilding mine, need to order a few more parts. 98mm mount this time.

IMG_3298.jpg

IMG_7251.jpg

View attachment IMG_1046.JPG
 
You can order the 5.5 inch Smoke with dual deploy option. Very nice kit, but not much room for the main parachute.

Jim
 
i did ghost but Andy does stand behind his products



That third photo of yours must be one of the sadest and yet most beautiful pictures there is of a rocket. That you managed to capture the moon in the same frame makes that picture absolutely gorgeous no matter what!
 
Anyone have any experience with the Nike smoke 5.5" or the Pershing II 5.5" from Polecat Aerospace? I'm POSSIBLY thinking about one with electronics.....help comments appreciated....

My son David got the 5.5 Nike Smo0ke at Springfest when he was 14, built it and flew it on the same day! Great kit, fun to fly, and would recomend it to everyone!

Creashed it the next day, repaired it and flew it again!
 
Drew, I have the 5.5" smoke w/e-bay. In the middle of construction, but seems to be plenty of room for both drouge and main in mine. Must have been an earlier kit because all the cuts were kinda rough around the edges, but no show stopper.

I hope to L2 before winter.
 
I'm only 13 and I have the 5.5" Nike Smoke. I have flown it on a K550 and a K1100. A very easy build. I highly recomend it.
 
Stewart! Hey man good to hear from ya, hope to see ya soon.....thanks for the tip...how was the ebay, LOC? what did you do for charge cups etc....send me some pics!

Taylor, hey man thanks for the reply, wouldn't mind posting a pic or two would ya? I assume you are using it DD? Thanks in advance.....

Drew
 
I've got the 5.5 inch Nike Smoke from Polecat. Last flight was on an L1420 and it was perfect. Now I am modifying it to be a Nike-Nike Smoke. Should fly at plaster blaster on an M1297 staging to a M 650. Now that he has gone to the laser cut parts it's a no brainer...everything fits pretty much perfectly.

Ebay is super easy. I don't bother with charge cups, I use 5/8 surgical tubing closed around an ematch with wireties. Never had a failure.

The kits are great and finishing is easy, a couple cans of Kilz and you are ready to sand and paint. You can see my build thread in this forum on the two stage Nike. I also did a build thread on the original Nike Smoke.

Great kit and worth the money.
 
lotsa good stuff about the Nike. we have a 4" & 10" but no 5.5", so no comment there.

but, you did ask about the Pershing II - mine is 1yr old. here's the skinny: 38mm motor mount, takes ~2 pounds of nose weight to balance a J350. you could put a 54mm in it but you'd have to add nose weight, so what is the point? flies just fine on everything from I357 (twice) to J350 (twice). use RDK-14 to get a 12 second delay with the J350, you will have perfect apogee ejection. I use a 48" parachute. follow the instructions about internal fillets on the nose cone fins :) all the parts are cut to fit and it goes together easily. the hardest part is taping and painting the three colors on a conical nose. it doesn't come with ebay, but you could easily add one, there is plenty of room in the main airframe. it's almost scale, but the main airframe is about 15% too long, as near as I can tell. could be cut down a little but again you'd have to add nose weight.
 
everywhere I wrote "add nose weight" of course you could substitute "bigger fins".

took the Pershing to the launch today, but didn't fly it, ran out of time. Aidan's 4" Nike (soda-can I117) was more important.
 
5.5" Nike Smoke is a killer kit dual deploy! Andy set mine up with a coupler tube, I wanted to make my own alt bay design... He cut the tube in the proper spot, and included a coupler which I paid him to glass...

Kits are nice flyers but his quality over the years has sunk... My dads patriot from him was not very high quality, mostly the airframe material. Lots of filling and a new GLR phenolic coupler fixed that, but still...

I love my 5.5" nike, its near retirement though its had almost 2 dozen flights, all but 3 dual deploy... Killer rocket... Flown on everything from an I357T and an I218R to a K1400, an L730 and an L1200 (EX load, VERY powerful known for shredding rockets).
 
kewl...I think i'm going to get that kit and the pershing....i'm looking at altimeters now, think i'll go with the MW RRC2 mini and the PF HiAlt45
 
Why both?

I'd say get one alt, for this size and some larger rockets thats the norm...

And I would suggest either a missileworks dual deploy recording unit or my personal favorite the perfect flight MAWD. You probably wont need a 45K unit for some time and the MAWD is great... Cap allows lots of current and up to 2 seconds of power loss without any issues... Its SUPER reliable, easy to use and the data it gives is handy. It allows you to verfiy things like main deployment (slope of line changes) and with some software you can get a decent estimate of speeds...

I have 2 MAWD's and Gwiz Mc2, the MAWD is my reliability alt, the Gwiz is just there for some back-up and tons of data.... But I trust the MAWD will deploy EVERY time... Whether the motor CATO's and the rocket only gets to 650' (I had this happen but it wasnt a CATO but an igniter failure, airstart didnt kick in)...

Super great unit...
 
I thought about one unit but I like the thought of having a backup in there....especially if i'm flying a motor with no ej. charge. I liked the mini because it has lots of kewl features, and yeah I won't prolly ever go to 45K :lol: but I liked it for other reasons, 5 amps at 1 sec for pyro mach delay, etc....I like the MAWD and really debated that one but the HA45 had the higher current output, thought maybe that might be nice....that new RRC2 mini did look really kewl, and I would be flying mostly 54mm birds some 38's with it...I don't know still up in the air....
 
I still recommend you start with one really nice reliable unit... I think I saw the mini beta unit at LDRS, really cool but is it dual deploy yet?

Anyways the MAWD is fine, can fire what 10 e-matches? I usually use 2 matches per event when using one alt and it fires those just fine...

But I would start with a single unit and it will work fine in this bird....

Then down the road when you want more reliablity (most likely when building a new larger rocket) get a unit like a Gwiz MC2, ARTS, RDAS etc... A bit more complex, but most are still pretty reliable but you will get TONS of data...

And still have that simple 45K, MAWD or RRC2 that you trusted for many single alt flights in there to save the day if the complex stuff fails...

Gwiz has its bugs but the designers are true engineers.... The loki unit is really nice, the guys are not as tech savy perhaps as Gwiz but the unit (especially the software interface) is great... And for $900's you can get the alt with live telematry and GPS tracking!

So yeah I still recommend you start with one alt and if you are set on two... get one baro and one acceleromic!!! IMPORTANT...

That way not only do you have two units but each detects apogee differently, so if the rocket flight is less then ideal the baro will catch it.... If there is a pressure anomoly etc... the acceleromic unit will catch it... And your 2nd alt should also have more data, but most acceleromic based units do....

Good Luck! That nike is a solid rocket...
 
Which ones are baro and which ones are accel, never thought of that good point! I really liked that Gwiz but only 400 or 800 ft for main right? 400 ft main deploy scares me...lol
 
It should be noted that the GPS telemetry stuff for the Loki ARTS is add-ons... The "base" unit is about $180. But it has a *ton* of features for an altimeter. Really nice unit.
 
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