silly flutter by

I have an Estes Flutter By that I got for a couple dollars. My wife thinks it is cute.

Every once in a while I throw it up on an A8 between bigger launches, but the forward section tends to lawn dart after separation.

watermelonman said:

I have an Estes Flutter By that I got for a couple dollars. My wife thinks it is cute.

Every once in a while I throw it up on an A8 between bigger launches, but the forward section tends to lawn dart after separation.

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Has your wife seen the decal logo?

Personally I felt this is one rocket kit that doesn't do very well if you build it stock. You can search through reviews and judge for yourself, but when I get around to my winter small builds, I'm going to do some mods to help fix some of the issues I've heard about and experienced. One good suggestion was instead of gluing on the nose, attach it with a tether (such as kevlar line or Estes elastic). I plan on doing a full mod and having kevlar attached from base to nose for the 3 sections (similar to the Odd'l Breakaway). I also had issue with the back fins breaking since only about 1/4 of the fin is glued/attached to the body tube and that section gets the motor mass falling along with it. I'll probably try laying some fiberglass or label paper over that joint. Kind of ridiculous amount of work for something I spent a few bucks on (about $4 when Estes has a clearance on them...I see it is on sale right now), but that's the fun of it. lol

BTW - My daughter keeps laughing at that ugly Flutter By mascot decal.

I have had several of these over the last couple of years. The only problem that I have had is watching it go bye-bye! I know that many people have had issue with fin breaking off and I have caught a few lawn dart reports, but that is not my experience. Out of thirty or so launches on four of these, I have had one broken fin (top section landed on a hard surface) and no lawn darts. My experience may be atypical but I do pay close attention to the glue joint on the aft fins and I make a small fillet of epoxy and balsa dust.

This is a favorite of my son and I. There is always one waiting to be built for when the current one disappears in the great blue beyond. We like the design so much that we now have a BT-80 upscale that is destined for its second launch this weekend. It was built as close to the original concept as we could make it and survived tumble recovery quite well when launched on a D12-5. It will go up on E power this weekend.

Screaminhelo said:

I have had several of these over the last couple of years. The only problem that I have had is watching it go bye-bye! I know that many people have had issue with fin breaking off and I have caught a few lawn dart reports, but that is not my experience. Out of thirty or so launches on four of these, I have had one broken fin (top section landed on a hard surface) and no lawn darts. My experience may be atypical but I do pay close attention to the glue joint on the aft fins and I make a small fillet of epoxy and balsa dust.

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I would say that epoxy fillets with balsa dust is a significant change vs. stock and likely saved you from a lot of the broken fins. I usually like to build an item stock the first time and while building, I added heavy glue fillets since I saw it as a weak point, still, it broke a fin on the first flight in the winter when it landed on some snow with a bit of crust on top (nose also snow-darted).

I agree with the "watching it go bye-bye" part. Anything more than A's and you better have good eyes!
Bye-Bye reports on B6's:
https://www.rocketreviews.com/estes-flutter-by-estes-flutter-by-tom-markel.html
https://www.rocketreviews.com/flutter-by-estes-flutter-by.html
I also lost the bottom part on a B6 when it flew over a row of trees...found the nose cone though.

KenECoyote said:

I would say that epoxy fillets with balsa dust is a significant change vs. stock and likely saved you from a lot of the broken fins. I usually like to build an item stock the first time and while building, I added heavy glue fillets since I saw it as a weak point, still, it broke a fin on the first flight in the winter when it landed on some snow with a bit of crust on top (nose also snow-darted).

I agree with the "watching it go bye-bye" part. Anything more than A's and you better have good eyes!
Bye-Bye reports on B6's:
https://www.rocketreviews.com/estes-flutter-by-estes-flutter-by-tom-markel.html
https://www.rocketreviews.com/flutter-by-estes-flutter-by.html
I also lost the bottom part on a B6 when it flew over a row of trees...found the nose cone though.

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The first one was box (or should I say bag?) stock. When it inevitably disappeared, I decided to try the balsa fillet, which I had recently learned about here. It is a simple thing to do and seems tailor made for this little guy. My most recent one has only glue fillets though and has survived three launches so far.

KenECoyote said:

Has your wife seen the decal logo?

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Hah no! It is ugly.

Thanks all for the build pointers, too late to not glue the nose but I could still add dust or stick fillets. I am not sure if there is any way to make the front tumble, though. That is still my only real problem.

As a side note. I got the second flight on my Fatter-By last weekend! It went up on an E9-4 and made it to about 500 ft. All went well except for the rocket magnet in a nearby sweet gum. The upper section is still there with no good way to reach it. At least the nose is the easiest section to build!

The flight went very well and both sections were coming down nicely. The power section tumbled beautifully and the nose section was coming down in a graceful spiral (I wish I could claim that I designed it for that. Just a lucky misalignment though).

I finished my Flutter-bys like the Centuri catalog versions.



I didn't use the fin strakes, instead went with the old Centuri instructions where they suggest papering the fins.
(Bet you thought that was a new idea.)

The nose cone on the Estes reissue is much longer than the Centuri design. That extra length may cause the upper
section to nose in at ejection.
According to the Estes website the reissue Flutter-By is 7.7" tall.
My finished models are just under 8 1/8" tall.
The original Centuri kit was only 6.75" tall.

If you haven't seen it, here's the ugly (Centuri designed) decal -



If you haven't made yours yet, the whole build is here:
https://modelrocketbuilding.blogspot.com/search/label/E Flutter-By

NICE!!! :smile: (The rockets, not the decal. lol)

Damn it!!!
Now I want a silly Flutter By.

I've got two of these built and both will fly for the first time on Thursday... should be fun

Our NAR section, HUVARS, did a fun build session of Flutter-Bys decorated with our club's logo.

The Flutter-By is a very easy rocket to wrap with pre-printed paper or vinyl. Took about an hour and a half from start to finish, including placing the wraps.

Really a lot of fun, unique and fun little rocket, and they fly great. Most of us chose to tether our models as suggested above.

Gus said:

Our NAR section, HUVARS, did a fun build session of Flutter-Bys decorated with our club's logo.

The Flutter-By is a very easy rocket to wrap with pre-printed paper or vinyl. Took about an hour and a half from start to finish, including placing the wraps.

Really a lot of fun, unique and fun little rocket, and they fly great. Most of us chose to tether our models as suggested above.

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Now that's really cool!