Info on the Estes PNC-56 nosecone

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Now I've seen the Estes Challenger-1 (1416) in catalogs (found with the starter kits) from the early 1980s that have a red nosecone and fin can. What I can't tell is if the Challenger-1 is a BT-56 based rocket, or not. A search for instructions on JimZ, Estes, and plans.rocketshoppe.com turned up nothing. However if it is a BT-56 kit, then we have another color option.
Nope, Challenger I is not a BT-56. It is BT-50 and in a long line of clones like Star Trek, Athena, and several others that I think other than colors/livery are identical in terms of fin can, nose cone and body tube. There is a recent thread on this series too.
 
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Funny how things work... I hit "Reply With Quote" when I saw this reply:

Nope, Challenger I is not a BT-56.

And below is what I read when it loaded.

Nope, Challenger I is not a BT-56. It is BT-50 and in a long line of clones like Star Trek, Athena, and several others that I think other than colors/livery are identical in terms of fin can, nose cone and body tube. There is a recent thread on this series too.

So much for the snarky request of "Well? What is it then?" :wink:

Do you have decals and instructions for the Challenger-1 (or Challenger-II)? I'd love to see them (and perhaps sim them up).

Pointy Side Up!
Jim
 
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Do you have decals and instructions for the Challenger-1 (or Challenger-II? I'd love to see them (and perhaps sim them up).
I actually own none of the many Challenger I clones, though the instructions are available somewhere online - I have the pdf but am not having any luck attaching it here.

I do own a Challenger II kit, but have not opened it yet. I do plan to build one from this kit using its instructions in 2017, however. The decal is already available online - see the decal page of YORP.

I don't use the simulators often, but I believe all the Challenger II parts are in the RockSim files, in the Longshot or Eliminator, for example.
 
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I found another one of the images that makes the 072015 look like a single piece... This time with the Sky Twister (1438)

Estes PNC-56 (P.N. 072015).png
 
Is it molded in one piece or a pre-assembled but separately molded part? It's starting to look like 072015 could be unusually ambiguous. The Helicat / Cosmic Cobra have changed from 2-piece to preassembled over the life of the product, but the PN remains the same. And here I naively thought that tracking down the BT-56 size plastics would be short and straightforward. :confused2:
 
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I don't know if it's all that important to document photographically, but this is an older BT-56 nose cone bag which contains PNC-56A's, in this case 3 black and 1 BLUE. It may have been from the post-Maniac era, I don't know.

PC300681.jpg
 
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Good find - I like solid evidence! Discussion on the NC-56 4-pack updated.
 
I think that a good name for the yellow/orange color version would be "goldenrod"

Funny all the info that this simple request was able to turn up.
 
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In trying to put myself into the shoes of a lookdown Astrocam builder, circa 1979, I am thinking about what might be the origins of the PNC-56A nosecone. I am trying to think of using parts available at the time, and particularly trying to stick with plastic for nose cone and booster, just like the Astrocam camera and Delta II fins, in the style of the Centuri Quik Kits of the late 1970s.

Unlike the #13 plastic fin unit, I have not found PNC-56A in the retail Enerjet materials of the time - though it may have been available through the 1340 rocket program (1972-1976). It seems like the it may have first appeared at Centuri in the No. 5407 Centuri Phoenix Bird kit of 1977, and was by 1979 also available separately as No. 5466 PNC-136, the 4.9" rounded ogive that we know as Estes PNC-56. It appears to be white plastic in the photos of the 1977 and 1979 catalogs of the Kwik Kit laid out, and these kits were marketed as fast assembly with no need of paint, aka ARF or E2X in 2016.

Am I on the right track, or are their earlier appearances of this nose cone? Is there any other BT-56 plastic cone that a kit basher at that time might have considered? I know that the 1993-1994 Art Nestor design (which is significantly older than those publication dates) specifies using a BT-55 cone. And this PNC-56 thread has not come up with any white version from Estes, I believe.

Thanks.

https://www.ninfinger.org/rockets/catalogs/centuri77/77cat20.html
 
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The Enerjet 1340 model was discussed and pictured in the September 1972 issue of Enerjet News.

Originally, the model was pictured with a shorter, more blunt nose cone as was used in the Nike Ram kit.
A brochure on the 1340 released later shows a longer plastic nose cone which is the nose cone now known as the PNC-56.
Actual Enerjet 1340 kits featured the longer plastic nose cone. The bagged Enerjet 1340 kit I saw in Gary Rosenfield's collection had the longer nose cone.

So, one could say that the 'PNC-56' nose cone design dates from the early 1970s.
 
Caveduck's list mentions the Estes Discovery Starter Set from the mid-1980s.

I bought one back then. It was expensive at the time ($30 I recall).
The set did not come in a box. Rather, the largest single piece of injection molded polystyrene foam I had ever seen in a model rocket product was the 'box'.
It was molded with bays for the various parts of the starter set to be inserted and displayed through openings in a paper wrapper which was shrink wrapped around the foam block.

I only wanted the rocket which I would fly many times with the attached Hitch-Hiker glider.
The model on had an 18mm motor mount.

Estes Discovery & Hitch-Hiker glider 001.jpg
 
The nose cone on the Estes Challenger II kit was molded in a 'more' orange color that was used for the latest Estes kit that used the same nose cone (Eliminator).
Also, this latest release of the PNC-56 nose cone may be from a newer mold.

A while back I spoke to someone at Estes who told me the ST-13 fin can used on Challenger II/Maniac/Eliminator/etc. was going to take a rest and not be used in any upcoming kits.
Perhaps the PNC-56 nose cone will be going on hiatus also?

Estes Challenger II.jpg
 
A while back I spoke to someone at Estes who told me the ST-13 fin can used on Challenger II/Maniac/Eliminator/etc. was going to take a rest and not be used in any upcoming kits.
Perhaps the PNC-56 nose cone will be going on hiatus also?
That's a shame. I was hoping it might come back within a couple of years in an Enerjet 1340 tribute kit, with correct colors. Or at least a proper Phoenix Bird, but the balsa BT-55 kit makes that unlikely. A quick look at the catalogs indicates to me that the longest gap (since the original Enerjet) without a 1340 fin can kit on the market was the six years between Discovery and Maniac.

With so many PNC-56 4-packs out there, the nose cones should be available at low prices for several years to come, at least in black. Both Sirius and Sunward sell a version, and you can get it in Balsa from Semroc. In addition to the ever-present B-56 helicopter E2X kits, the Amazon in the populat Tandem-X launch kit features a black PNC-56.

The fin can, in contrast, has in the Estes era always required a full kit purchase. I stocked up to some extent when Estes was selling the Eliminator dirt cheap, but now I wish I had bought a few more.

It's a robust system, with rare cross-over appeal between the quick build E2X market and the mid-power nostalgic Enerjet fanatics. So I'm hopeful we'll see it again at some point.
 
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P1030683.jpg
I am just offering one more photo in support of the notion that the "Challenger II cones were a different shade of yellow" - because I have come to possess another kit. What we have here is three kits, left to right Challenger II - Eliminator - Challenger II. I suspect that the Discovery Cone may be similar in color to the Challenger II, but have not yet come across an example.
 
See updated discussion in the main research post #6. The first confirmed use of the Centuri PNC-136 equivalent of the Estes PNC-56 was in the 1976 UFO Invader, and the following year in the Phoenix Bird. The Enerjet 1340 discussion needs some followup. There is a dimensioned line drawing in a Model Rocketeer article from March 1974 (scan here: https://www.oldrocketforum.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=40069) that clearly shows the shorter nose cone. However in this post: https://www.oldrocketforum.com/showpost.php?p=191453&postcount=13 it's pointed out that the "real" 1340 had Mini-Max thickness body tubes (the LT-125 series) with ID=1.25" and 0.045" wall thickness rather than the .020 wall of the ST-13. This is confirmed by the Enerjet 1340 2-page brochure and would have rendered any 1340/LT-125 sized nose cone incompatible with ST-13 tubes (sloppy loose). Is it possible there were two different molds for the 6.4" cone with shoulders for LT-125 vs ST-13, or perhaps was the tooling modified to increase the shoulder diameter when Centuri dropped the heavy wall tubes?
 
Great job, Dave, tracking down that earlier use of the nose cone by Centuri.

The 1340 body tube specs are interesting as well, as I try to consider how close our low cost modern clones using Eliminator parts really are to the original G-engine model Enerjet.
 
OK, I don't want to go off topic here, but the article Dave linked above has a figure and some specs on the "Estes 950" sounding rocket, circa 1974. It is 0.95" in diameter with D-engine power (so minimum diameter), has a plastic fin unit and with a payload it measures 19.25 inches in length. It looks to me to be related to the 1976 release of Star Trek starter kit, followed by Challenger-1 in 1977. That would be nice bit of symmetry with the Challenger-II being based on the 1340.
 
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View attachment 308478
I am just offering one more photo in support of the notion that the "Challenger II cones were a different shade of yellow" - because I have come to possess another kit. What we have here is three kits, left to right Challenger II - Eliminator - Challenger II. I suspect that the Discovery Cone may be similar in color to the Challenger II, but have not yet come across an example.

The Discovery nose cone color is the same color as the Eliminator nose cone.
 
The Discovery nose cone color is the same color as the Eliminator nose cone.

Thanks. I am surprised. Discovery had the same kit # (1440) as Challenger II, and had a short run that began the very next year (1986) after Challenger II was retired. I would have thought it was a "sell off these remaining orange-yellow BT-56 nose cones" strategy.
 
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One more PNC-56A (metallic chrome over white plastic) which may be of interest. This is from the #1417 Astrobeam, an example from what I call the BT-56 technology collection of 2003-2008. The picture also includes an Eliminator nosecone for comparison.

P4150707.jpg
 
K'Tesh
How about looking inside the 2 yellow/orange color nosecones and see if the color matches the outside ?
Maybe the mold release agent could have caused the orange to turn yellow ?

Bobby
 
Updated the big post with chrome-over-white variant of PN 60312. Also noted in my parts database files.
 
Since BT-56 is/has gone the way of the dodo, I'm interested in doing a semi-clone of the Challenger II in BT-55. Just wondering if anyone knows of a cone that's fairly close to the PNC-56A in BT-55.

The BMS BNC55O61 is the closest I've found, but it's still only 6 inches with a pointed tip that will take it back to 5.7-ish probably when rounded. And the photo on JonRocket.com looks a little too full toward the front end.
 
Now I've seen the Estes Challenger-1 (1416) in catalogs (found with the starter kits) from the early 1980s that have a red nosecone and fin can. What I can't tell is if the Challenger-1 is a BT-56 based rocket, or not. A search for instructions on JimZ, Estes, and plans.rocketshoppe.com turned up nothing. However if it is a BT-56 kit, then we have another color option.
Challenger I is definitely NOT a BT-56. It is 1 0.98" diameter BT-50 rocket, in its many many iterations.

Edit -- Ooops I just replied to a message from 2016 - pretty much the same way I replied to it in 2016. Sorry.
 
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