Estes Nike Smoke

The Rocketry Forum

Help Support The Rocketry Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Christopher

Member
Joined
Jan 14, 2017
Messages
12
Reaction score
0
I am building an Estes 7247 Nike Smoke and as I checked the fit of the parts I see it is the same tube width and overall length as my Honest John. The Honest john takes the D engines and E engines. Is there any reason I cannot put a larger engine mount into the Nike Smoke and use the larger engines? If I do this would I have to add a little weight to the nose cone?
 
You can do that, and some nose weight is a good idea. Build it, stick a C motor in and see where it balances. Then stick the largest motor you are planning on flying in it and add weight until it balances in the same location.
 
The original Centuri Nike Smoke was also the Enerjet Nike Smoke.
It flew with a E24-7 engine at 1.125" diameter.
The Estes version will fly with larger engines but will need some nose weight.
FlyFalcons post #2 has the best advice.

https://www.ninfinger.org/rockets/catalogs/enerjet72/72ejet8.html
Read the flight preparations on page 6

The Estes Nike Smoke is almost the same size, except for the Enerjet smoking nose cone change.
The smoking nose cone did add some weight to the front end.
 
Hmmm..... I just opened the bag on one of those. I also happen to have some extra BT50 on the bench..... Have to run some sims and see how it works out.
 
T-Rex, can you let me know how the sims turn out?
I'm at work, so this is quick and dirty. I used the PSII sim, down scaled and changed materials.... Looks like CP/CG stays good Looking at about 900ft on D12-5 & 1350ft on E9-6.

Personally, I wouldn't push it higher than that as I don't like to walk very far......

BT60_NS_24mm.jpg
 
I built mine to accept D and E engines. Added a few ounces of nose weight to it. I flew it on an E9-4 and E9-6 over the weekeend. Both engines were great. I dont know how High though.
 
Well my Nike smoke is complete. She looks beautiful and I hope she flies straight. The SIMS looked great on the C11-5, the D10-7 and the D12 -7. I cant get out to any launches for a while so I guess I will build my Nike X next. Thanks for the help. Has anyone compared the Estes Tube marking Guide with the Estes Fin Alignment tool? When I mark the tubes with the marking guide the lines don't match up with the alignment tool.
 
Make sure you have the plastic fin guides facing the right way for the size balsa, you probably want the side marked "1/8" facing the arrow on the base of the guide. I used it for the first time on my nike smoke. I just built a booster for it (for d/e motors) and it is on the guide now.

I built a cargo bay for it to counter the added weight of the booster. Mine is testing a baffle design and I blew the motor mount out on a D10-7. I put in a beefed up motor mount in it but it is getting close to too heavy to fly on a C, so thats why I built the booster. I am nervous about trying another D10-7 with the restrictive flow of this baffle, so I will keep the C6-7 in the sustainer to operate the ejection and add a few hundred feet.

Tinker
 
Thanks for the info Tinker. I launched last weekend on an E4. Not a great choice but that was the only E engine the hobby shop had. Nevertheless, it performed well. The short delay did cause the parachute lines to rip out of the chute. The chute stayed partially intact and acted like a big streamer. It landed in tall soft grass and it lives to fly another day.
 
Back
Top