New AeroTech Kit

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Initiator001

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AeroTech's Facebook page has announced the availability of a new kit, the Arreauxbee-Hi.

It is shipping and I received two of them on Tuesday (Yesterday).

It is a nice kit and a welcome addition to the AeroTech kit line.

Disclaimer: I designed it. :wink:

AeroTech Arreauxbee Hi kits 001.jpg
 
I ordered six for my customers, should be here next week. I showed it to John Lyngdal and he said "nose cone isn't scale".....sigh....Wondered, were you limited to a particular fin shape as opposed to a more Aerobee fin shape? I assume there was some avoidance of using the aerobee hi name etc....Just curious.

Frank
 
YAY! New product is always welcome.

The Man and his Rocket:

[video=youtube;TZrPHSMneMA]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZrPHSMneMA[/video]
 
I ordered six for my customers, should be here next week. I showed it to John Lyngdal and he said "nose cone isn't scale".....sigh....Wondered, were you limited to a particular fin shape as opposed to a more Aerobee fin shape? I assume there was some avoidance of using the aerobee hi name etc....Just curious.

Frank

I'm such a stick in the mud....
With or without a completly scale nosecone it's a nice looking kit.

john
 
Does it need to be tru-scale? I mean it's spelled, Arreauxbee-Hi as opposed to Aerobee-Hi. I imagine homage to Arreaux...

To each their own I reckon.

+1 for like it.
 
Dont get me wrong, I like the kit, I was just asking if they were going to add details like the conduits and do an aerobee paint job why they didn't go with the more iconic fin shape, they aren't arreaux fins, they look like new shapes and not a re-use from another kit...
 
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Are the conformal rail guides aluminum like the motor retainer?
 
No whining from this end. Always loved all the AT kits, and It's really excitingAND APPRECIATED to see a new one introduced. Thank you for efforts. Ever an AT customer! Super Simple Ship.
 
I ordered six for my customers, should be here next week. I showed it to John Lyngdal and he said "nose cone isn't scale".....sigh....Wondered, were you limited to a particular fin shape as opposed to a more Aerobee fin shape? I assume there was some avoidance of using the aerobee hi name etc....Just curious.

Frank

Okay.

First off, the kit is not meant to be in any way/shape/form a scale kit.

The idea for the kit started with a fin.

The Barracuda kit was not a big seller and there were quite a few boxes of fins for that kit at the shop.
I decided to design a new kit using the Barracuda fin as a starting point.

I looked at making another 1.9" diameter kit using the Barracuda fin but none of the ideas I had interested me.
So I decided to use a 2.6" diameter body tube.
Three fins for lower kit part costs.

In addition, I didn't want the kit to be mostly white in color.
White is a great color, every other color works with it.
Nope, this new kit had to have as little or no white color as possible.

A year or two before I started working on this new kit, Peter Alway had published his original 'Rockets or the Word' book (Spiral bound).
As I tried to come up with ideas for the kit I would thumb through my copy of RotW.
My eyes feel upon the Aerobee Hi sounding rocket.
Hmm...The Barracuda fins aren't real close in shape but they could work.
Orange and silver/aluminum with two white and one black fin.
What about those conduits running up the side above each fin...

Ah ha! I could use the conduits from the Wart-Hog kit!
Now, what to call the model.
I didn't want to call it 'Aerobee' as it wasn't one.
I recalled the past conversation when we were deciding what to call the three fin, yellow and black payload rocket a few years before.
Of course, the new kit should use 'Arreaux' in the name.
The name was too good a 'joke' not to use it again.
So the name "Arreauxbee-Hi" was born.
(As an aside, I spoke with a contact at Aerojet a year ago and he informed me that the name 'Aerobee' is now in the public domain).

Before I could build a prototype I was let go by AeroTech.
Even so, I still wanted to build this model and fly it.
I gathered the parts and built the model which was flown at NARAM-35.
A picture of the Arreauxbee-Hi launching was part of the NARAM-35 coverage in American Spacemodeling magazine.

Fast-forward 22 years.

At NARAM-57 I met up with Charlie Savoie.
The last time I saw Charlie he was 11-12 years old.
Charlie was now the General Manager of RCS/AeroTech/Quest.
As we talked he asked if I had any ideas for new kits.
Funny he should ask...

I told Charlie about the Arreauxbee-Hi kit design.
Charlie was interested and we communicated over the course of several months working out the final design of the kit.
The biggest issue we had was the decals.
The 'Aerobee' font was a custom design from the AeroJet art department. There was no-one with the company anymore who knew about it.

I turned to Gordy/Sandman and asked him if he could re-create the font but with 'Arreauxbee-Hi' instead.
He worked at it for weeks but he pulled it off.
The 'AeroTech General' might have been his idea too.

Now with artwork in hand all that was left was packaging and instructions.
Charlie handled the packaging and changed the usual background used with other kits.
The two of us worked for weeks to get the instructions completed.
I also supplied Charlie with a press release sheet for the kit which he used with some alterations.

So, the Arreauxbee-Hi was a kit idea that took 24 years to come to fruition.
It's just a fun sport model that has a scale-like appearance.

I hope folks have fun building and flying the kit.
I also hope AeroTech sells a bunch of them. :wink:
 
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Are the conformal rail guides aluminum like the motor retainer?
The conformal rail guides Aerotech is including in all their kits now are 3-D printed plastic. They seem to bond well to the tube with medium CA. They're a welcome improvement over the 1/4" lugs.
 
Bob, I've gotta say this kit is a serious trip down memory lane for me. The science classroom I learned rocketry in, a few decades back, had the banged up remains of an original MMI Aerobee-Hi kit hanging on the wall. The Orange, Black and White color palate was our local high school colors, so it fit in well with the theme of "getting you ready for high school" that my junior high teacher wanted. It was way cooler than any of the estes models I was building... and I WANTED that model. At the end of my second year I remember asking the teacher where I could get that kit, as I hadn't seen it in any of the local hobby shop's catalogs. I was seriously bummed to learn it had been discontinued years before I was born. But now... just as I'm getting back into the sport, and my son is starting to get into it... here is a modern kit paying homage to it. Thank you.

I have to ask though, why is the Arreauxbee-Hi not actually a High Power Rocket? I've not assembled my kit yet, but as far as I can see a 29/120 is just barely going to fit... limiting the rocket to G motors. There appears to be plenty of internal space to push that motor tube longer, another 8cm or so will allow a 29/240, which covers all but the most extreme H in the AT 29mm line. Another 6cm above that would get a 29/360 in there, covering every 29mm motor AT sells... including the I200. The (very rough, early) sims I've run indicate that an I200 in this airframe would be absolutely bonkers... hitting 0.78 mach and over a km of altitude.

I'm not sure I'd want to risk the details coming undone at that speed... so I doubt I would ever consider putting an I in this beauty. But I would very much love the flexibility to put an H in it... so I'm considering getting a longer 29mm engine tube, and possibly beefing up the spacers. Can anyone think of any other issues that might arise with a longer/stronger burn?
 
I'm hoping to sim it soon.

I started building my sim file a week or so ago. At this point, without any glue, epoxy or paint... just weighing and measuring the parts and plugging them in to OpenRocket, I'm up to 568g dry weight... AT claims the kit is 470g assembled?! The last AT kit I built a sim file for was a little off as well, but only like a couple grams low before paint. It also came out spot on for length, where this one is 3 cm short. I'm about to go do a thorough re-weighing of every part in the box... just in case I screwed something up, but I was pretty careful to double and triple check every figure as I went... both from the scale to paper and from my notes to OpenRocket. EDIT TO ADD: re-weighed every part one went down 0.4g, another, now that it's had the slots for the fins cut out, went down 1.7g... so -2.1g total... still off by nearly 90g at 566 now.

I did some calculus to work out the grams / cm for the tunnels, in order to handle the two cut pieces, but the numbers that came out seemed reasonable, I doubt they could be that far off. And I realized I failed to remove the pre-cuts for the fins on the lower body tube... but I can't imagine for a second that those little slivers would throw it that far off.

Have you built your sim file? How close did you come to the specs from Aerotech?
 
I'm glad to hear you like the Arreauxbee Hi (ABH) kit Cabbey.

The ABH uses the same motor mount tube as all the other AeroTech kits. There was never any thought given to ordering/warehousing a special motor mount tube for just the ABH.
A modeler can always install a different motor tube (But this is not an AeroTech recommended/approved modification).

The market for MPR kits is bigger than HPR. Customers don't need HPR certifications and motors are easier to purchase and ship.

Let us know how your ABH flies.
 
The ABH uses the same motor mount tube as all the other AeroTech kits. There was never any thought given to ordering/warehousing a special motor mount tube for just the ABH.

Oh right, duh. I forget that none* of the AT kits fly on higher than these same motors... should have been obvious that they all have the same bill of parts. :facepalm:

*Excluding the Sumo, which to the best of my knowledge is the same motor mount tube, but uses a piston instead of the cooling mesh and baffle... so can use the full 12" length of it.

A modeler can always install a different motor tube

Precisely my intention.

(But this is not an AeroTech recommended/approved modification).

:smile:

That happens to be *exactly* why I'm simulating the heck out of this build before I start any work on it.
 
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