29mm in 1/10 Nike Smoke - Cool or Crazy?

I thought I would share my latest project, a kitbash between:

• Estes 1/10th Scale Nike Smoke (007247) picked for $7.91 on clearance
• Estes Pro Series II Booster (009752) picked for $2.15 on clearance

The moment I saw this rocket - with it's BT60 tube - my inner child wanted to cram in an irrationally large engine. Lots of folks upgrade it to 24mm, but nobody but me seems crazy enough to try for 29MM.


Among my modifications:

• Sanding the ridges off the 29MM engine retainer so that it is the same diameter as the body tube
• Through-the-wall fins, rounded, papered with tissue & wood glue
• 100# Kevlar shock cord

So far, I completed the sanding of the engine retainer by attaching it to a papered balsa disc and spinning it in my rotary tool:

According to OpenRocket, this thing should weigh about 70 grams complete and could accelerate at 1967 m/s² (about 200 g) to Mach 1.6 on a Cesaroni H410. Any bets on whether I win that drag race, or end up with a pile of balsa splinters? :lol:

Play stupid games, win stupid prizes. In other words go for it!

Why not, I built mine with a 24mm MMT and fly AT F35W and F39T in it to 2400' and 2000' respectively, no nose weight needed. Recovery is a 12" thin mill nylon chute and JLCR. Flew it lots at our three day launch last June (2017) for the target altitude contest (2011' the year our club was formed). Even with 24mm motors it really moves.

Any guess which part would fail first with a huge engine? The papered balsa fins? Maybe crush the BT60 tube?

BlastoffDFW said:

Any guess which part would fail first with a huge engine? The papered balsa fins? Maybe crush the BT60 tube?

Click to expand...

Make the fins of basswood and modify to TTW (through the wall ), they might still fail under a G motors thrust, nose weight would probably be required for a 29mm MMT.

That sounds like a really fun project. My question, how big do you want to go? H180W? You might need a thin layer of 3oz glass on the BT and fins to handle that. How do you expect to get it back? I'm thinking visual tracking is probably not happening. You can certainly fit a small xmitter for a Walston RDF system in it. Or just use a SU motor to cut your losses and fire and hope.