Estes Astro-Blaster Challenge #2073

[Scotty Dog]

YO
I have a chance to pick up an Estes Astro-Blaster .
Whats the skinny on this?
Do you have to "Fly" them on boost or do you "Fly" them after with the RCs?
The seller says it has a sticker price on it of $79.95 and asked ME what a fair price would be.

Gerry Fortin...
2073 Astro-Blaster 1992-1996 - - 14 123 217 81 mean price is $123.00

Any info/input would be COOL
Thanks

[aerostadt]

I had one years ago. It is challenging work to put together with some interesting construction techniques. It's almost all balsa wood except for the torque rods and a few other items. The wings are sheet balsa covered styrofoam using spray-on adhesive to attach. The fuselage beams used a method of many cross-sectional cuts to bend the beams. I found that super-glue gel was immensely helpful in speeding up the build. I remember barely having enough clearance to slide the entire wing through the fuselage and needing to use gap-filler afterwards. The elevators (wing flaps) control the turning. The front canards actually control the angle of attack(up and down). This gives a novice R/C person a challenge in flying. I had an experienced R/C flyer help me. He stated that the torque rod controls for the elevators were actually backwards for natural flying. I had to cut a hatch in the back and re-arrange and re-connect the torque rods. I put monokote on the finished model, which really enhanced the final looks. The final model looked good. The R/C flyer was able to pop off 3 good flights the first evening with D12's. My skills were never that good. I had one bad crash that broke a wing off at the root, but I repaired it with arrow shafts. I remember having one really good flight where I essentially let the model go where it wanted with a few in-flight adjustments. I finally totaled it trying to fly in high winds, which should have been an absolute no-no. Overall, I would say that it is a challenge.

[kjohnson]

Can you fly a fast electric RC plane? Then you should be ok piloting this. If you are a novice RC pilot, and are having trouble flying a trainer- certainly buy the kit, but don't fly it until you can handle a regular RC plane.

Aerostadt is right on about the build. The most exotic part for someone who can build with balsa is the foam wing core, but the directions are really good.

kj

[dlazarus6660]

Scotty,

I have a clone almost finished. You might give me a reason to complete this project. What kjohnson wrote is true, don' try to fly it without learning to fly R/C first. That will take both time and money!

[aerostadt]

That will take both time and money!

I guess it is obvious, but of course you need to go out and buy the R/C parts, which are the transmitter, receiver, and two servos.

[Scotty Dog]

Thanks for the info on the AB.
Guess Ill pass on this one.
Ive never flown RC and this doesnt sound like a good way to start flying RC.

[cvause]

Scotty,

I have one and love it. I flew it at the last Amesbury launch last year. If you fly on the AT E6, there is a crazy 6 second boost and you have to fly the plane the entire time. I've launched on the AT 24 reloads and everytime you need to tweek the sticks on boost.

It's a blast. I have one flying and a kit NIB that I'm going to start on later this year.

[dlazarus6660]

I don't remember that flight. I was there all day including the night flying.
Got some pic's or video to help me jog my memory?

[cvause]

My mistake, it wsd the next to last launch of the year. The Nov launch two weeks before the night launch weekend.

[K'Tesh]

Bump...

Any news/photos?

I did turn up a video of the last "flight" of one in 1992 (about the same time all my rockets were exploding)