Estes Fletcher Build

I will be starting the Estes Fletcher rocket this week.

Looks awesome!

Nice kit

I built one and it is a very nice flier.

Just be sure to upgrade the chute to a 12 inch. That's what I used as I thought the provided 6 inch one seemed awfully small. There is plenty of room for it and it provided a nice slow decent and a nice soft landing.

Being that this rocket maxes out at about 300-350 feet with the stock 13mm MMT, drift was definitely not an issue.

I am very thankful there were no typos with this kit's name.......

:y:

Trust me, I have gotten that joke on more than one occasion...


Matt (Fletcher)

You have paid the price (to buy it) and done the time (to build it). Hopefully the rocket will hopefully go straight as an arrow. Name it "Norman Stanley".

And let's see who gets that reference...

Cool looking rocket

Makes me wanna build a 13mm rocket

Could you friction fit a 18mm motor in there......

^^I like his idea^^

conman13 said:

Could you friction fit a 18mm motor in there......

Click to expand...

Especially a D21...

conman13 said:

Could you friction fit a 18mm motor in there......

Click to expand...

Sure

Just be sure not to install the included MMT.:wink:

The BT's are standard BT-20's.

This was another fast build per the plans. This is one tall rocket and yes it looks like an arrow. I will allow the fillets to dry then brush on Aerogloss balsa sealer and off to the paint shop.

Very nice.:clap:
I just built a Mosquito today so I'm feeling the whole 13mm Vibe.

Those lil 13mm are so fun. They seem to zip right outtakes sight. Never actually recovered one lol

I'm goin to have to get one and see how fast it will go on a D21

I was able to finish my Fletcher today, and she definitely looks like an arrow. I brushed on 4 coats of Aerogloss, primer, Krylon Glossy Black, Silver, White and blue. The decals went on real nice with one hitch. The decals are only supposed to go on 2 fins since one is painted white for visibility. The problem is there is supposed to be 2 left sided and 2 right sided feathers for the 2 fins. The decal sheet come with 3 left sided feathers and only one right sided feather. I emailed Estes for a replacement decal sheet. Other than that the decals are awesome. Sorry about the poor picture quality, did not have my good lens today.

Looks great!

I built one of those a year or so ago. Probably my favorite 13mm rocket. First flight, though, went straight up, then came straight back down! Lawn-darted and I had to lop about an inch and a half off the top to fly it again. The problem is that no matter how hard you try, you can always juuuuuust barely get the chute packed into the tiny tube, and this time it got stuck coming out.

adrian said:

You have paid the price (to buy it) and done the time (to build it). Hopefully the rocket will hopefully go straight as an arrow. Name it "Norman Stanley".

And let's see who gets that reference...

Click to expand...

i am afraid i have seen way too much BBC for being on this side of the pond, but i sadly do get your reference... "getting straight" staring Norman Stanley Fletcher (only saw one episode) not nearly so good as "porridge".

I couldn't resist Tower's $6 pricing (and I ordered enough stuff to get an order discount, so really about $5) and ordered one of these. For some reason I thought they were 13mm min diameter for the mini engines. I have some Estes mini-standard converters and I'm seriously thinking of running a clip and thrust ring only so I can fly it on minis through Cs. Hmmm.

Reminds me a bit of the Mini Mean Machine, with different fins and paint/decals. Mine is still flying. Great fun!

I actually bought two of them last week on the Hobbylinc sale, as I needed to order a few boxes of engines for Cub Scout launches. My 5 year old daughter keeps asking for it, as it's one of the rockets that is in the small picture insert in most estes kits. "daddy, get the bow and arrow rocket". Think they were like 7 bucks each. Also grabbed a mini fat boy.

Looks like Estes is still distributing the decal set with three lefts and one right. Haven't decided yet whether to email Estes for a second decal set or maybe paint one fin blue and one silver, with the third having the feather decals.

I decided to go with one blue and one silver fin. I think it turned out pretty nice. All stock and looking forward to flying it on mini engines. Not sure why the forum software is rotating my portrait photos to landscape so sorry about the sideways photo.

Nice maiden. 6" chute fits no problem, but mine flailed a bit on the way down. Fun rocket but man it warps easily in the sun. If I were to do another one, I'd paint it silver.

[video=youtube;uJ1fgt6LoyI]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJ1fgt6LoyI[/video]

I'm a 24mm fanatic. Love my AT 24/40. Can anybody say upscale?

Sure just say "Mean Machine" and cut different fins. Presto! I actually did order two more of these. One to keep for later and one to build for 18mm. I redid my parachute and it works great now. The rocket comes down slow and sideways.

I like the Fletcher. I tried scratch building something along that lines but in the process of moving and storage the length made it hard keep from getting damaged.
This year I have opted to expand my collection of mini's. It's a lot cheaper to fly, and I'm not able to walk to far anymore for the retrieval.
I have an original box for the star trooper from many decades past.
Now that Estes have renewed it's production, I have one again.
Next year I might just try the Micros. How knows.
I like bigger, but until the SSDI comes in, money is tighter than an earth worms bung right now.

I took advantage of Estes sale to buy several more Fletchers. Think I'm going to do one of them with an 18mm motor block. I made an Open Rocket file for a stock Fletcher and modified it for an 18mm motor sticking 3/8" out of the back. Stability went from 9.8cal with an A3-4T to 4.2cal on a C6-5. So I should be good to go without having to move the fins back despite the heavier engine. It sims to 325 feet on an A8-3, 600 feet on a B6-4, and a little over 1000 feet on a C6-5. This was my first open rocket design so go easy on me.

......and yes, I simmed a D21

View attachment Estes Fletcher stock.ork

View attachment Estes Super Fletcher.ork

You may have saved me a lot of trouble. I am turning a Humdinger into a down scale Fletcher, sort of. I scanned the fin cut outs from my Fletcher and was going to work them into something that I could import to OR tonight, but now, I can just mod your file:grin: