Estes vintage S.W.A.T. build

Well, with all the rain we had been getting here in Southern California (by the way, we got enough in 1 week as we normally do in a whole year), I decided to build a couple kits I've had in my stash.

One of them was the OOP Estes SWAT. I am surprised that there is not a biuld thread here or a review on EMRR. Guess I'll have to do that.

Anyway, the kit went together fairly easy. I did make a few mods though. The kit comes with an 18mm MMT. Uh, no, sorry. While I do not really care about how high my rockets go, I do want them to get off the launch pad. This kit just doesn't seem like it would attain much height on a "C" motor.

So, I happened to have some 24mm cr's that fit the BT-60 bt, I cut a piece of BT-50 to accommodate an "E" motor, added the engine hook and viola!, now this bird can fly on an array of different motors ranging from a C-11 up to an "F" using my 24/40 casing.

I also ditched the conventional elastic/glue down shock cord mount by adding some kevlar around the mmt and then attaching the shock cord to the end of that. Much like how Quest does it in their kits.

The instructions said to glue the fins on first, then after to join the the body tubes together. Again, uh no. I opted to go the route more commonly found, and that is to glue the tubes together first, so I could "roll" them out so as keep them as straight as possible. I also switched them around. The instructions called for using the longer 18" tube at the rear, I decided to use the smaller tube at the rear. The reason was that if I ever had to fix it due to some malfunction, it would be easier to cut the longer tube w/o the coupler being in the way.

The tubes didn't line up that well anyway, so I had to fill in the gaps with putty, so I'm hoping the fins will help to distract from that as opposed to being higher up on the model.

I have filleted all the fins, now I just need to sand, fill, and paint. I will post pictures later. Stay tuned...

Here are some pics....

I bought one of these from Ebay just after I started back in the hobby. Somehow I got it into my head that it was just a Satellite Interceptor with a different set of decals, so I was surprised when it turned up and was a BT-60 bird. For some reason it sat until the last year or so when I turned it into a 3x18mm clustered Satellite Interceptor. I just never did warm up to the S.W.A.T. decals.

Looking good! I have 2 of those kits in my 'Kit Room' One of these days I will get one built..Plan to upscale it, but mine won't have as much thunder as someone else already has done a 6" upscale of it, and is starting to work up a 12" upscale

I like the mods, will have to keep them in mind when I get around to building one of mine.

kelltym88 said:

I also ditched the conventional elastic/glue down shock cord mount by adding some kevlar around the mmt and then attaching the shock cord to the end of that. Much like how Quest does it in their kits. .

Click to expand...

Nice build. I loved that rocket. I build one many moons ago, but never got a chance to fly it since it got crushed during the painting process. IMHO you should of used the folded shock cord method (but switch the cord with good Elastic). I have built and lost many rockets using the "Quest" method. Most common failure with that is the parachute snagging the knot. Other modes of failure is ejection charge/delay burn burning through the kevlar cord (especially true when the kevlar is anchored to the thrust ring.) I find the fold and glue method to be the best and often outlasts the rocket, and is easier to remove and replace.