Glenco's VonBraun 3-Stage Ferry Rocket looked like a natural for PMC conversion.
Well it does have a few issues to be worked out but can make for a very nice 13mm motor flying model.
The model is tail heavy as all gee-wiz. This means scrapping alot of unnecessary wall material from the molded parts AND a good bit of nose weight. I seem to recall someone submitted an article to the old Model Rocketeer covering converting this model but alas I didn't have that issue. Glenco used an older version of the Ferry rocket then I remembered with the Crew Plane having full Delta wings. I chose to alter this to the more normal wing look.
Because of the very limited space I went with a 13mm motor mount hoping to save enough room for a decent size chute. Even with the Shorter motor mount in the BT-20 body tube it's a real squeeze to get a 12" chute in.
I used a super altered balsa transition, sculpting down to almost nothing in the forward end, Hollowed out to give me additional space for nose weight which was needed. the little plane fuselage is filled with more nose weight.
With the steep taper of the body most would use standoffs to get the launch lugs out far enough to be useful. I chose to install in internal LL with a very long tapered forward opening sculpted to the contour of the body. A super bigger pain to do but I think it makes a huge difference in the on the pad look of the model. Fly's fairly well on A10-3T motors even being the little 51.3 gram ewt. Piggy that its.
a very worth while PMC if you run across the model in the hobby shop.
Well it does have a few issues to be worked out but can make for a very nice 13mm motor flying model.
The model is tail heavy as all gee-wiz. This means scrapping alot of unnecessary wall material from the molded parts AND a good bit of nose weight. I seem to recall someone submitted an article to the old Model Rocketeer covering converting this model but alas I didn't have that issue. Glenco used an older version of the Ferry rocket then I remembered with the Crew Plane having full Delta wings. I chose to alter this to the more normal wing look.
Because of the very limited space I went with a 13mm motor mount hoping to save enough room for a decent size chute. Even with the Shorter motor mount in the BT-20 body tube it's a real squeeze to get a 12" chute in.
I used a super altered balsa transition, sculpting down to almost nothing in the forward end, Hollowed out to give me additional space for nose weight which was needed. the little plane fuselage is filled with more nose weight.
With the steep taper of the body most would use standoffs to get the launch lugs out far enough to be useful. I chose to install in internal LL with a very long tapered forward opening sculpted to the contour of the body. A super bigger pain to do but I think it makes a huge difference in the on the pad look of the model. Fly's fairly well on A10-3T motors even being the little 51.3 gram ewt. Piggy that its.
a very worth while PMC if you run across the model in the hobby shop.
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