I started this sometime back. Been being built a little at a time, as I have been busy with work. My work takes me away from home so builds take place in between, and there hasn't been a whole lot of in between this year.
In my nuclear powered mind, the Starship Vega is the coolest model Estes put out. OK, maybe the just coolest from the '70s. Anyway, I build and crashed 1 in 1975. Build another and gave it away in the late 80s. Built the Q Modeling version 2 years ago as a BAR, and wrecked last year at Battle Park in VA.
This has been in my head since, well since I first learned about up-scaling here on TRF. This build thread would have been one to make bradycros proud, but I decided that I would allow it to end sometime this year... :tongue:
Without further delay......
First I located a RockSim file on the web. The one I found was actually for the Super Vega, a similar rocket with different dimensions, nosecone and landing pods. I then located thei dimensions of the original Citation version and corrected the file using Open Rocket.
I loaded the fin templates onto a flash drive and went down the road a piece (about 30 miles) to the nearest Kinkos. I asked that they be printed on 11X17 paper with no scaling. The look on the clerks face when she opened the pdf was worth the trip. I just looked at her and said "They're templates" "Oh"
Rough cut the templates and using a glue stick, attached them to a piece of poster board. The poster board was trimmed to match the printout.
The patterns were transferred to 1/4" plywood. Rough cuts were made on the table saw using a 200 tooth 'old school' blade. (next one will be carbide)
In my nuclear powered mind, the Starship Vega is the coolest model Estes put out. OK, maybe the just coolest from the '70s. Anyway, I build and crashed 1 in 1975. Build another and gave it away in the late 80s. Built the Q Modeling version 2 years ago as a BAR, and wrecked last year at Battle Park in VA.
This has been in my head since, well since I first learned about up-scaling here on TRF. This build thread would have been one to make bradycros proud, but I decided that I would allow it to end sometime this year... :tongue:
Without further delay......
First I located a RockSim file on the web. The one I found was actually for the Super Vega, a similar rocket with different dimensions, nosecone and landing pods. I then located thei dimensions of the original Citation version and corrected the file using Open Rocket.
I loaded the fin templates onto a flash drive and went down the road a piece (about 30 miles) to the nearest Kinkos. I asked that they be printed on 11X17 paper with no scaling. The look on the clerks face when she opened the pdf was worth the trip. I just looked at her and said "They're templates" "Oh"
Rough cut the templates and using a glue stick, attached them to a piece of poster board. The poster board was trimmed to match the printout.
The patterns were transferred to 1/4" plywood. Rough cuts were made on the table saw using a 200 tooth 'old school' blade. (next one will be carbide)