Fat Cat F-104 Starfighter ( Now oop)

[Fred]

Styme i know you have tons of patience.because that is a beautiful rocket and i bet the cat survived.
Cheers
fred

 

[kelltym88]

Originally posted by airwolfe1
Love the rocket Stymye. If someone was interested in making one of these, and since Fat Cat is no longer in business, would you happen to have the instructions or some type of pattern for the fins?

I second that. That came out really nice. An H210R would be nice for that rocket. Beautiful, just beautiful.

 

[lalligood]

I would like to breathe just a little life into this thread...

This past weekend I flew my F104 on a G64-7W. Boost was perhaps the prettiest flight I have ever witnessed, regardless of motor impulse. (Is that a biased comment or what?!? ) It just had a really sweet ascent and had a gentle roll while under thrust. It arced over and quickly pointed down before the ejection charge went off. Usually I would not have preferred a late ejection but with all of the weight in the nose, that prevented a potentially damaging scenario of the nose cone running into the body. Instead the nose rapidly dropped and pulled both chutes out to have both parts of the rocket recover beautifully.

So here are a couple of pictures. First is it on it's way up off the pad...

 

[lalligood]

...and a close-up of it in mid air under thrust.

Look for the review at EMRR coming soon

 

[Stones]

Great pics!

 

[Stymye]

Lance that is awesome!

I brought mine to the last launch but was still unsure what to fly it on so I chickened out.. I am so glad you posted your experience with the G64..

great job!

 

[lalligood]

And for anyone reading this thread that might be concerned about any "bonus delay", let me assure you that my flight did experience the appropriate & desired seven second delay. I would definitely advise against flying the F104 on a G64-4W! That short delay would come much too soon in the flight & you almost certainly risk some damage if that heavy nose cone were to come out while the F104 is short of apogee and hit a fin...

Now get out there & fly yours stymye!

 

[Stymye]

I flew it again on the G64 and got a launch pic this time

perfect flight. the body chute was a little slow coming out but it recoverd just fine ... very cool rocket and even went into the horizontal glide before ejection...I can't wait to do it again!

just too cool!

 

[FM2436]

Can anyone who posted on this tread give an update as to recent launches of their FAT CAT F-104. Man-oh-man I wish I had purchased that kit before FAT CAT went out of business.

 

[lalligood]

Check out my flight logs here: https://www.rocketreviews.com/cgi-b...4%Starfighter&&-&&Alligood&&Lance&&-&&-&&-&&-

Bottom line, this is arguably the coolest flying rocket in my fleet. It's certainly not the highest, biggest, or most complex, but as far as getting LOTS of attention wherever it goes, this rocket is numero uno. The flights rock

 

[Stymye]

same here . flys great and always draws a crowd.

.

 

[hokkyokusei]

Originally posted by FM2436
Can anyone who posted on this tread give an update as to recent launches of their FAT CAT F-104. Man-oh-man I wish I had purchased that kit before FAT CAT went out of business.

Me too. Is anthing particularly difficult to clone, other than the cockpit canopy?

 

[Stymye]

Nothing critical , it uses loc tubing.

the canopy is available from SIG ,it's a wwII canopy

https://www.sigmfg.com/cgi-bin/dpsmart.exe/MainMenuFV4.html?E+Sig

 

[hokkyokusei]

Thanks for that, do you happen to know which one?

 

[Stymye]

Sig wc 807 7"

you have to modify it to the curvature of the cone

 

[Eagle3]

Does anyone have patterns and a parts list they can provide to Scott Hansen at YORP?

 

[hokkyokusei]

Originally posted by stymye
Sig wc 807 7"

you have to modify it to the curvature of the cone

Thanks again.

 

[FM2436]

Originally posted by hokkyokusei
Me too. Is anthing particularly difficult to clone, other than the cockpit canopy?

Using 3-view drawing of a F-104A from Nasa's gallery, I enlarged the copy on a photocopy machine until I had the fuselage width of a BT-80 body tube as used the same enlargemt to cut tail and wings. I used a Loc 2.6 nose cone and if I recall correctly a BT-50 body tube to make the intakes. The F-104 came out looking pretty well and while not setting high altitude records, it may have achieved 300' on a Este's D-12-5. I launched it once at the Wallops Island Visitor Center infront of a crowd that oooood and awwwwd and that was neat. Sadly after abut the fifth flight it crashed before exection of the chute and caught fire. I plan to build another soon.

https://www.dfrc.nasa.gov/gallery/Graphics/F-104/Large/EG-0044-02.gif

 

[FM2436]

Here's a picture.

 

[hokkyokusei]

Originally posted by FM2436
Here's a picture.

Very nice!