Is MicroMaxx still a thing?

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Yes, *but*... Aerotech has said that at this point they're just selling out their existing stock of motors and don't plan to manufacture any more. Apparently they have quite a lot of them in stock, and no one (to my knowledge) knows when they will run out. In the meantime, though, MicroMaxx is a thing. There are quite a number of kits available.

I too have never seen one flown in person.
 
I have a bunch from "back in the day" they were cheap and they fly straw type rockets to about 40-50 feet in your yard ; which can be fun sometimes if you have a way to ignite them; that is the hard part
 
I bought a Fliskits Doubles kit to play around with staging MicroMaxx. @fyrwrxz had some gear and more rockets for me to try out. It worked and it was plenty exciting, but at that scale, rocket durability becomes an issue. Balsa-finned kits get damaged by crushing really easy, and all MMX kits are small enough for me to lose really easy. The launch equipment is nowhere near as simple as with Estes motors, as you have to secure the igniter to the launch apparatus and drop the rocket onto it, instead of plugging the igniter in the nozzle. Igniters are hard to find, I’ve only gotten them from the AeroTech website. I’ve also had two motors CATO, ruining the plastic fin cans of the preassembled rockets.

I also understand that the Saturn V and Space Shuttle models AeroTech sells do not fly well.

As a result of all this, they’re not super beginner-friendly, given the greater degree of manual dexterity required to assemble and prep them. I think the Carlisle, Stine, and Estes got it right the first time with ~18mm Type A motors.

If I were *really* desperate for a place to fly and I could only wrangle a basketball court close to me, I might use them a lot more. As it stands, I find larger motors, 13-29mm, far more practical.

But I did it! Cross that one off the list.
 
I think the kits are adorable and really like the idea of launching them in small areas. The problem is, every video I've seen of them launching...I don't see the launch. The video is pretty much: "there's a rocket....now the rocket's gone."

This "phenomenon" that small, zippy rockets exhibit is bad enough with 13mm engines in BT-20 rockets. So as much as I love rockets for small launch sites, there comes a point where I tell myself the launch aesthetics go too far for me to enjoy.

This is just my opinion, though. I know there are plenty of people out there who probably are the opposite of me.
 
mh9162013 said:
I think the kits are adorable and really like the idea of launching them in small areas. The problem is, every video I've seen of them launching...I don't see the launch. The video is pretty much: "there's a rocket....now the rocket's gone."

This "phenomenon" that small, zippy rockets exhibit is bad enough with 13mm engines in BT-20 rockets. So as much as I love rockets for small launch sites, there comes a point where I tell myself the launch aesthetics go too far for me to enjoy.

This is just my opinion, though. I know there are plenty of people out there who probably are the opposite of me.
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Part of me wonders if the common rocket designs at this scale are just built with too much performance in mind. Oddrocs, saucers, pyramids, gliders, super-rocs, or stubbies would almost certainly be more visible.

I think a MicroMaxx model with an “oversized” payload bay would be neat. I know bigger rockets can carry chicken eggs, I wonder what kind of fragile payload could be conceivable at this scale.
 
smstachwick said:
Part of me wonders if the common rocket designs at this scale are just built with too much performance in mind. Oddrocs, saucers, pyramids, gliders, super-rocs, or stubbies would almost certainly be more visible.

I think a MicroMaxx model with an “oversized” payload bay would be neat. I know bigger rockets can carry chicken eggs, I wonder what kind of fragile payload could be conceivable at this scale.
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A robin's egg?

I think an oddroc MicroMaxx rocket will still be fairly zippy, compared to a 13, 18 or 24mm counterpart.
 
smstachwick said:
As a result of all this, they’re not super beginner-friendly, given the greater degree of manual dexterity required to assemble and prep them. I think the Carlisle, Stine, and Estes got it right the first time with ~18mm Type A motors.
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The original Carlisle model rocket motors were 13mm.

When Stine went looking for someone to mass produce rocket motors for MMI he contacted Brown Engineering which made fireworks. These folks recommended using an 18mm diameter tube as Brown was already using it for another product.

The rest is history. ;)

PS: Estes came later.
 
Initiator001 said:
The original Carlisle model rocket motors were 13mm.

When Stine went looking for someone to mass produce rocket motors for MMI he contacted Brown Engineering which made fireworks. These folks recommended using an 18mm diameter tube as Brown was already using it for another product.

The rest is history. ;)

PS: Estes came later.
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Interesting. Most of the history I have read about to this point was extremely condensed and didn’t go into that kind of detail.

I did go looking for dimensional data or drawings but the rabbit holes I encountered didn’t have that data close to the entrance so I just put a squiggly ~ to hedge my bets.
 
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smstachwick said:
I also understand that the Saturn V and Space Shuttle models AeroTech sells do not fly well.
Click to expand...
When Bill Stine/Quest designed the Micro-Maxx models the company was owned by Toy Biz.
Bill's designs were sent off to Asia where they were molded. The company molded them heavier than Bill's prototypes resulting in the Saturn V and Shuttle models not being stable.

If the fins on the Saturn V are enlarged, the model will fly straight.

A similar situation happened to Bill when he created the Concept II line for MRC but that is another story. ;)
 
Initiator001 said:
When Bill Stine/Quest designed the Micro-Maxx models the company was owned by Toy Biz.
Bill's designs were sent off to Asia where they were molded. The company molded them heavier than Bill's prototypes resulting in the Saturn V and Shuttle models not being stable.

If the fins on the Saturn V are enlarged, the model will fly straight.

A similar situation happened to Bill when he created the Concept II line for MRC but that is another story. ;)
Click to expand...

Wow, Concept II brings memory. We could have two outboard pods with "smoke bombs" lite to give off smoke then ignite the center rocket engine. Do I remember this correctly ?
 
Art Upton said:
Wow, Concept II brings memory. We could have two outboard pods with "smoke bombs" lite to give off smoke then ignite the center rocket engine. Do I remember this correctly ?
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Yes. The smoke-only devices were called FX Motors even though they produced no thrust (I tested one on the AeroTech thrust stand back then).

A good product line ruined by a 'comittee'. :(
 
MicroMaxx models are fun....but they are limited in performance by the slightly-less-than-one-second delay.

I think my most flown MicroMaxx model is an Estes Mosquito with an MMX mount and a small streamer. Fun flights, and I get it back after the flight. The downscale Goblin (eRockets/Semroc kit) is also fun.

As for larger payloads, I have flown an FS Comp in a purpose-built MMX model and even that model would've been happier with a longer delay. https://flightsketch.com/flights/2592/
 
Initiator001 said:
Yes. The smoke-only devices were called FX Motors even though they produced no thrust (I tested one on the AeroTech thrust stand back then).

A good product line ruined by a 'comittee'. :(
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Bob, could you hit me about my face and shoulders to get my divided attention next Fiesta launch? Asking for a favour. No cost. Thx! -dave-
 
I just started into Micromaxx. I have about 20 kits stored away for winter builds….all in a shoebox. You can display all 20 on a single 8x10 stand. Motors are $12 for 6; you can get 24 motors for $36 directly through Aerotech.

The Rocketship Games launcher is the best!. Slides on an 1/8” rod and the movable base lets you move the igniter to fit your rocket. Makes it easy to fly your kits. I flew a couple of mine at NSL East last weekend--a nice switch-up from the K-M flights.
 
I want someone to post a picture of one of these stuck in a tree ":^)

I've flown several and think they're great, my favorite was the saucer. At Bong this summer I asked the AT folks & was told plenty of inventory. So yeah they're still a thing and have fun.
 
They are great for flying in your backyard with the young grandkids, especially since there are no legit fields available in most urban/suburban areas. I even built a minimum diameter Nano Bertha as a part of my Big Bertha fleet.
 
I live on a corner lot and I have a fairly large front yard, it's perfect for Micro Max. Lots of times, in the summer when I'm cooking on the smoker, I'll break out the MMX fleet and fly a few in between temperature checks. There's a lot of fum to be had in such a small package. As tedious as the kits are to build, they are a ton of fun to assemble.
 
Yep, lots of fun. Just like there larger cousins, they can be a blink and gone or go slow and low.

The other is finding them on the ground. Short cut grass is best.

Saucers and oddrocs are also great and stay low. Great for launching in your yard or even on a quiet street.
 
DaHabes said:
They are great for flying in your backyard with the young grandkids, especially since there are no legit fields available in most urban/suburban areas. I even built a minimum diameter Nano Bertha as a part of my Big Bertha fleet.
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Depends on how big your back yard is and how light you can build. It seemed to me that the Fliskits Nanite I built would launch to a couple of hundred feet or something. When I finally got it trimmed out, everyone had left, so no one else saw it fly well. It promptly vanished, going up in a thermal, at 7 in the evening, at about a minute. Too small to see. Someone else's Nanite:
https://www.rocketryforum.com/threads/fliskits-nanite-record-setting-1-8a-rocket-glider.110553/
 
Might be better to go up one size then, assuming you don't want to make your own motors. I think there are kits of that nature around. You can see bigger ones more easily.
 
Calling in from outer space to say MMX is 100% a thing for as long as AeroTech's stockpile exists!

Rocketship Games has been super quiet the past year as far as the Internet and new designs go. But we've actually been doing more rocket stuff than ever: In addition to a few special events (e.g., Red Glare and NYPower), we've been vending at two section launches a month (PARA and CENJARS). I think that's been really good for those clubs and contributed to a surge in participation. It's just so convenient to be able to buy motors and other supplies on-site, let alone physically peruse all sorts of exciting kits. But that side of things has pretty much consumed all the time & energy I've been able to to put toward rockets. The somewhat larger scope of the business all by itself would be one thing, but doing it on-the-move (rather than from a store) incurs a ton of additional chaos, maintenance, and extra time.

Good news though, and one reason I happened to stop by the forum today, is that all the inventory management and packing and so on is increasingly streamlined & under control. As of last week we're also 100% sold out of our own kits, which is pretty cool and motivating. I'm looking forward to finally wrapping up the several batches of kits sitting around the workshop mostly-produced, and then getting onto some new stuff!

362663787_678353117672239_2343136767822201296_n.jpg​
 

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