Thanks for the support, here are the goodies!
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In the mail came my G74-6W motors for G-powered test flights, a 36” Top Flight chute, and a screamer. I ordered two, one for each section, but only one showed. My email requesting another has as of yet gone unanswered
Rolling the chute felt more like packing a tent than anything else, but it fits nicely. The screamer is clipped to a section of shroud line used to tie the chute onto the loop in the shock cord. What is the general experience with this model, if any? Does the pin generally pull at ejection or do I need to pull it on the ground and tolerate that horrible noise while trying to get the thing packed and out to the pad?
Last item in the goody bag: a Mobius Mini camera (an anniversary gift) and in Inverted Pursuits Lab 3D printed shroud. These will not be installed on F-powered flights to save weight and reduce drag, but they will be present and running for the G-powered and certification flights.
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Now, the rocket photos!
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Special thanks to Mindy, who lent her steadier, more precise, more patient hands to the decal job, plus a simulated rail guide and an antenna shoe.
Eagle-eyed observers on the range will notice that the decals are a bit displaced around the model from where they’re supposed to be relative to the simulated rail guides. I misread/didn’t fully understand the instructions, using one of the functional rail guides as a reference point. The correct alignment reference was a line extended from the leading edge of one of the fins.
The confusion stemmed from one of the differences between Flight and Launch mode, which themselves stemmed from a funny little design feature of the original Astrobee D that I found out about by doing a bit of research in vintage publications written by one of the fathers of model rocketry, G. Harry Stine.
The original Astrobee D was placed on the launcher with a forward rail guide bolted onto a metal band situated at the very rear of the dark gray portion. This is modeled as Launch Mode. As the rocket cleared the tower, this guide and the band would be sheared off, and the rocket in this configuration is modeled as Flight Mode.
The instructions included a placement guide for this guide (?), which would be modeled in Launch Mode and was thus included on the template. Not fully understanding the instructions or how the real rocket worked led me to confuse this simulated guide in Launch Mode for the functional guide in Flight Mode, which is the mode I chose to build it in. This confusion displaced the bulk of the rocket’s decal work and the antenna shoes by about 90° around the rocket, even though the aft simulated rail guides were in the correct position.
Still, the thing looks all kinds of cool, even if it’s not precisely scale. Maybe if I ever trash or lose the forward end I’ll redo it, but for now I’m OK with it as-is.