Scratch Built Aim 9 Sidewinder Rocket

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KnifeEdge01

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When I was younger I had the Estes Aim 9 Sidewinder kit and Loved it. Sadly it was damaged pretty badly when I moved. But I recently bought a new kit someone had listed on Ebay. This got me thinking about Building a larger one to be flown on Mid power motors. I recently finished my First Mid-Power Rocket (Estes Nike Smoke).

Here is my thought on the Sidewinder. I am thinking of buying the 3" tubes from Estes and using a 29mm Motor mount. What I can't decide on is length. They have a few that are already slotted for 4 fins. I could use one for the bottom and one for the top. I will use the fins from my current,smaller kit as templates and enlarge them to my liking.

What are your inputs on length? How a out a nose cone that would be similar? I tried to find other builds out there with no luck.

I will continue to post build updates on here. Im going to order a few tubes tonight and I can cut them to size if needed.

Thanks!
 
I would mount the front fins on a pivot, to increase stability. For a nose, I'd use something conical, like a cardstock transition and a 1.5" or so foam ball.
 
When I was younger I had the Estes Aim 9 Sidewinder kit and Loved it. Sadly it was damaged pretty badly when I moved. But I recently bought a new kit someone had listed on Ebay. This got me thinking about Building a larger one to be flown on Mid power motors. I recently finished my First Mid-Power Rocket (Estes Nike Smoke).

Here is my thought on the Sidewinder. I am thinking of buying the 3" tubes from Estes and using a 29mm Motor mount. What I can't decide on is length. They have a few that are already slotted for 4 fins. I could use one for the bottom and one for the top. I will use the fins from my current,smaller kit as templates and enlarge them to my liking.

What are your inputs on length? How a out a nose cone that would be similar? I tried to find other builds out there with no luck.

I will continue to post build updates on here. Im going to order a few tubes tonight and I can cut them to size if needed.

Thanks!

If you are going to use the 3" Estes tubes and want them in a longer length buy the T300-34 (34" long) from Balsa Machining Service, and if you need a custom nose cone contact Gordon Agnello aka "Sandman" (TRF username). Gordo does exceptional lathe turned nose cones. The Estes tubing is pretty light weight stuff and Loc parts will not work with it (or for that matter any standard HPR 3" parts). The only nose cone currently available for the T300 tubes is from Balsa Machining Service, Apogee (iirc) and Mercury Engineering (iirc) and its a long ogive type nose. Balsa Machining also sells the full length coupler stock or pre-cut couplers for the T300. BMS has awesome service.


Edit: BMS also offers a BNC-300BB (a 3" Big Bertha balsa nosecone), they also have a PNC-300K (plastic) and a BNC-300K (balsa) upscale of the Estes PNC/BNC-80K nose cone.
 
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When I was younger I had the Estes Aim 9 Sidewinder kit and Loved it. Sadly it was damaged pretty badly when I moved. But I recently bought a new kit someone had listed on Ebay. This got me thinking about Building a larger one to be flown on Mid power motors. I recently finished my First Mid-Power Rocket (Estes Nike Smoke).

Here is my thought on the Sidewinder. I am thinking of buying the 3" tubes from Estes and using a 29mm Motor mount. What I can't decide on is length.
...

To come up with a length you need a dimensioned drawing of the real thing and a little Jethro cipherin'. Googling "aim 9 sidewinder scale drawing" gets you some drawings, including this Peter Alway offering:

View attachment 302319

This gives us the airframe diameter of 5 inches. Commence to cipherin', 5 guzinta 3 .6 times; that's our scale factor. So to get your length go .6 x 111.4 equals 66.84 inches. Multiply the scale factor by any other dimension in the drawing and you're on your way to a scale Aim 9.
 
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If you are going to use the 3" Estes tubes and want them in a longer length buy the T300-34 (34" long) from Balsa Machining Service, and if you need a custom nose cone contact Gordon Agnello aka "Sandman" (TRF username). Gordo does exceptional lathe turned nose cones. The Estes tubing is pretty light weight stuff and Loc parts will not work with it (or for that matter any standard HPR 3" parts). The only nose cone currently available for the T300 tubes is from Balsa Machining Service, Apogee (iirc) and Mercury Engineering (iirc) and its a long ogive type nose. Balsa Machining also sells the full length coupler stock or pre-cut couplers for the T300. BMS has awesome service.


Edit: BMS also offers a BNC-300BB (a 3" Big Bertha balsa nosecone), they also have a PNC-300K (plastic) and a BNC-300K (balsa) upscale of the Estes PNC/BNC-80K nose cone.

I think I am going to Order the BNC-300BB Cone. as this is the closest match, I can shape more if needed. I am ordering a few Estes Tubes and couplers today.
 
If I recall, the old Estes sidewinder had it's rear fins canted a degree or two, to induce a spin (spin stabilization) as it went up.

For your upscale, think about a stuffer tube. Use the longest Motor Mount Tube you can to help reduce the internal volume of the BT to help with motor ejection. Make it a 38mm MMT? That way you can use larger motors when you get your L1..
 
If I recall, the old Estes sidewinder had it's rear fins canted a degree or two, to induce a spin (spin stabilization) as it went up.

For your upscale, think about a stuffer tube. Use the longest Motor Mount Tube you can to help reduce the internal volume of the BT to help with motor ejection. Make it a 38mm MMT? That way you can use larger motors when you get your L1..

I will take a look at the Estes kit I have and see.
 
My group, here in Brazil, is entering the era of the hybrid rocket Motor. Can anyone help us take the first step-by-step, for its construction, by sending us some material (book) in pdf? Mathematics, measurements, applied materials, injectors, etc.
 
My group, here in Brazil, is entering the era of the hybrid rocket Motor. Can anyone help us take the first step-by-step, for its construction, by sending us some material (book) in pdf? Mathematics, measurements, applied materials, injectors, etc.
This is also not the right place for discussing research hybrid motors.
 
Anyone looking to model the nose on this thing may or may not get some value from the relevant bits my recent IRIS-T build: IR dome / Nose cutting / Insert / Final Assembly. The details of what's under the IR dome are different, but the modeling approach should be similar. At larger scale it would be possible to get more realistic detail in there, but even at BT55 size mine ended up pretty good:
274390-8acec56c0b42e07766095d2f444b425f.jpg
274391-078a58bca50aa65e3a48a9420e53dc05.jpg


Of course, if you scale your model up big enough you should be able to fit a real camera in there. :)
 
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