Estes Nasa Pegasus 2.5" Upscale build.

[Back_at_it]

It's been a while since I started a new project as I took little bit of a break during the cold crappy winter we had but with the weather turning it's time to build again. This time I'm going to upscale my favorite rocket. This is something I've been planning for a while and I've had the tubes cut and sitting on the bench since Dec.

I'm building a 2.5" upscale of the Nasa Pegasus using Estes PSII tubes and nosecone for the main tube. Doing the math this comes out to be a 188% upscale. I'll list the materials used below if anyone if is looking to duplicate my build.

Nose Cone. Estes PSII 2.5" #072413
Lower Body tube. Estes 2.5" Dia. tube 15.5" long. # 031390
Upper Body Tube. Estes 2.5" Dia. tube 10.25" long #031390
Estes Coupler. 2.5". #030189
Side tubes. Centuri #18. 12.5" long.
Motor Tube. BMS 2mm motor tube. 12" long.
Centering rings are 1/16" thick Plywood.
Baffle plates are 1/16" thick Plywood.
Fins are 3/32" Plywood.
Motor retainer. Estes 29mm #009750

Several months back I cut all of the tubes and baffle plates and they have been sitting on the bench waiting for me to come back to the hobby. Below are the materials used minus the fins.



With the fins on this one I decided to do things a little differently. Due to their size I decided to fill and seal them on the bench before attaching. Here we see the fins after one coat of wood filler and two coats of Minwax sanding sealer. They still need a final wet sanding to make the sanding sealer dead flat but they are getting close.




With the fins drying I turned my attention to the motor mount. For this build I'm going with a 29mm mount. The motor/stuffer tube is 12" long. A motor block was placed 4.25" up inside inside the tube to allow this to fly on Estes E and F motors as well as the composites.

To begin the assembly the outer layer of the motor tube was removed where the centering rings attach. The centering rings have been sanded and fit specific to the top and bottom of the tube so they have been marked accordingly.



Centering rings were attached using TBII. Two fillets were applied. The first fillet was done with TBII for penetration. The second was done with Thick and Quick.



Since I had good access I went ahead and installed the Estes 29mm motor retainer using BSI 30 min. epoxy.



That is as far as I've got on this one. Hope to sneak down stairs between calls to get the baffle built between meetings today.

Thanks for following along.

 

[Back_at_it]

Sorry for the delay. I've made good progress on this project. I was hoping that it would have been ready for a test flight for my outing yesterday but unfortunately I was not able to get it far enough along to fly.

Assembled the baffle. The baffle is made from 1/16" ply cut into half moon shapes. The baffles overlap each other by approx. 1/4". The upper plate has a couple of scrap pieces of plywood to reinforce the area where the screw eye attaches.



While the baffle was drying I inserted the motor tube into the lower body tube. The motor tube was inserted until the end of the motor retainer was even with the rear of the tube. The 2.5" body tube allows tons of room to attach the screw on portion of the motor retainer.




With the baffle dry I lightly sanded the outside of the coupler tube for better penetration. TBII was then used inside the tube and on the outside of the coupler. Have a wet rag near to wipe off the excess glue.




I then added a length of 700# Kevlar to the eye hook as a leader for the shock cord.



It is now time to add the side tubes. The side tube sit even with the bottom of the main tube. The attachment points were sanded lightly for better bond and attached with TBII. A single glue fillet was then applied and let dry over night.



After the glue dried there were some open voids in the glue that needed to be addressed. These were filled in with DAP wood filler and let dry for an hour. Rough sanding was completed but there is more finish sanding left to go.

 

[Back_at_it]

Now it's time to make this thing look like the Pegasus.

The first wing was installed. The wings attach 3.29" from the rear of the main body tube. To get the angle correct I used 1/4" launch lugs as spacers. These work perfect and the wings are at the exact same angle when measured against my original Nasa Pegasus.

The body tube outer layer was removed where the wings attach to the main tube and outer tube. In the pic below we see the first main wing already installed with the second fin ready to go on.



Second wing is attached and drying.



Next was the upper vertical wings. When I added the wood filler earlier I forgot to leave space for the tails so I had to break out the dremal and remove the wood filler where the upper wings attach. They were then glued in place with TBII and allowed to completely dry before going any further.

This is the current state of the project. I'm going to do the fillets before adding the upper tube so the next couple of day will be watching glue dry.

 

[Huxter]

Sweet build! Thanks for including parts and instructions. I'm a big Star Trek fan and have built plastic models before. Now I can create a flying Pegasus! Love the 700# Kevlar - big Tim Allen Grunt!

 

[Back_at_it]

Managed to get the fillets completed yesterday so it's time to attach the upper tube. Applied a generous coating of TBII to the inside of the tube and the outside of the coupler and slide them together.



Wanted to ensure that I had a good fillet around the top of the upper plate of the baffle so I went a little heavy on the glue around the top of the tube. Worked out perfect Now it's just a matter of letting this dry.



Tomorrow will be launch lugs and the recovery gear. If I play my cards right I might be able to get this one out for a stability flight this weekend before painting it.

 

[Charles_McG]

Looking good! I got my L2 with a 4" upscale based on a mega der rex max kit, leviathan tubes and some custom laser cut plywood.

 

[Back_at_it]

Looking good! I got my L2 with a 4" upscale based on a mega der rex max kit, leviathan tubes and some custom laser cut plywood.

I do have a bunch of those 4" Max nose cones. As of right now I only have three of the nose cones allocated to future builds so I have a couple that could be used. Might just need to follow your lead.

 

[Charles_McG]

For reference:
https://www.rocketryforum.com/threads/estes-1376-nasa-pegasus-300-upscale.145676/

 

[Back_at_it]

Got up early this morning as I really wanted to get this one wrapped up. Hoping to fly it this weekend and wanted to give everything a good couple of days to cure before launch.

Added the launch lugs. Used 1/4" lugs from ERockets. Cut the lower lug at 2.5" and the upper and 2.0". The edges were then angled for aesthetics. I used an old launch rod to get them aligned. Tacked in placed with instant cure then applied TBII. Will go back with TBII for the fillets.



Forgot to get a pic of the recovery. Added 8' of 1/2" elastic for the shock cord. One end was attached to the Kevlar leader and the other was looped through holes drilled in the base of the nose cone.

Here are some pics with the nose cone attached. Mechanically it's ready to fly. Just going to give everything a couple days to cure before launching. Will do the finishing after it has flown. If there are going to be any issues I'd like to find them before finishing.

 

[Back_at_it]

Hope everyone enjoyed their holiday weekend. I managed to get out and fly at Bong this weekend but only had time for a few flights but that was ok as my main reason for going was to get the Pegasus 2.5" up for it's stability flight before finishing.

After adjusting the final weights and running the SIM in OR I decided to go with an E30-4 for the first flight. SIM'ed 38.2mph off the rod with low max G of 8.55 and max velocity of 134mph so I figured this was a nice low stress motor with a lot of thrust to get it off the pad. Apogee projected at 508ft.

Actual apogee of 489ft but it left the pad strong. Only very minor weather cocking but the winds we between 5 and 10 mph so not bad. Landed about 200ft from the pad on a 30" Nylon chute.

Now it's time for primer, paint and vinyl.
View attachment Pegasus Stability flight.MOV

 

[brockrwood]

It's been a while since I started a new project as I took little bit of a break during the cold crappy winter we had but with the weather turning it's time to build again. This time I'm going to upscale my favorite rocket. This is something I've been planning for a while and I've had the tubes cut and sitting on the bench since Dec.

I'm building a 2.5" upscale of the Nasa Pegasus using Estes PSII tubes and nosecone for the main tube. Doing the math this comes out to be a 188% upscale. I'll list the materials used below if anyone if is looking to duplicate my build.

Nose Cone. Estes PSII 2.5" #072413
Lower Body tube. Estes 2.5" Dia. tube 15.5" long. # 031390
Upper Body Tube. Estes 2.5" Dia. tube 10.25" long #031390
Estes Coupler. 2.5". #030189
Side tubes. Centuri #18. 12.5" long.
Motor Tube. BMS 2mm motor tube. 12" long.
Centering rings are 1/16" thick Plywood.
Baffle plates are 1/16" thick Plywood.
Fins are 3/32" Plywood.
Motor retainer. Estes 29mm #009750

Several months back I cut all of the tubes and baffle plates and they have been sitting on the bench waiting for me to come back to the hobby. Below are the materials used minus the fins.

View attachment 519294

With the fins on this one I decided to do things a little differently. Due to their size I decided to fill and seal them on the bench before attaching. Here we see the fins after one coat of wood filler and two coats of Minwax sanding sealer. They still need a final wet sanding to make the sanding sealer dead flat but they are getting close.


View attachment 519297

With the fins drying I turned my attention to the motor mount. For this build I'm going with a 29mm mount. The motor/stuffer tube is 12" long. A motor block was placed 4.25" up inside inside the tube to allow this to fly on Estes E and F motors as well as the composites.

To begin the assembly the outer layer of the motor tube was removed where the centering rings attach. The centering rings have been sanded and fit specific to the top and bottom of the tube so they have been marked accordingly.

View attachment 519300

Centering rings were attached using TBII. Two fillets were applied. The first fillet was done with TBII for penetration. The second was done with Thick and Quick.

View attachment 519301

Since I had good access I went ahead and installed the Estes 29mm motor retainer using BSI 30 min. epoxy.

View attachment 519302

That is as far as I've got on this one. Hope to sneak down stairs between calls to get the baffle built between meetings today.

Thanks for following along.

Managed to get the fillets completed yesterday so it's time to attach the upper tube. Applied a generous coating of TBII to the inside of the tube and the outside of the coupler and slide them together.

View attachment 520207View attachment 520208

Wanted to ensure that I had a good fillet around the top of the upper plate of the baffle so I went a little heavy on the glue around the top of the tube. Worked out perfect Now it's just a matter of letting this dry.

View attachment 520210

Tomorrow will be launch lugs and the recovery gear. If I play my cards right I might be able to get this one out for a stability flight this weekend

before painting it.

I covet your workshop. Nice!

 

[Back_at_it]

Had a little time over the weekend to get back on the Pegasus. Got some additional sanding completed and shot on a couple coats of high build primer.

Needs a little more filler work and some finish sanding.

 

[Back_at_it]

Guys this one kind of got pushed to the side and honestly I have been so busy working on other stuff that I forgot about it. Since the last update I got all of the filling and sanding done along with one last coat of white primer before shooting on four coats of Krylon Gloss White. Even the insides of the tubes were sealed and painted.

Hoping to get to work on the vinyl on this one later this week.

 

[Tractionengines]

VERY COOL.

 

[Back_at_it]

Finally bringing this one to a close. I had every intention of cutting the vinyl for this one myself but I was working with Mark from stickershock to do some vinyl for an upcoming upscale build and decided to buy the vinyl from him. The quality of these cannot be beat. Everything is crisp and clear. Couldn't ask for anything more.

Here is the finished Pegasus upscale.




And some comparison shots with an original Estes Pegasus.

View attachment 534984

 

[Charles_McG]

It flies really well as a downscale for 13mm motors, too

 

[Back_at_it]

It flies really well as a downscale for 13mm motors, too

I will keep that in mind. Right now I'm focusing on going bigger. I just got my hands on a couple of more of the MDRM nose cones so a 4" version might be in the works this winter. Hopefully I'll have my level 1 by then so I can buy motors to fly something that heavy.

 

[techrat]

Very nice. The decals really make it work.

 

[Charles_McG]

I will keep that in mind. Right now I'm focusing on going bigger. I just got my hands on a couple of more of the MDRM nose cones so a 4" version might be in the works this winter. Hopefully I'll have my level 1 by then so I can buy motors to fly something that heavy.

Yep. Mine is 4” MDRM based, with 3” Leviathan side tubes.

 

[Back_at_it]

There are those times where no matter how much you try to do things right, the universe just takes things out of your control and says screw you. That's exactly what happened yesterday at a club launch. I recently purchased a few packs of F44-4 motors for this weekend. I used the first of two in my Der Big Red Max. Lift off was beautiful but the ejection happened almost immediately. Thankfully the rocket was unhurt and came down just fine. I didn't think too much of it as I've had early ejections before and it's typically not an issue.

The next flight was this upscale Pegasus. The liftoff was perfect, dead arrow straight, arched over nicely at apogee then headed for the ground from an altitude of about 600ft. Rocket came in ballistic and hit the hard packed dirt at a perfect 90 degrees. After pulling the motor I can see that the ejection never fired. The rubber plug was still in the ejection end of the motor.

The following pics are the results and the autopsy of what is left. Thankfully, the damaged stopped ahead of the rear tubes due to the baffle that was installed so it's rebuildable and I have the parts on hand.

I've already filed a MESS report on both incidents and reached out to AeroTech on this forum as I have two more packs with the same date code that I don't want to use. We'll see what they say. Date code is 120122

Here is an overall shot of the damage. Nose cone is junk, shattered in three pieces, forward body is crushed all the way to the baffle.



This is the underside of the rocket. It even tore the forward launch lug off the body.




Looking into the tube you can see where the nosecone was pushed back against the baffle. The upper baffle plate is split into two pieces and the second plate is broken but the glue held.



Digging a little further into the rocket, I cut off the damaged section. The tube was cut between the top ring of the motor mount and the bottom of the baffle. This rocket had three successful flights on it all with E30-4 motors before this flight. Interestingly the top ring of the motor mount is almost completely clean.




Looking at the bottom plate of the baffle I can see a couple of powder marks but I think it looks pretty good for a rocket with three successful launches.




Here is a close up of the baffle. Here you can see where the top plate was ripped and the second plate was broken. This was a violent impact.

 

[Huxter]

Sorry to hear about the bad ejection - it was a beautiful build! Hopefully it will fly again!

 

[Back_at_it]

Sorry to hear about the bad ejection - it was a beautiful build! Hopefully it will fly again!

Thank you. I just went through my parts pile and I have everything needed except the Vinyl to get it back to brand new. I've reached out to Mark at Sticker Shock to get a replacement set and I'm kicking around the idea of doing a different paint color this time. Maybe a greyish blue or light dove grey color.

What do you guys think, what have you seen out there ?

 

[Back_at_it]

Wasting no time getting this one back together. After all this is my favorite rocket design.

First step was getting everything cut to length. Items needed.

- Remainder of the original rocket. Thankfully no damage extended beyond the baffle so the entire rear section of the rocket is perfectly intact I was able to cut away the outtube about 1.5" in front of the motor mount.
- 29mm motor tube. Going to extend the motor mount / stuffer tube. I need a solid place to anchor my Kevlar and the upper ring is thin plywood with nothing behind it. Besides, less space to pressurize is always a good thing.
- 29mm motor block. In this case it's going to be used as a coupler to link the old and new motor tubes.
- 29mm x 2.5" centering ring.
- Scrap piece of ply that will be used as reinforcement for the screw eye attachment point.
- Screw eye.
- Estes 2.5" tube coupler.
- Estes 2.5" PSII body tube.
- Estes 2.5" PSII nose cone.



I'm starting the rebuild by creating the extension for the stuffer tube. First I sanded the inside of the tube and the outside of the coupler then glued in the coupler. The coupler was inserted halfway and left to completely dry.




With the motor tube drying I moved to the upper centering ring. I started by gluing the reinforcing plate to the underside of the upper plate. This was attached with TBII, clamped and allowed to dry.



Next it was time to attach the coupler to the main body. The inside of the tube was sanded lightly then the coupler was glued in using TBII.



At this point I have three assemblies drying. I'll pick this back up after everything is dry later today.

 

[Back_at_it]

With the stuff tube coupler dry, I attached the upper centering ring. The outside of the tube was sanded and the ring was attached using TBII then set aside to allow it to fully dry.

 

[Back_at_it]

The rebuild continues.

With the stuffer tube dry, I added a screw eye at the attachment point for my Kevlar.



Next was inserting the extension into the main body. Normally I'd use TBII for this but I need a glue that stays in place and doesn't run. The idea here is to create the bond and the fillet all in one step. I've applied Thick and Quick to the outside of the coupler as well as the underside of the centering ring. A small amount was spread around the inside of the existing motor tube as well.



The tube was inserted and centered up on the top of the coupler and left to dry.



After letting the suffer tube dry I added a length of 700# Kevlar to the screw eye (Not Shown) then slide he assembly into the new upper body tube.



Will get a new launch lug installed tonight then it's time to start peeling off vinyl and sanding for the new primer coats. Mechanically this will be ready to fly for this weekends club launch if the weather holds. It just won't be pretty.

 

[Hobie1dog]

Keep the pictures coming.

 

[Back_at_it]

Sorry for the delay on this build. I decided to change my mind half way through the repair and do something different.

After finishing up the filler work I got the repair primed and ready for paint.



Next I painted the entire rocket with two coats of Krylon Gloss white and was all set ready to install the vinyl when I started thinking that I might want to do something different. I already have a stock sized Pegasus in White and I'm planning a 3" upscale that might be in white so why not do something different with this one.

After testing a few colors I decided on Krylon Vintage Gloss Gray and began respraying. At this point I have the first coat on and letting that tack up for a few minutes. I'm going to paint the insides of the tubes a different color after the main color is completed. Due to the tight areas on this rocket, I'm going to need to do some brush work before spraying on the final coat. I just can't get good coverage with the spray can without chancing runs in the paint.

Paint work should be finished up this week.

 

[Hobie1dog]

good choice to paint it a different color

 

[Back_at_it]

Paint is complete and I need to correct a previous post. Earlier I said this was Dove Gray but it is actually Krylon Vintage Gloss Gray.

Did two more coats of Gray then let that cure over night. This morning I painted the insides of the tubes with Tamiya Gloss Red by hand. Going to let this all sit for a day and cure then apply vinyl. I just received my replacements from Mark over at Sticker Shock.

 

[Back_at_it]

FINALLY completed. I was beginning to feel like this one would never get completed. Received replacement vinyl from Mark at Sticker Shock a couple of days ago and had a chance to apply the vinyl this morning. I'm really happy with the end result. I actually like this more than the original white paint.



Only thing left is to install a new shock cord and this one will be ready to fly at tomorrows launch.