One real tragedy due to a rare weak Estes Ejection Charge
It’s a little premature to call it “death”. If I can get the decal sheet, the rest of it isn’t impossible, or even all that hard to fix. I was dismayed to see that the damage on the main body tube goes further aft than I first thought, so to repair it I’ll need to cut it off just aft of the little canard fins and splice a new section of BT-55 in from there (and of course re-do the little fins).
The split in the glider’s tube at the nose can just be CA’d back together, though the tear will remain visible there.
I am in touch with Estes about this but the fellow who responded to my note seems a little stymied by the lack of a standard production code on this made-for-European-distribution C11-3. We shall see where it goes.
Now back to discussing all those very interesting recovery vehicles I saw fly yesterday.