Holverson (Fun) Zoomie

One of the names I first encountered upon becoming a BAR is Holverson Design. By that time, though, the line was OOP. A bit later I found a Holverson Design Zoomie and bought it. When I got it, I learned that it was by Fun Rockets and a cheap knockoff of the Holverson original. At that time, I also did not know that gliders DO NOT LIKE ME.

I flew it a couple of times with less that stellar results. The biggest difference between this glider and other ones I built early on is that it still survives. Probably, this is because at some point it blew the nose cone out and I figured I would get around to fixing it eventually. Today is eventually.

If I remember right, the original was a balsa hemisphere. I had nonesuch so I opened a bag of Estes BT5 cones and selected the closest plastic match to my memory. I glue the base on and will paint it before gluing it into the BT.

Should I drill a vent hole to relieve some of the pressure from the ejection gasses?

I've never had a good flight out of mine. It is a cheap knockoff. I tried to fix mine but still the flights were not that great.

Buy a simple Edmonds glider and really enjoy the pleasures of small rocket gliders.

lessgravity said:

I've never had a good flight out of mine. It is a cheap knockoff. I tried to fix mine but still the flights were not that great.

Buy a simple Edmonds glider and really enjoy the pleasures of small rocket gliders.

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I've got and Edmonds Tinee put together. So far, it has performed better than any of my other glider attempts. Bear in mind though that for me, better covers an awful lot of space.

In dec, my club is having an informal A impulse rocket glide competition and I'm going to use the Tinee. This Zoomie just happened to be sitting in a box of needed repairs. I figured I can't go too wrong for the price of a nosecone. Besides, Stu's rockets always chase me around and I'd like to return the favor.

It looks as if Starlight's Sparrow was based off of the Zoomie. However, I pleasing results with mine until I lost it on a B.:lol:

I got a cheapo knockoff of the TANGENT. I got one off ebay that was the way a rocket is supposed to be, balsa NC and fins, and loved it! When I placed my bid and won for only .99 on another tangent, I was stoked!! Till I actually got it, and it had STYROFOAM nosecone, motormount, and fins. It sucks. At least I got a BT-60 for .99 + $5 shipping. BOO FUN DESIGNS!!!!

Mr. Sinister said:

I got a cheapo knockoff of the TANGENT. I got one off ebay that was the way a rocket is supposed to be, balsa NC and fins, and loved it! When I placed my bid and won for only .99 on another tangent, I was stoked!! Till I actually got it, and it had STYROFOAM nosecone, motormount, and fins. It sucks. At least I got a BT-60 for .99 + $5 shipping. BOO FUN DESIGNS!!!!

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I later picked up some of the REAL Holverson stuff. The Tangent is one of them.

I have a whatchamacallit on Ebay that sends me an email whenever it comes across the keywords "Holverson, Design, Rocket". Unfortunately, with their new Paypal only policy, I will not be getting anthing more from Ebay.

SHE WHO MUST BE OBEYED, on the other hand, is thrilled.

I got a short opportunity to go back to the shop this evening and the plastic cement on the base of the NC was dry so I painted it red.

i bought a job lot (300) of Fun rockets from Doug holverson - the foam verson of holverson designs. (doug Holverson sold the designs to a chinese company and they foamed them all)
the foam was a bad idea, the zoomie was not too bad, but the swinger was by far the worst rocket ever made - look at the reviews on EMRR, and them look at what i did to a swinger in the first EMRR rocket video competition.

i love edmond's tinee

Gillard said:

i bought a job lot (300) of Fun rockets from Doug holverson - the foam verson of holverson designs. (doug Holverson sold the designs to a chinese company and they foamed them all)
the foam was a bad idea, the zoomie was not too bad, but the swinger was by far the worst rocket ever made - look at the reviews on EMRR, and them look at what i did to a swinger in the first EMRR rocket video competition.

i love edmond's tinee

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I have only flown my Tinee once. It really glided, which was a first for me, but never got very high. I arced over at launch and then kind of swooped around the field at about 20 feet. The Zoomie, well, I have blocked those painful memories...except that it was the best I had managed before the Tinee.

Yeah you need to pay attention to wind direction, rod angle and glider orientation with the Tinee to get s boost that is not a loop. Been a while since I have flown one. Now I tend to fly rocket gliders that can be controlled during boost.

My first Holverson kit was the Silverhawk glider. That was a really nice piece of work. If you can find one of those balsa versions, snap it up.

kj

zog43editor said:

Yeah you need to pay attention to wind direction, rod angle and glider orientation with the Tinee to get s boost that is not a loop. Been a while since I have flown one. Now I tend to fly rocket gliders that can be controlled during boost.

My first Holverson kit was the Silverhawk glider. That was a really nice piece of work. If you can find one of those balsa versions, snap it up.

kj

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I actually have one of those sitting in the package and it is a real Holverson.

Sigh...Just another in a long list of things that MUST BE DONE

All that was left to do now that the paint was dry was to cement the NC into place. I used plastic cement but had to do some sanding to get the shoulder to fit.

zog43editor said:

Yeah you need to pay attention to wind direction, rod angle and glider orientation with the Tinee to get s boost that is not a loop. Been a while since I have flown one. Now I tend to fly rocket gliders that can be controlled during boost.

My first Holverson kit was the Silverhawk glider. That was a really nice piece of work. If you can find one of those balsa versions, snap it up.

kj

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Keep an eay on the Starlight website early summer for info on Holverson reissues in BALSA (Silverhawk and Zoomie are to be first).
Mr. Bob
Starlight thing
www.starlightrocketry.com

I was going through my parts box recently and realized I might just have what is needed to build a zoomie. Amazed to find this thread!

I dl'd the plans and went over them, but I have two questions:

1) for the original version, what thickness of balsa was used for the wings?
2) what was the length of the body tube?

grateful for any help

roktdad2 said:

I was going through my parts box recently and realized I might just have what is needed to build a zoomie. Amazed to find this thread!

I dl'd the plans and went over them, but I have two questions:

1) for the original version, what thickness of balsa was used for the wings?
2) what was the length of the body tube?

grateful for any help

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Sorry but all I have is the foam version. I'd be interested to see what the "REAL" one is like.

Today was the day to give my rehabilitated Zoomie a try. I loaded it with a 1/2A3-2 and gave it a shot. It went more or less "up". that was a good thing. It then pretended to want to fly but did so at a glide ratio approximating the fall in the DOW. Tim Reidy opined that it neaded more tail weight. Being a contrary type person, I removed the noseweight instead to see what would happen.

It was launched again on the same power. There was probably a difference but I could not tell what it was. It even landed in the same clump of grass as before.

Flight one can be seen here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/23694991@N03/3050753733/

Flight 2 can be seen here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/23694991@N03/3050755855/

Any flight where the rocket is retrieved in one piece (or as many as you're supposed to have) is a good one.

Peartree said:

Any flight where the rocket is retrieved in one piece (or as many as you're supposed to have) is a good one.

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You are most probably right. I'm going to put a box scraper on the back of the tractor to improve my success rate.

Seriously, this was just an informal get together. We had fun and that's what counts. The sarcastic comments just added to the flavor.